Despite recent efforts at compensatory education, thousands of children still go through first grade each year without learning to read. More often than not, these are children of the poor. The underlying assumption of this study is that the major attempt at educational compensation for disadvantaged children have failed because of fundamental…

This study examined the effects of two programs which differed in the methods they employed to develop reading readiness. The two methods represented were a language experience approach and a phonics approach. The subjects were children from kindergarten classes in two elementary schools in Flint, Michigan. All subjects were randomly assigned…

Data from four of the Cooperative First Grade Studies (1964-1965) were reanalyzed for four first grade projects, (Fry, Hayes, Mazurkiewicz, and Tanyzer). These projects were selected because they compared the Initial Teaching Alphabet approach with traditional orthography-basal reader approaches. The focal point of this reanalysis was to study the…

A new kind of reading-language processing system, which has been in use at the Patterson Road School (Orcutt, California) since December 1972, is described in this document. The program consists of two ungraded reading chains of twelve groups each (determined by reading comprehension) which meet for 45 minutes daily, read material above the…

A 3-year study concerning teaching a phonics-oriented kindergarten readiness program of letter recognition and beginning consonant sounds was discussed. Sixty-eight children attending kindergarten in a suburban middle and upper-middle class community composed the sample. The experimental group consisted of 33 children; the control group consisted…

This study contrasted the psycholinguistic abilities of good and poor readers from disadvantaged backgrounds after completion of the first grade, using the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. It was predicted that disadvantaged children classified as poor readers would be significantly inferior to those identified as good readers on…

The Cooperative Reading Project's purpose was to examine the relative effectiveness of three approaches to the teaching of beginning reading and the effectiveness of oral stimulation. This monograph reports the results of the last year of the project. The experimental reading treatments were: (1) the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), (2) the Words…

Three auditory perceptual processes (resistance to distortion, selective listening in the form of auditory dedifferentiation, and binaural synthesis) were evaluated by five assessment techniques: (1) low pass filtered speech, (2) accelerated speech, (3) competing messages, (4) accelerated plus competing messages, and (5) binaural synthesis.…

This occasional publication presents three articles: "The identification of children needing compensatory education," which reviews critically some of the major research findings on approaches used in identifying the disadvantaged, and suggests that the designation of educational priority areas perhaps may not necessarily be the best…

This book provides specific, practical suggestions for the classroom teacher, covering the whole of the elementary school reading program. Chapters include "Teaching Reading,""Instructional Materials,""Organizing for Instruction,""Oral and Silent Reading,""Readiness for Reading,""Preschool Reading,""Reading in the Kindergarten,""Whole Word…

Ten auditory and ten visual aptitude measures were administered in the middle of first grade to a sample of 58 low readers. More than half of this low reader sample had scored more than a year below expected grade level on two or more aptitudes. Word recognition measures were administered after four months of sight word instruction and again after…

This student workbook is designed to be used with accompanying video tapes for reading instruction with beginning and/or remedial readers of various ages. The series of exercises includes instructional units on word attack skills, sound categories (stops, nasals, laterals, vowels, etc.), and pronunciation rules. Also included are several readings…

Suggestions for various activities, games, and materials for teaching phonics are presented in this handbook for teachers and teachers in training. The chapters and materials covered include: (1) "Why Phonics," which presents the rationale for teaching phonics; (2) "A Suggested Order for Teaching Phonics," which discusses the order of difficulty…

The importance of word analysis skills to reading ability is discussed, and methodologies for teaching such skills are examined. It is stated that a child cannot become proficient in reading if he does not master the skill of associating printed letter symbols with the sounds they represent. Instructional procedures which augment the alphabet with…

The effectiveness of prephonic training between kindergarten and first grade levels as a tool for acquiring reading skills was explored throughout the public school system in the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. A sample population of 260 kindergartners was identified as having potential learning difficulties by the results shown on the…