Early Reading Instruction is a comprehensive analysis of the research                  evidence from early writing systems to computer models of reading. In this book,                  Diane McGuinness provides an innovative solution to the "reading war"--the                  century-old debate over the efficacy of phonics (sound-based) versus whole-word                  (meaning- based) methods. She has developed a prototype--a set of elements that are                  critical to the success of a reading method.McGuinness shows that all writing                  systems, without exception, are based on a sound unit in the language. This fact,                  and other findings by paleographers, provides a platform for the prototype. Other                  elements of the prototype are based on modern research. For example, observational                  studies in the classroom show that time spent on three activities strongly predicts                  reading success: learning phoneme/symbol correspondences, practice at blending and                  segmenting phonemes in words, and copying/writing words, phrases, and sentences.                  Most so-called literacy activities have no effect, and some, like sight word                  memorization, have a strongly negative effect.The National Reading Panel (2000)                  summarized the research on reading methods after screening out thousands of studies                  that failed to meet minimum scientific standards. In an in-depth analysis of this                  evidence, McGuinness shows that the most successful methods (children reading a year                  or more above age norms) include all the elements in the prototype. Finally, she                  argues, because phonics-type methods are consistently shown to be superior to                  whole-word methods in studies dating back to the 1960s, it makes no sense to                  continue this line of research. The most urgent question for future research is how                  to get the most effective phonics programs into the classroom.

Early Reading Instruction: What Science Really Tells Us about How to Teach Reading (Bradford Books) PDF

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