Concludes that when children learned confusable words, their subsequent learning of words was at a faster rate than those children who learned nonconfusable words first, and that high imagery words were learned more quickly than low imagery ones. (FL)

Notes that teaching techniques used to "build" vocabulary are not based on the ways most people acquire vocabulary. Discusses the problems and possibilities of expanding students' language usage. (RL)

Suggests that the origins of words, which have faded over time through technological advancement, should be studied with an interdisciplinary approach. Samples of words are listed with their former and present meanings. (SA)

This article applies research findings to the teaching of phonics, and outlines four instructional steps: (1) introduce letter-sound correspondence in isolation, (2) teach students to blend sounds to read words, (3) provide immediate feedback on oral reading errors, and (4) provide extensive practice. (JDD)

Argues the importance of contextually relevant word study across the curriculum of upper levels of schooling. Outlines and describes seven general principles for making word study strategies a natural part of ongoing studies in the subject areas, and describes their application in class. (SR)

A team of first-grade teachers began to question their literacy/phonics program, which used a whole-class format for instruction. The teachers felt that teaching the whole class did not allow them to meet the diverse needs of all their students. One of the teachers introduced the rest of the team to developmental-spelling research (i.e., research…

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a series of fluency-based measures designed to assess early literacy skills. These fluency-based measures function as predictors of future reading performance and target critical component skills required to learn to read. This study was conducted to establish the convergent…

This study explored the nature of dictionary instruction in several basal reading series. Three basal reading series from major academic publishers (Scott Foresman, Ginn, and Holt) with 1989 copyrights, were selected for detailed analysis. Results indicated that even where the professed aim of the basal reading series was to incorporate dictionary…

This phonics outline is designed as a guide for parents, as a manual for teachers, and as a handbook for those who wish to improve their reading pronunciation skills. The purposes of the handbook are: (1) to show parents what a person needs to know to become a good reader; (2) to provide a convenient source of words that follow rules of phonics;…

Intended for language learning disabled college students and their tutors, the booklet examines the use of words as aids in understanding an author's meaning. Suggestions are offered to help students adopt a more comfortable and effective reading style. The first section examines ways to decipher authors' context cues for information. Eight…

Discusses the role of linguistics in the study of phrase structure or expressive communication. Various linguistic approaches, including transformational grammar, structural linguistics, and the sociolinguistic approach, are discussed in connection with communication instruction. (Text is in French.) (AM)