There are 26 letters in the English language. These letters, in various combinations, represent the 44 sounds in the language. Teaching students the basic letter-sound combinations gives them access to sounding out approximately 84% of the words in English print. There needs to be equal amounts of time need to be spent on teaching the meanings of…

During the first year of the program, 27 individual projects enrolling approximately 20,000 first-grade pupils were involved. Fifteen of these projects participated in a second-grade followup study. Some conclusions based on an analysis of data are (1) that prereading knowledge of letter names is the best single predictor of reading achievement in…

This nontechnical guide for parents and teachers examines learning to read from infants' babbling to the fluent reading of children reading independently for pleasure. Chapter 1, "Baby Speaks," describes language development in infancy. Chapter 2, "Our Alphabet: Language by Ear and by Eye," presents the alphabetic system and…