The purpose of this article is to look anew at the concepts of reading, reading development, and reading research as they exist beyond the boundaries of the "science of reading" controversy. The context for this reconceptualization is reading in the digital age and the challenges that today's readers confront daily. Those challenges…

Improving reading instruction is one of the hottest topics in K-12 education today. It is also one of the most complex, encompassing pedagogy, policy, and politics -- all rooted in a long history of arguments about the best way to teach kids to read. This analysis is a primer on the "Science of Reading" and efforts to implement it across…

Proposes a new understanding of what reading is, using that understanding to propose a new sense of balanced reading instruction. Discusses shifts in reading instruction over the years, examines three goals of reading (automatic word recognition, comprehension, and motivation), and describes the balance needed between direct instruction of skills…

Among the defining features of the whole language philosophy are: an emphasis on reading comprehension and extracting meaning from text; reading and writing across the curriculum; and the use of phonics instruction, subordinate to other methods (cues) of extracting meaning from text. Controversy between professional educators involved in…

There is continuous debate about which word recognition techniques should be taught, especially to early primary grade pupils. All learning activities provided in reading instruction should: (1) be meaningful; (2) have perceived purpose; (3) be interesting; (4) stress understandings, skills, and affective goals; (5) provide for individual…

A study examined the effect of whole language philosophy as compared to a more traditional reading program on children's reading comprehension scores. The study included a review of current research indicating the importance of teachers stating the topic prior to reading as well as the importance of students' oral reading ability to assess reading…

Provides before-, during-, and after-reading strategies to help students develop reading goals, monitor comprehension, and reflect on what they read. A reading wheel and student pages encourage practice of new strategies. Across the curriculum strategies are included for building comprehension in other curriculum areas. (SM)

A practicum addressed the high percentage of students who were experiencing difficulty with reading comprehension and vocabulary retention in a fifth-grade Drop Out Prevention class by implementing a supplemental whole-language program. Subjects were 19 fifth-grade students. An informal reading inventory, an attitude survey, and academic grades…

The spelling skills of grade three children who had received whole-language instruction since they began to learn to read were compared with those of grade three children attending a phonics program. Overall, the phonics group produced more accurate word spellings than the whole-language group. In addition, the phonics children's spelling of…

The single most important task facing elementary school teachers today is teaching students to read by the end of third grade. Learning to read in those formative years is essential to develop the higher order thinking skills demanded in the older grades, when students are reading to learn. Beginning readers must be engaged in highly purposeful…

This is a book about effective elementary literacy instruction, intended for the many constituencies who have a need to know about what works to develop readers in elementary school. It suggests that since the initial publication of this book, the research support for balanced literacy instruction has continued to grow. This revised and updated…

A study examined two first-grade classrooms implementing the whole language approach and two utilizing the basal reading approach to determine the differences, if any, between the treatments. The hypothesis was that the whole language reading approach when combined with a phonics program would not result in higher test scores on a standardized…

A program was designed to improve the reading skills of the second grade at-risk students in a suburban K-6 elementary school located northwest of Chicago, Illinois. The second grade at-risk students could not read fluently at the conclusion of the academic school year, and consequently did not exhibit strong reading comprehension skills. A…

The increasing demand for improved student performance in the context of significant time constraints places considerable stress on educators and administrators to develop innovative strategies that promote literacy acquisition. This article describes the procedures and outlines the evaluative data for Reading Their Way, a literacy acquisition…

The wealth of information gleaned from reading research both past and present needs to be applied to a practical eclectic reading methodology. First, an emergent instruction model needs to be created that takes into account the immediate interests and needs of the learner. This model should recognize that learning is a transaction, with the…