Twenty-three classroom projects are suggested, involving use of: (1) poetry and other language arts skills; (2) basketball terminology; (3) Thanksgiving themes; (4) history and geography; and (5) bulletin board ideas. (PP)

A discussion-oriented, direct approach to teaching decoding and spelling based on word origin and structure is proposed. The instruction leads students to a comparison and contrast of letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns, and morpheme patterns in English words of Anglo-Saxon, Romance, and Greek origin. (Author/JDD)

Investigates whether a computer-based word study method, emphasizing automaticity of response, would improve students' word recognition, spelling, and oral reading performance. Finds support for a verbal efficiency theory of reading, in which the key to developing reading efficiency is developing word recognition that is automatic. (RS)

Examines the degree to which teaching beginning readers to use various types of analogies helps them pronounce new words and nonwords. Finds that, although beginning readers can use analogies, they rely to a large extent on correspondences between individual phonemes and graphemes to decode new words. (RS)

Performance on a battery of tests of vocabulary words by 72 college students was compared as a function of whether the prior instruction involved presenting material in an organized or scrambled fashion. Organizing vocabulary words during study facilitated performance in categorizing, processing for understanding, or producing a word. (SLD)

Distinguished experimentally between the learner's use of independent grapheme-phoneme correspondences and determined whether in the initial year of reading instruction sublexical relations can be formed. Results could not be given alternative explanations by the developmental bypass hypothesis nor by accounts which predict exclusive use of onset…

In 2 eye-movement experiments, the authors tested whether transitional probability (the statistical likelihood that a word precedes or follows another word) affects reading times and whether this occurs independently from contextual predictability effects. Experiment 1 showed early effects of predictability, replicating S. A. McDonald and R. C.…

Based on the research on invented and developmental spelling, this book provides a practical way for teachers to study words with students. The framework of the book is keyed to the five stages of spelling or orthographic development so that it complements the use of any existing phonics, spelling, and vocabulary curriculums. The book presents…

Developed by the ABCs of Construction National Workplace Literacy Project, this fifth-grade level module teaches different kinds of vocabulary words encountered in work-related texts used by pipefitter trainees. The module covers the following topics: differences between general, specialized, and technical words; learning new words; drills for…

By using the Developmental Spelling Analysis, based on the spelling inventories developed at the University of Virginia, teachers can screen students for their present stages of word knowledge in an easy-to-administer format. The planning of developmentally appropriate activities for spelling instruction depends upon informed teachers who come to…

Knowledge of morphology--the ability to gain information about the meaning, pronunciation, and part of speech of new words from their prefixes, roots, and suffixes--is an important component of skilled reading. As part of a larger program of research on morphology, a study explored the development of students' knowledge of common English suffixes.…

One model of interactive processing useful in describing word identification processes in discourse context is of a weakly interactive type. This type assumes that the time to identify a word in context is an activation function, whereas the time to activate a word in memory beyond some criterial identification threshold is a multiplicative…

This paper explores the patterns and processes used by adult students of English as a second language (ESL) when they guess at the meanings of nonsense words in a reading text. The findings suggest that while word-unit processing is a major component of both first- and second-language reading, a major difference between first- and second-language…

The information in this guide is arranged to provide Title I reading teachers with (1) a list of materials that are coordinated with the performance objectives forming the core of the educational program for Title I students, and (2) suggested teaching strategies for each performance objective. Content of the guide is divided into the following…

Focusing on phonograms and generalizations about phonics, this paper presents a comprehensive letter-sound study. The first chapter discusses the phonogram component of phonics, the Arthur Gates study of phonograms in l928, the phonics generalizations studies of the l960s, and the lack of a comprehensive study of the letter-sound relationship. The…