Teaching students the most frequent sounds of the alphabet letters is the first crucial step in good phonics instruction. But beginning letter and sound lessons, especially if poorly taught or too rapidly paced, can be overwhelming and confusing for some young children and struggling readers. How can we simplify the cognitive task for such…

A study investigated the top-down and bottom-up reading skill patterns of 34 kindergarten children who, as precocious readers, were reading at or above the third grade level. The children were administered the reading comprehension subtest of a standardized achievement test, five subtests on an intelligence measure, and a battery of reading skills…

Observation has suggested that different subgroups of precocious readers might be distinguished by different patterns of strengths and weaknesses. In particular, it seems that one group of children might be distinguished by the strength of their top-down, conceptually driven processes and another by their strong bottom-up, text driven processes.…

This bulletin is based upon a conference on beginning reading instruction which brought together professional leaders in the field of reading and related disciplines. Their purpose was to report on research and to review a variety of practices on primary reading. Keynoting the conference, one of America's foremost reading authorities gives a…