In fall of 2019, the EdWeek Research Center set out to gain a clearer sense of nationwide teacher and teacher education perceptions and practices by sending out two surveys about topics related to early reading instruction, especially as it related to phonics. One survey was taken by 674 K-2 and elementary special education teachers who indicated…

Reviews the conception of early literacy acquisition as a social-cognitive activity, sketches the evolution of phonemic awareness, and discusses how psychological research might contribute to understanding and applying this construct. The paper suggests the importance of synergy between previously warring factions and highlights the need for…

Outlines two theoretical positions regarding the developmental origins of the phoneme as a unit for lexical representation and processing--the accessibility and emergent positions. Employs a Lexical Restructuring Model, which focuses on the role of vocabulary growth. Notes that this restructuring is viewed as an important precursor to the explicit…

Presents activities for teaching two basic phonemic awareness tasks to young children who are learning to read. Oral blending exercises help children hear how sounds are put together to make words so they can begin sounding out words independently as they read. Oral segmentation activities help children separate words into sounds so they can build…