The author reviews theory and research by Ehri and her colleagues to document how a scientific approach has been applied over the years to conduct controlled studies whose findings reveal how beginners learn to read words in and out of text. Words may be read by decoding letters into blended sounds or by predicting words from context, but the way…

A hallmark of skilled reading is recognizing written words automatically from memory by sight. How beginning readers attain this skill is explained. They must acquire foundational knowledge, including phonemic segmentation, grapheme-phoneme knowledge, decoding, and spelling skills. When these skills are applied, spellings of words become bonded to…

The study was conducted to describe how third graders, teachers, and interventionists perceive the influence of a phonics treatment program on the reading achievement of third-grade students in a school in the Western United States. The study was guided by the research questions on the perceptions of students, teachers, and interventionists on the…

This engaging text clearly presents essential concepts that teachers need to guide their students toward clearly intelligible pronunciation and more effective communication skills. Based on a sound theoretical background, the book presents practical, imaginative ways to teach and practice pronunciation that go beyond simple "Repeat after…

The ability to flexibly approach the pronunciation of unknown words, or set "for variability", has been shown to contribute to word recognition skills. However, this is the first study that has attempted to teach students strategies for increasing their set for variability. Beginning readers (N = 15) were instructed to correct oral…

As part of the development of the phonics-based reading component of the SWRL Model 2 Communication Skills Program for kindergarten through third grade, this set of 166 spelling-to-sound correspondence rules for one- and two-syllable words was created. Designed to accompany a lexicon for beginning reading instruction, this booklet includes an…

Despite the traditional problems posed by word pronunciation and etymology, a system of spelling instruction which takes into account some of the following suggestions should prove helpful to teachers at both the elementary and secondary school levels: (1) make children word-conscious--anything which makes the pupil look at and think about a word…

A well-organized set of phonics rules will enable the reader to identify many words which are in his vocabulary, but which he has not encountered before in print. The rules must be sequenced in a manner that capitalizes on their applicability to the vocabulary of the typical reader. This can be achieved only when the rule set is defined on a…