This publication contains papers contributed to the fifth Perspectives of Reading conference of the International Reading Association which focused on the teaching of beginning reading. The following approaches are described and evaluated: (1) individualized reading, (2) basal reading, (3) linguistic approach, (4) phonics approach, (5) new…

Conditional letter sound correspondences (LSC) in which the pronunciation of a letter is determined by its graphemic environment were studied. Conditional LSC patterns selected for investigation were the c, g, and vowel-in-final-e patterns. The study had two aims: (1) to gather normative data for LSC generalizations and (2) to examine, for each…

Activities used with intermediate-grade students who have reading difficulties are presented, and suggestions for building interest and motivation are listed. Included are (1) motor development exercises such as practice in coloring, drawing, and tracing; (2) activities such as various listening games which are designed to improve auditory…

Part 1 describes a followup study of the effects of three types of beginning reading programs on reading achievement of second graders predicted by pretests as likely to have difficulty learning to read. Forty first-grade classrooms participated, 10 classes for each treatment. All treatment A classes received instruction using the basal program.…

A committee of Oklahoma educators prepared this reading activity guide as an aid for elementary school teachers to improve their students' reading skills. Described for each activity are the objective, necessary materials, and the procedure. For many activities, a variation or variations also are suggested. The activities are arranged in the…

The purpose of this study was to compare the ability to pronounce synthetic words of children who learned to read by methods emphasizing early, intensive phonics instruction with the ability of children who learned to read by methods utilizing delayed and less intensive phonics instruction. The sample was selected from among second, third, and…

This manual, designed to follow "English Alphabet Book 1," presents an English phonetic reading program for children beginning to learn how to read. It contains an alphabet chart with pictures which symbolize words using the sounds of the respective letters. Other pages are devoted completely to the sounds of the vowels, reinforced with common…

Presents the opposing viewpoints on grammar study, phonics and whole language instruction, and the role of information in English language arts. (SRT)

The situation with regards to reading performance in Washington State is similar to that in many other states. Although student performance in reading has improved somewhat over the past four years, too many students continue to fall below state standards. In response to poor test scores and to the outpouring of research on early reading…

These foundation units are aimed at pupils working within Level 2 entry to Year 7. They are designed to remind pupils what they know and take them forward. The units also will teach phonics knowledge from consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words to long vowel phonemes. The writing units focus on developing the following skills: understanding what a…

This collection of articles from "The Reading Teacher" provides examples of the instructional practices which improve reading achievement, according to Reading First legislation. Each section offers a summary and discussion of the National Reading Panel Report findings, and presents several articles from "The Reading Teacher"…

This book provides directions and sample activities to help parents teach their children to follow an easy system for study reading: set clear purposes for study; ask targeted questions; read quickly for specific information; summarize effectively; and gather information from charts and tables. The first section, Flexibility and Reading Speed,…

This paper reviews the research on use of American Sign Language in elementary classes that do not include children with hearing impairment and also reports on the use of the manual sign language alphabet in a primary class learning the phonetic sounds of the alphabet. The research reported is overwhelmingly positive in support of using sign…

There are compelling reasons for integrating phonics into the adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) curriculum. The adult ESL student has the analytical capability to understand phoneme-grapheme relationships and can be taught to use any transferable native-language literacy skills in English spelling. In this essay, the potential of phonics…

Research indicates a strong relationship between early phoneme awareness and later reading success and the benefits of explicitly teaching phoneme awareness skills. This article presents a set of developmental phoneme awareness training activities that the special educator can integrate collaboratively into existing kindergarten and first-grade…