This study examines the specific recommendations of prominent educators and student readers of the nineteenth century regarding word recognition instruction and the varied activities which support such instruction. In the nineteenth century books, the authors examine all explicit instructions to the teachers in both front and end matter and then…

In a test-driven educational environment, teachers see a great need for more engaging resources that produce the literacy results needed for students to thrive academically. In 2015, The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that only 36% of fourth graders scored at or above the Proficient level of reading. This statistic was…

Beginning readers and struggling readers need explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics (Adams, 2008; Ehri,1992, 1998; Ehri, Nunes, Willows, Schuster, & Yaghoub-Zadeh, 2001; Gaskins et al., 1997; Moats, 2004; Morris, 2015; National Reading Panel, 2000; Reutzel, 2015). Ehri and McCormick's (2008) phases of word learning…

The present study used two letter detection tasks, the classic missing letter effect paradigm and a single word versus familiar word compound version of this paradigm, to study bottom-up and top-down processes involved in reading in normally achieving as compared to low achieving elementary school readers. The research participants were children…

The research reported here was designed to examine a number of factors that findings from verbal learning studies indicate should affect the recall and transfer of word identification materials. Sight word and phonics-based or rule-based learning were investigated in 112 kindergarteners who were identified as nonreaders. Groups were trained on…

This paper reviews research on children's use of contextual cues in reading, and reports on a study which explored the contextual sensitivity and word recognition behavior of 108 beginning readers from grades 1, 2, and 3. (CM)

Short, sight-word vocabulary lists derived from the spontaneous speech of four different groups of children are compared with the vocabulary in six beginning reading series. Very high levels of agreement were found for function, but not for content, words. (JMF)

Shows two major handicaps in the anti-phonics movement which suggest that the future of the movement is doubtful: (1) the demonstrable weakness in both the theory and method of anti-phonics; (2) the increasing confidence that publishes and editors of widely used basal readers are placing in phonics. (BF/JH)

There are basically two different models for the word recognition process. One model postulates that a reader primarily uses sound/symbol cues to recognize a word; a second model states that a reader focuses mainly on whole-word characteristics. To determine which model best fits beginning and adult readers, a multiple regression analysis was…

Two hundred and eight first graders were assigned to one of three treatment groups. Treatment A received initial instruction in letter names followed by sight words; treatment B received initial instruction in letter names and sounds followed by sight words; and treatment C received initial instruction in sight words followed by letter names and…

Critiques an experiment by M. Arlin, M. Scott, and J. Webster (see EJ 206 153) in which their pictures as an aid to learning hypothesis contrasts with the focal attention hypothesis supported by research by H. Singer, S. J. Samuels, and J. Spiroff (see EJ 105 648). (MKM)

The history of teaching people to read is explored from the introduction of the Greek alphabet about 3,000 years ago to the present renewed interest in sound symbol relationships. Greek schoolboys were required to learn first the alphabet in order, next commonly used syllables, and then words. English was first written in the Latin alphabet using…

Reports on an investigation of the effects of teaching first grade children two sets of six words by phonics and sight word methods in three instructional conditions with either a selection or production response. (MKM)

Compares effectiveness of four different methods for acquiring initial reading vocabulary--onset plus vowel, rimes, phoneme segmentation and blending, and simple repetition of whole words. Finds that beginning nonreaders acquired the trained words fastest in the onset and rime conditions, and most slowly in the whole word condition. Finds the same…

For journal availability, see EC 092 078. Described are specific suggestions for organizing sight words to be learned by educable mentally retarded pupils. (CL)