Phonics

Abstract: "Beginning to Read reconciles the debate that has divided theorists for decades over what is the "right" way to help children learn to read Drawing on a rich array of research on the nature and development of reading proficiency, Marilyn Adams shows educators that they need not remain trapped in the phonics versus teaching-formeaning dilemma and offers instructional alternatives She proposes that phonies can work together with the "whole language" approach to teaching reading and provides an integrated treatment of the knowledge and processes involved in skillful reading, the issues surrounding their acquisition, and the implications for reading instruction Broad in scope and clearly written, "Beginning to Read provides fresh insights into the relationship between thinking and learning Developing the new connectionist theory as it relates to reading and its acquisition, Adams underscores the automatic nature of print perception in skillful readers while contrasting it with the attentive thought required for conceptual learning and understanding Adams reviews the history of debate over approaches to reading instruction as well as the research on their effectiveness, She consistently integrates instructional concerns with meticulous attention to research and theory from education, developmental and cognitive psychology, and linguistics Throughout, she emphasizes the interdependence of meaning appreciation and orthographic facility in both fluent reading and its acquisition Relevant learning theory is presented along with discussion of the roles of experience, practice, direct instruction, rules, thinking and understanding Adams stresses the importance of preschool language andliteracy experiences and includes descriptions of those that will best prepare children for reading instruction Marilyn Jager Adams is a Senior Scientist at Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc She was Principal Author and Curriculum Coordinator/Editor for the five volume classroom instruction series, "Odyssey: A Curriculum for Thinking Beginning to Read was developed in conjunction with the Reading Research and Education Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change series

Abstract: Children who are backward in reading are strikingly insensitive to rhyme and alliteration1. They are at a disadvantage when categorizing words on the basis of common sounds even in comparison with younger children who read no better than they do. Categorizing words in this way involves attending to their constituent sounds, and so does learning to use the alphabet in reading and spelling. Thus the experiences which a child has with rhyme before he goes to school might have a considerable effect on his success later on in learning to read and to write. We now report the results of a large scale project which support this hypothesis.

Abstract: Phonological Awareness and Reading. How Children Read Words. Spelling and Phonological Awareness. How Children Read and Write New Words. Comparisons with Backward Readers and Spellers. Correlations and Longitudinal Predictions. Teaching Children About Sound. Do Children Read and Fail to Learn to Read in Different Ways from Each Other. Theories About Learning to Read.

Abstract: Whenever the subject of literacy comes up, what often pops first into my mind is a conversation I overheard eight years ago between my son Sam and his best friend, Willie, aged six and seven, respectively: “Why don’t you trade me Many Trails for Carl Yats . . . Yes, it’s . . . Ya-strum-scrum.” “That’s not how you say it, dummy, it’s Carl Yes . . . Yes . . . oh, I don’t know.” Sam and Willie had just discovered baseball cards. Many Trails was their decoding, with the help of first-grade English phonics, of the name Manny Trillo. The name they were quite rightly stumped on was Carl Yastremski. That was the first time I remembered seeing them put their incipient literacy to their own use, and I was of course thrilled.