This digest summarizes what is known about teaching the processes of phonological awareness and word recognition. It finds unequivocal research evidence that students who enter first grade with phonological awareness skills are more successful readers and urges explicit instruction in these skills. Examples of phonological awareness activities and…

A child's success in learning to read in the first grade appears to be the best predictor of his or her ultimate success in schooling as well as all of the events and outcomes that correlate with that. Yet, across the research literature reviewed for a recent book, "Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print," children's…