Two recent articles from authors in Britain have attempted to show that the evidence in favour of systematic phonics in initial literacy instruction is weak; here, their arguments are disputed. Bowers ('Reconsidering the evidence that systematic phonics is more effective than alternative methods of reading instruction', "Educational…

The Ontario Human Rights Commission's (OHCR) "Right to Read Report" calls for school districts to implement early literacy interventions that have been scientifically proven to be effective for young children with reading difficulties. The acknowledgment of early intervention as an essential service for young children experiencing…

Background: The teaching of reading or reading instruction has largely been carried out in terms of well-developed pedagogies in the field. These pedagogical approaches are, however, derived from research and development in a broad international context, and are often adopted by and implemented in various country settings. Given the contextual…

Across a carefully detailed argument, the shortcomings, inconsistencies and contradictions of the government's recent "Reading Framework" are made clear in the light of a substantial body of academic research on the nature of reading and the development of literacy. The dogmatic approach taken towards these issues by government and by…

Stagnant standardized test scores keep literacy achievement at the forefront of national education discussions. Increased conversations about the science of reading have propelled investigations into different types of phonics instruction. However, questions still linger such as "Which strategies are most effective for which students?",…

Application of psycholinguistic insights initiated a long career researching how children learn to read words. A theory was proposed claiming that spellings of individual words are stored in memory when their graphemes become bonded to phonemes in their pronunciations along with meanings, and this enables readers to read stored words automatically…

Ten years after publication of two reviews of the evidence on phonics, a number of British policy initiatives have firmly embedded phonics in the curriculum for early reading development. However, uncertainty about the most effective approaches to teaching reading remains. A definitive trial comparing different approaches was recommended in 2006,…

The teaching of reading has been a source of contentious debate for many years. Margaret Meek Spencer contributed her passion for the importance of specific texts to help children learn to read. In addition to the kinds of texts to be used, important aspects of the debate include the relationship between national curriculum policies and robust…

This article discusses whole language and phonics approaches to teaching L1 reading. It argues to bring these two perspectives together under an integrated approach to better teach second language reading. The article offers an integrated lesson plan with adaptable activities and techniques that show how to apply the integrated approach.

This article explores why policy makers in England and Scotland responded so differently to the Clackmannanshire study on synthetic phonics. It suggests that a deeper understanding of the national and local policy contexts can explain Scotland's response. Analysis of the wider context of the Clackmannanshire initiative supports Moss and Huxford's…

Investigates whether Brazilian Portuguese-speaking prereaders who have mastered letter names are capable of processing letter-sound relations to learn to read words in which the letters correspond to phonemes contained in the names of the letters. Suggests they can use their knowledge of the names of the letters to learn to read by processing and…

Examines early difficulties with phonological coding/phonemic segmentation of German children diagnosed dyslexic after four years in school. States that phonics was used since German exhibits straightforward phoneme-grapheme correspondence; however, most students had difficulty with accurate reading of nonwords and unfamiliar words after seven…

Conducted in three phases, a study examined the teaching of reading in the early stages of primary school. The study was done by a research team from the University of St. Andrews School of Psychology, Scotland. Phase one explored methods of teaching reading and spelling in a sample of 12 schools within one Education Authority. Phase two examined…

Reports on a study that indicated the effectiveness of Scottish methods of teaching beginning reading to boys from working class homes. Describes the teaching methods used and concludes that Scottish success may be partially accounted for by early phonics teaching and by daily involvement of parents in children's reading. (GT)

A study examined the importance of two phonological encoding procedures (addressed phonology and assembled phonology) in children who are learning to read and how the relative importance of these two procedures might change over the age range from six to eight. Subjects, 72 fifth, fourth, and third grade students from two inner London (England)…