Discusses development and implementation of an approach to decoding in which students use words they know to decode those they do not know. Discusses how an analogy approach was implemented in a tutorial setting. Offers guidelines for how the approach can be used in regular classrooms, including whole language classrooms. (RS)

Discusses three children who successfully learned phonics in three very different instructional settings (conventional, whole language, and tutoring in a learning center). Notes that the children developed in similar ways, yet at different rates; the teachers nudged the learners toward literacy development; and writing was a part of the curriculum…

Because of the universal, phonological nature of writing systems, functional proficiency in decoding is essential if a child is to become literate. This is the heart of the problem for many dyslexics and many other disabled readers. The whole-language approach that eschews decoding is inappropriate in light of this fact. (MSE)

This article describes PHAST (for Phonological and Strategy Training), a research-based remedial reading program that focuses on the primary obstacles to word identification learning and independent decoding that most students with reading disabilities face and the steps necessary to help these children achieve independent reading skills.…

Examines the research on the central role of decoding in reading, concluding that the position that whole language proponents take in equating learning to read with learning to talk and their reduction of decoding to an incidental place in the curriculum are wrong. The authors argue for a balanced approach to reading instruction. (GR)