A child's ability to read is at the very foundation of his or her learning in school and plays a significant role in scholastic success. Although no one literacy model can ever represent the range of diverse learners in our schools, Cunningham, Hall, and Defee's literacy model known as Four-Block attempts to meet the needs of as many learners as…

Author calls for well-controlled, longitudinal studies of several issues needing further investigation in beginning reading. (MB)

Reviews investigation of word recognition and identification ability of learning disabled and average students. Disabled students' abilities did not differ from those of average students with matched reading level and IQ, but they made substantially more errors than average students matched by chronological age and IQ. (HTH)

Reports on an investigation of the effects of teaching first grade children two sets of six words by phonics and sight word methods in three instructional conditions with either a selection or production response. (MKM)

Article suggests certain tasks must be performed before a pupil can learn to read. What these tasks are depends upon whether teaching method is analytic--introducing words as whole units to be broken down--or synthetic--introducing individual written signs as sounds, to be built up into meaningful units. (RW)

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…

Discusses three children who successfully learned phonics in three very different instructional settings (conventional, whole language, and tutoring in a learning center). Notes that the children developed in similar ways, yet at different rates; the teachers nudged the learners toward literacy development; and writing was a part of the curriculum…

Presents a modified replication of Austin and Morrison's classic 1963 study of the status of U.S. public school elementary reading instruction. Discusses how school and classroom libraries in the 1990s are more prevalent and better equipped, and how changes in programs and philosophy are common in the late 1990s, unlike in the 1960s. Appends the…

The important role of phonological awareness in learning to read has become widely accepted. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of phonological processing skills when attempting to assist older low-progress readers to develop literacy skills. While researchers generally agree that the key variables in reading acquisition (letter…

Proper application of the alphabetic principle rests on an awareness of the internal phonological (and morphophonological) structure of words that the alphabet represents. Unfortunately for the would-be reader-writer, such awareness is not an automatic consequence of speaking a language, because the biological specialization for speech manages the…

A study examined the position of phonics instruction or direct skill instruction within the context of a whole language, meaning-based approach to reading instruction. A total of 22 first-grade students participated--12 students received instruction in phonics while 10 followed a meaning based curriculum. All were administered a phonics test and a…

To help reduce the guess work that underpins many phonics programs, a study comprehensively examined the phonic elements of 17,211 words drawn from the 17,310 word list originally compiled by Thorndike and Lorge and later updated by members of the Stanford Spelling Project. Each word in the list was assigned its corresponding respelling that was…

Reviews some of the studies, both empirical and theoretical, that seem to illuminate the changes affecting the teaching of reading and writing in this decade. (Author/IRT)

A year-long study examined how phonics or whole word instruction affected first graders' progress in reading and spelling words. Subjects, 80 Houston, Texas students of average reading and intellectual abilities from three classrooms receiving phonics instruction and three classrooms receiving whole word instruction, were administered a phonemic…