Jacob, Bart, and Carl are children with intellectual disabilities (ID; i.e., mental retardation) who experience significant difficulty in learning to read. In the past, most research about reading methods for students with ID focused on teaching students to memorize sight words, a method that is clearly effective. Memorization of sight words is…

A fiercely contested debate in teaching reading concerns the respective roles and merits of reading schemes and real books. Underpinning the controversy are different philosophies and beliefs about how children learn to read. However, to some extent debates have largely been rhetoric-driven, rather than research-driven. This article provides a…

The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of reading racetrack and flashcards when teaching phonics, sight words, and addition facts. The participants for the sight word and phonics portion of this study were two seven-year-old boys in the second grade. Both participants were diagnosed with a learning disability. The third participant…

This paper presents a concise model of literacy assessment based on the "simple view of reading" and the "simple view of writing". The approach targets directly the key skills and knowledge involved in reading, writing and spelling. It stands in contrast to the less precise and potentially more subjective "always-in-context" and "always-authentic"…

Several decades of research have established the critical role of phonemic awareness in the development of beginning reading. In particular, phonemic awareness makes early phonics instruction useful for children and facilitates their ability to blend letter sounds while decoding words, to learn sight words reliably, and to spell phonetically. A…

Practitioners are increasingly expected to provide reading instruction to students with cognitive disabilities to help them become literate. Whereas a phonics-based approach to reading instruction is regarded as a "best practice" for most young children, its effectiveness for children with cognitive disabilities is unclear. The purpose of this…

Sight word learning and memory were studied to clarify how early during development readers process visual letter patterns that are not dictated by phonology, and whether their word learning is influenced by the legality of letter patterns. Forty kindergartners and first graders were taught to read 12 words containing either single consonants…

Three hundred children from two metropolitan areas were studied for 1 year to determine (1) the relationship between letter-name knowledge and reading success, (2) the relationship between letter-name learning and phonic learning, and (3) the ease and efficiency of vowel identification. The study concluded that the sooner a child learns the letter…

States that in the 1970s, sight words existed in a "topsy-turvy world" in which the variety of definitions was confusing. Suggests that readers recognize sight words as single, holistic units without segmenting and attending to letters one at a time, and without sounding out and blending letters sequentially. Explains the connection…

CLASSROOM PROCEDURES FOR DEVELOPING WORD STUDY SKILLS IN BOTH GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL SITUATIONS ARE PRESENTED. PROCEDURES FOR PRIMARY GRADES ARE CLASSIFIED UNDER THREE MAJOR LEVELS--THE WHOLE WORD, THE SEMI-ANALYTICAL, AND THE INTENSIVE ANALYSIS APPROACH. TEN PROCEDURES ARE PRESENTED, AND GAMES AND ACTIVITIES FOR ACCOMPLISHING WORD STUDY SKILLS ARE…

Forty-nine reading games were designed by reading aides in the ESEA Title I Primary Reading Aide Program in Omaha, Nebraska for practice and mastery of specific reading skills at the primary level. Games are listed under these skill areas: alphabet, consonants, digraphs, rhyming words, sight words, and vowels. An illustration is provided for each…

Over three quarters of the Dolch basic words may be taught by a word family approach. (MKM)

The strategies used by children in word recognition are examined. A critical review of some of the classical research which has influenced current thinking about how words are recognized is presented along with a discussion of some of the errors which can be found in these studies. A five-stage model of how beginning readers learn to recognize…

Gives specific ideas for encouraging students to be flexible in their approach to decoding words. (MKM)