Suggests that children should be taught to blend isolated sounds into words as an aid to reading. (MKM)

Reviews the literature concerning oral reading fluency and offers six hypotheses about how beginning readers develop oral fluency and about strategies to help those who do not. (FL)

Compares two major methods for teaching phonics. (RB)

Describes a program designed to help parents aid their children in the development of reading readiness skills. (MKM)

Proposes a Gestalt version of the word family approach to phonics instruction as a way of reducing the number of phonetic units a child must learn to gain total phonetic control of the English language. (TO)

Presents a classic study originally published in this journal in 1963, which analyzed 45 phonic generalizations found in teacher's manuals. Finds that only 18 of the 45 generalizations are useful in having a reasonable degree of application (valid 75% of the time) to words commonly met in primary grade material. (SR)

Argues that reading research studies should be more widely disseminated so that teachers may apply the latest information in teaching reading. (RB)

Discusses the results of research on the effect of readiness training for preschool youngsters. (RB)

Surveys how children develop their powers of word identification, and questions common assumptions about the utility of sight words. (TO)

Presents the 38 most common phonograms (rhymes or word families) in rank order based on frequency. Notes that these 38 phonograms with added beginning consonants can make 654 different one-syllable words, and that teaching phonograms can be a definite help in teaching students to decode and thus to read and write better. (SR)

Reports on a study comparing the nouns in the Dolch word list with four recently published word lists to determine which nouns are most frequently used. (RB)

Examines the terms "phonemic segmentation" and "phonemic awareness," noting that these areas go beyond older notions of readiness and auditory discrimination. Claims that research in phonemic awareness has important instructional implications. (MM)

Argues that reading research often traces the "first cause" of reading back to the "taxonomic linguistic system," a system discussed in last month's column. Asserts that although many possible first causes exist, the more important issue concerns how to apply these multiple causes in developing an approach to reading…

Concludes that steps in instruction that seem logical to adults may not make sense to six-year-olds in beginning reading instruction. (RB)