DEVELOPMENTAL READING

Developmental Reading 2 Course Description: Developing and Improving Reading Skills Among
Elementary pupils Using Various Approaches and Strategies in Teaching Reading Course

Objectives:

1. Acquire knowledge and understanding of the reading skills to enable the students to read and
become fluent readers.

2. Revisit the teaching practices of reading skills to enable the students to read and become
fluent readers.

3. Strengthen one’s ability to interview, to give feedback, to gather information and to organize
data for reporting.

4. Initiate needed shifts from the traditional to holistic modes of reading instruction for effective
and meaningful classroom interaction.

Unit II. Bridging the Gap Between Traditional and Whole Language Perspective in Teaching Reading

A. Phonics vs. Whole Language Approach

B. The Reading Teacher

C. Making Transitions Toward Holistic Teaching

1. Instructional Beliefs

2. Reading Materials

3. Curriculum Designs

4. Classroom Environment

5. Community Involvement / Family Involvement

Unit III. Understanding Reading: Defining and Redefining Beliefs

A. Understanding the Reading Process

1. Linear

2. cyclical

3. learning alphabet

4. recognizing

5. decoding

6. mouthing of words

7. fluency

B. Aspects that influence reading development

1. Cognitive Aspects

2. Affective Aspects

3. Social Aspects

4. Linguistic Aspects

C. Theories of Reading Process

1. Bottom-Up Theory

2. Top-Down Theory

3. Interactive Theory

4. Transactional Theory

Unit IV. Developing Word Recognition Skills (Word Attack or Decoding Skills)

A. Phonics or Whole Language

B.What is phonics instruction

1. Goal of phonics instruction

2. Content of Phonics Instruction – word families

C. Word Recognition Instruction

1. Alphabetic Principle

2. Alphabetic Knowledge

3. Phonemic Awareness – letter-sound relationship

4. Phonological Awareness – ability to produce sounds

5. Print Awareness

6. Decodable Text

D. Word Recognition Strategies

1. Sight Words – Dolch List, Phili-IRI, Fry List , SREA

2. Context Clues

3. Structural Analysis

4. Dictionary

5. Alphabet Book and Chart

6. Songs, Chants, Rhymes and Jingles

Unit V. Acquiring a Reading Vocabulary

A. What is vocabulary instruction

B. Strategies of Building Vocabulary

1. Structural Analysis

2. Word Associations

3. Context Clues

4. Homonyms, Homographs, Heteronyms

5. Figures of Speech

6. Idioms

7. Synonyms and Antonyms

8. Word Map

Unit VI. Comprehending Text

 A. Issues in Teaching Reading Comprehension (Other Online Resources)

1. Less Time in Reading

2. Teachers Manual in Reading

3. Curriculum in Reading

4. School Management and Priorities in Reading

5. Teacher’s Role in Reading

6. Beliefs in Reading

B. Two Theories in Comprehending Text

1. Schema Theory – Schema? Schemata?

2. Generative Learning Theory

C. Reading Difficulties and Disability

1. ADHD

2. Myopia

3. Hyperopia

4. Dyslexia

D. Some Teaching Strategies in Developing Reading Comprehension

1. Story Grammar

2. Story Maps

3. Story Frames

4. Story Sequence/ Clothesline

5. Cloze Procedure

6. Predicting Outcomes

7. Generalizing

8. Noting Details

1. Open-Ended Questions
 E. Types of Comprehension Skills

1. Literal

2. Inference

3. Prediction

4. Evaluation

5. Application

F. Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Domain

1. Knowledge

2. Comprehension

3. Application

4. Analysis

5. Synthesis

What Is Reading?
By: Diane Henry Leipzig
 Reading is a multifaceted process involving word recognition, comprehension, fluency, and
motivation. Learn how readers integrate these facets to make meaning from print.

Reading is making meaning from print. It requires that we:

 Identify the words in print – a process called word recognition

 Construct an understanding from them – a process called comprehension

 Coordinate identifying words and making meaning so that reading is automatic and
accurate – an achievement called fluency

Sometimes you can make meaning from print without being able to identify all the words.
Remember the last time you got a note in messy handwriting? You may have understood it, even
though you couldn't decipher all the scribbles.

Sometimes you can identify words without being able to construct much meaning from them.
Read the opening lines of Lewis Carroll's poem, "Jabberwocky," and you'll see what I mean.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Finally, sometimes you can identify words and comprehend them, but if the processes don't
come together smoothly, reading will still be a labored process. For example, try reading the
following sentence:

It          isn't          as         if          the          words

     are        difficult                   to          identify          or
understand,                   but          the          spaces
                   make                   you          pause                   between
    words,                    which                   means        your
                   reading                   is                    less                    fluent.

Reading in its fullest sense involves weaving together word recognition and comprehension in a
fluent manner. These three processes are complex, and each is important. How complex? Here
goes?

To develop word recognition, children need to learn:

 How to break apart and manipulate the sounds in words – this is phonemic awareness
example: feet has three sounds: /f/, /e/, and /t/

 Certain letters are used to represent certain sounds – this is the alphabetic principle
example: s and h make the /sh/ sound

 How to apply their knowledge of letter-sound relationships to sound out words that are
new to them – this is decoding
example: ssssspppoooon – spoon!
 How to analyze words and spelling patterns in order to become more efficient at reading
words – this is word study
example: Bookworm has two words I know: book and worm.

 To expand the number of words they can identify automatically, called their sight
vocabulary
example: Oh, I know that word – the!

To develop comprehension, children need to develop:

 Background knowledge about many topics
example: This book is about zoos – that's where lots of animals live.

 Extensive oral and print vocabularies

example: Look at my trucks – I have a tractor, and a fire engine, and a bulldozer.

 Understandings about how the English language works

example: We say she went home, not she goes home.

 Understandings about how print works

example: reading goes from left to right

 Knowledge of various kinds of texts

example: I bet they live happily ever after.

 Various purposes for reading

example: I want to know what ladybugs eat.

 Strategies for constructing meaning from text, and for problem solving when
meaning breaks down
example: This isn't making sense. Let me go back and reread it.

To develop fluency, children need to:

 Develop a high level of accuracy in word recognition

 Maintain a rate of reading brisk enough to facilitate comprehension

 Use phrasing and expression so that oral reading sounds like speech

 Transform deliberate strategies for word recognition and comprehension into automatic

skills

But if reading isn't pleasurable or fulfilling, children won't choose to read, and they won't get the
practice they need to become fluent readers.

Therefore, reading also means developing and maintaining the motivation to read.

Reading is an active process of constructing meaning. The key word here is active.

To develop and maintain the motivation to read, children

need to:
 Appreciate the pleasures of reading

 View reading as a social act, to be shared with others

 See reading as an opportunity to explore their interests

 Read widely for a variety of purposes, from enjoyment to gathering information

 Become comfortable with a variety of different written forms and genres

So…what is reading?

Reading is the motivated and fluent coordination of word

recognition and comprehension.

A Holistic Approach to Reading

The curriculum described here is called a holistic curriculum, following Miller (1996). Holistic education is concerned
with connections in human experience—connections between mind and body, between linear thinking and intuitive
ways of knowing, between academic disciplines, between the individual and the community.
A holistic curriculum emphasizes how the parts of a whole relate to each other to form the whole. From this
perspective, reading relates to speaking, writing, listening comprehension, and culture.

Pedagogical Stages of Reading

Ideally, each text used in such a curriculum should be pedagogically staged so that learners approach it by moving
from pre-reading, through initial reading, and into rereading. This sequence carefully moves the learner from
comprehension tasks to production tasks. In addition, these tasks should build upon each other in terms of increasing
cognitive difficulty.
 Pre-Reading: The initial levels of learning, as described in Bloom's Taxonomy, involve recognizing and
comprehending features of a text. As proposed here, pre-reading tasks involve speaking, reading, and listening.
 Initial Reading: Initial reading tasks orient the learner to the text and activate the cognitive resources that
are associated with the learner's own expectations. For example, discussions of genres and stereotypes may
help the learner to identify potential reading difficulties and to strategize ways to overcome these challenges.
Simple oral and written reproduction tasks should precede more complex production tasks that call for
considering creative thinking about several issues at the same time.
 Rereading: In rereading, the learner is encouraged to engage in active L2 production such as verbal or
written analysis and argumentation. These activities require longer and more complex discourse. At this point,
the language learners' critical thinking needs to interact with their general knowledge. Ideally, cultural context
and the individual foreign language learner's own identity emerge as central to all acts of production.
When the stages of reading are repeated over the course of a semester or year, learners tend to improve not only
their language skills, but also their cultural literacy. Multiple stages in reading engage the learners by returning to the
language of the text from different points of view. A curriculum built around such stages is considered holistic if they
involve practice that integrates language various kinds of language acquisition and fills multiple cognitive demands in
interlocking activities that spiral learning. For example, a pre-reading for sub-topics of a subject, an initial reading to
identify how topics are described, and a rereading to modify those descriptions by inserting them into a new genre or
describing them for a different audience.

Readability and the Holistic Approach

Teachers should assess whether the texts they assign are appropriately readable for their students. But how to
measure readability? In the holistic approach advocated here, readability is not a static property of a given text.
Instead, readability is determined by three characteristics: the suitability of the text for the readers' background, their
language, and the instructor's curricular goals.
In general, a text is more readable when:
 it presents concrete issues rather than abstract ones
 it provides the "who," "what," "where," and "when" familiar to the reader
 it is age-appropriate
 it is in a genre familiar to the reader
 it is acceptable to the reader's cultural background
 it is longer, with context clues, or it is a short text on a familiar topic

Horizons of Expectation
Sometimes, the readability of a text can be enhanced if a missing piece of background knowledge about the text's
culture is provided. The reader needs to know about contextual elements that most authentic texts assume their
readership knows. Sometimes the missing element is a historical or social fact, sometimes it can be a fact that looks
like a social stereotype.
The concept "horizons of expectation" is attributed to Hans Robert Jauss, who used the term when illustrating ways in
which textual features reflect a broad consensus about a given genre's style, content, and organizational structures;
and to argue that these features suggest assumptions shared among a group of readers. When the literatures and
cultures of the foreign languages studied reflect horizons of expectation with which the language learner is unfamiliar,
misreadings often result.
Overall, readability and reading goals need to be set vis-à-vis the reader, not as a property of the text in its own right.
And through reading an accessible authentic text, the reader is also likely to confront the stereotypes about a culture
as well as those held by that culture. By learning to recognize ways authentic media reflect particular viewpoints,
readers begin to engage in the practice of multi-literacies—explorations of self and other.

Speed-Reading Techniques
Step one: Get rid of the Reading Myths

MYTH 1: Reading is linear. I had always figured reading was a linear process; you
know, start up front and grind through to the very end in the exact order it was
printed. Wrong. Reading is no more linear than thinking, (or I eventually discovered,
than writing; few writers start at the beginning—they usually "write the first part
last."  Get rid of the myth that you must always read in sequence.

MYTH 2: True reading is word-for-word. As a child I looked at the individual letters.

They didn't help much. Next I started sounding out syllables. Finally, I could read
whole words. Why stop with words? Well, I know one reason. I once had a college
professor who made us swear we had "read every single word" of our collateral
reading. Why? He didn't make us swear we'd "read every single letter." The answer is
simple: that professor (like me) had never moved from letters, syllables, and words, to
reading phrases, sentences and paragraphs. He assumed the only way to read
thoroughly was by the laborious method of reading one word at a time. Get rid of the
myth that you must read every word individually.

MYTH 3: Reading is a laborious task which takes a long time. Not at all! Reading can

be both fun and fast. Indeed, speed reading is like auto racing—it is far more exciting
than a leisurely drive.
MYTH 4: All parts of a book are of equal value. This myth persists until you actually
write your own book. Then, all at once you realize how much "filler" material you’ve
put into it. Ever heard a boring speech and wished you could press a button and
forward over that lengthy story illustrating something you already understand? Well,
in speed reading you can fast forward.

MYTH 5: Reading faster will reduce retention. Sorry. It should be that way, but it

isn’t. It only seems fair that those who painstakingly grind slowly through a book
sounding out every word in their head should get a greater reward shouldn't they?
Sorry. Life isn’t always fair. In fact, speed reading techniques increase our
comprehension and retention.

So, having banished the reading myths about reading, what are the actual steps toward
rapid reading?

Step one: Get Ready to Read

Rapid reading is serious work and you must get ready for it just like you’d prepare for
racing in the Indianapolis 500. Try these steps:

FIRST: eliminate distractions: Get rid of anything your mind could think about

besides the reading material. Is there conversation happening nearby? Activity going
on? Is the television running? Are you in an uncomfortable seat? Is there music in the
background? Okay, I know many of my readers are college students who claim they
"study better" with music in the background. Go ahead claim it—but you are wrong.
[1] You might "like it" better, but you do not study better. Anything which might
occupy your mind compromises your concentration—even music that occupies only
the “background processing time” of your brain. Fool yourself with your iPod if you
wish—but if you really are serious about reading faster, eliminate distractions—
including music.

SECOND: Ask, what is my purpose? Why are you reading this material? What kind
of literature is it? Is it a Steinbeck novel you are reading for fun? Then, enjoy your
slow trip through it for fun. Like eating a leisurely meal, sit back and taste the flavor
of every word—turn over the delicious phrases in your mind before you swallow. Or,
do you have collateral reading for a course where you need to be simply familiar with
the central ideas? Then finding and absorbing those ideas is your goal, right? Or
maybe you are reading material on which you will be tested on the content? Then you
need to read for content, right? Is this a book where you will be tested on the terms
and dates? Or, are you to get some new ideas on dating, marriage, career decisions?
Maybe you have to write a review? Or, maybe you plan to teach the content to others?
See how different your purpose might be for each? Before you open the book, take a
minute to state your purpose to yourself. It will largely determine how you read the
book. State your purpose before beginning.

THIRD: Do a quick pre-read. Take ten minutes (or even less) and do a pre-read the
entire book. Go ahead and try this! Treat a book like a jigsaw puzzle. Dump it out;
organize all the pieces first before trying to put it together. Read the front and back
covers and any reviews there. Look through the author blurb. Move to the Table of
Contents and see if you can figure out what the jigsaw puzzle might look like when it
is put together. Page through the entire book, page by page glancing through all
summaries, tables, pull-out quotes, diagrams (especially), and scan through all the
section titles first. This need only take ten minutes but it is a good investment. 

FOURTH: Read the key chapter. When doing your pre-read chances are you'll find
the key chapter. Some publishers say (off the record, of course) "A book is simply one
great chapter with a dozen other filler chapters." If this is so of your book, find that
chapter.  If it is the last chapter nobody is making you wait until the end to read it, as
if you must eat your green beans before the ice cream. The book is yours—go ahead
and get the central idea before you start!

Once you've done your pre-read and you’ve read the key chapter you are ready to read
the rest of the book. But already you will have mastered the central idea of the book.
Now you can read the rest of the book directly through in order or in some other order
which better suits your purpose. Now you are ready for some actual rapid reading
tips.

STEP THREE:  Develop Speed-Reading Techniques

1. Raise your comfort level for speed. How comfortable are you speeding in a car?
How fast do you have to go before you feel you are "on the edge?" 70 mph? 90 mph?
120? How about 220 mph, the speed the Indy car drivers can handle? Get the point?
Some people have learned to handle faster speeds safely. You can do the same thing
in reading. Face it, speed-reading isn't mostly about technique; it is about mind set.
Indeed this may be the reason you can listen to music while reading—you are merely
reading like an afternoon drive. Indy car drivers don’t play music in the background
while racing. They need complete focus on the track. If you are out for a Sunday
afternoon stroll with your book, then take your time and enjoy the sights. But if you
are serious about becoming a speed-reader, start expecting more of yourself.

2. See the book as a mine full of ore not gold. Books offer wonderful gold to the
prospector. But usually the reader must sort through tons of ore to find and refine the
gold. Speed readers learn how to go for the gold and discard the tailings. What is a
book anyway? What are words? They are "carriers" of truth, thoughts, ideas, a thesis,
information, terms, concepts, notions. One reads a book to get the message, not to
obsess about the individual words. Switch your mindset and go for the gold.

3. Quit Sub vocalizing. Most of us learned to read by sounding out the words. The
trouble is, many of us never stopped. Sure, maybe you may no longer audibly sound
the words out like you did as a child, or you may not even move your lips, but in your
heads you are "reading to yourself." You are hearing the book in your head, even if
only in your head. To become a speed reader learn to discard this habit (or at least
reduce it). Instead, adopt the eye-to-mind method. Instead of acting like the ear (even
in one inside your head) is the route to the mind, begin believing that the eye is the
gate to the mind. Start drinking in books through your eyes. Let the books pass into
the mind directly from your eyes, skipping the mouth and ears. Go ahead and try it—
your eyes can send the content directly to your mind bypassing the sluggish mouth-ear
method.

 4. Use your finger. For most beginning speed-readers this is a shock. They
remember reading in grade school with their finger and assume it is juvenile. Actually
your finger is your pace car. It leads you forward at a speedy pace, and keeps you on
focus so you can avoid back-skipping. There are several ways to use your finger (or
hand) but try it out for starters. Run your finger ahead of your eye pulling along your
mind at a faster pace then you are used to. Watch yourself improve!

5. Break the Back-skip habit. When most of us read along a line of type (like this
one) our eyes jump back once in a while to recover a word we just passed and
somehow missed. We do this without even knowing it. Get someone to watch you
read and count the times your eye darts back to see if you do back-skipping. If you
don’t have someone you feel comfortable with staring you in the face while you read,
just trust me—you probably back-skip. How to stop? First, confess you do it. Then
while you are reading notice your temptations back-skip and refuse to go back. Treat
your book like watching a movie. When you miss a phrase in a movie you don't stop
the movie and replay the last phrase do you? Probably not. You let the movie flow on
figuring you'll still get the over all point eventually.

6. Use your peripheral vision. Just like you must develop a muscle in the gym, your
mind can be trained to use your eyes take in a broader amount of data. You already
read some whole phrases like they are a single word. Read this phrase: “I love you.”
See? Most adults read numerous phrases as if they are one word, not sounding our
each word expecting to grasp the meaning after putting together all three words. Train
your eyes and mind to read phrases, not just words. Instead of reading left to right
across the lines, pretend there is a line right down the middle of this page and you are
following the line. Start with narrow columns like a newspaper then learn to do the
same thing with a book. Let your eye take in through your peripheral vision whole
phrases to the right or left of the middle of the line. Can you do it? With practice you
can train your mind to see on "both sides of the road" even though your eyes are on
the center lane. To practice this skill most starting speed readers actually draw lines
down pages of a book until they have mastered the skill without a drawn line. Train
your mind to drink in the information on the page without looking directly at it—just
like you "see" the sides of the road when driving an automobile.

7. Look for key words. 40-60% of the words on a page are neither critical nor
important. Indeed, if someone took white-out and hid them from your sight, you could
still figure out what the paragraph was communicating. It stands to reason that if you
could figure out which are these key words you could skip the unnecessary words and
let your mind fill in the blanks. Read this sentence: “Yesterday when I was driving to
school in my car and I saw a huge hawk swoop down from the telephone lines beside
the road and grab a sparrow that never saw it coming.” What if you could train your
mind and to see only the key words in that sentence: “Yesterday when I
was driving to school in my car and I saw a huge hawk swoop down from
the telephone lines beside the road and grab a sparrow that never saw it coming.” You
could save 50% of your reading time! You may even learn to grasp the meaning by
reading even fewer words: “…hawk… swoop…lines…grab…sparrow...” Training
your mind to find key words is fun—like treasure hunting. It will speed to your
reading tremendously!

8. Eliminate "Bus Stops."  As your eyes read down this line they stop periodically
and "rest" on a word—not back-skipping but just stopping for a moment resting on a
single word. Children's eyes often rest on every single word as they read a sentence.
Then as you grow up you learn to read smoothly down the line like a lawn mower.
But many adults still stop for a moment on a word before starting back up again. Like
a bus stopping at every corner, it slows down your reading progress. A period at the
end of a sentence is not a required stop. You can keep moving! Try to reduce your eye
rests to 1-2 per line, then even less as you get better. Eventually you can skip all bus
stops and keep your eyes moving smoothly line after line, as your mind drinks in the
content of a book. Try it!

9. Take breaks. The research is clear. Steady reading hour after hour is less efficient
than taking a five minute rest-stop break every hour or so. Try to read 100 pages in the
next hour in total concentration using the above tips. Maybe even set an alarm. Then
when the alarm goes off reward yourself with some candy or a sandwich or a quick
walk outside. The pit stop will refresh you for the next 100 pages. Just try it and see!

10. Set a time goal. Do you have a 300 page book to read? Set a time goal for all 300
pages. If you are not a rapid reader, maybe you'll only set an average reading speed as
your goal: one page a minute (250 words/minute). If you are already an above average
reader, set 100 pages an hour then plunge in using these tips. If you pick 100 pages an
hour, that's 50 pages in a half hour, 17 pager per ten minutes—a little more than a
page and a half a minute. Keep on track… pretending like you are in an auto race.
Push yourself, concentrate, get yourself out there on the "racer's edge" -- that line just
short of out-of-control, yet still in command. Try it; it will be exciting!

STEP FOUR: Expand your Retention

Rapid-reading does not reduce your retention but increases it. But there are several
tips to increase your long range retention you can add to your arsenal. Try some of
these especially if the book is yours.

1. Underline, circle, make margin notes. Not highlighting whole pages like some
students do, but finding important parts and marking them. Usually you will mark no
more than one or two items per page, and many pages will have no markings at all.
Marking pages increases your recall—your mind can “see” the page and the important
parts will jump out at you. You will even remember the location on the page of
important points. Marking helps retention. Using a highlighter works, but your own
markings will be easier to remember.

2. Dog-ear important pages. In a 250 page book there will probably be 25 pages
worth dog-earing. Turn down the corner of the page to return later. Maybe your
system will be “The bigger the dog-ear the more important the page.” This reminds
you to come back and re-read these pages later.

3. Transfer key notes to front of book. Find a great point? Id you stumble upon the
central message of the book—the quotation that represents the whole book? Write it
down in the front of the book. Why? Generally speaking when we encounter new
information you either "Use it or lose it in twenty minutes." When you flip back to the
front or back of the book and scribble it down; it will cement the idea into your mind.
Better yet, link the new information to something you already know and write that
down too. Linked information can be recalled easier than isolated information.

4. When finished, re-read dog-eared pages. Just run back through and re-read the
dog-eared gold. Here you reinforce the essence of the book in your brain.

 5. Write an "abstract" in the back or front. You are almost finished! Soon you can
go eat a pizza… but not just yet. Take just a few more minutes and write an "abstract"
inside the front or back cover in your own words. When the writer of this book
submitted the proposal, he or she had to submit a single paragraph or single page
outlining what this book was all about. Try to figure out what that abstract said by
"reverse engineering" the book back to the author’s abstract or thesis—then w rite it
down to cement it into your brain.

6. Consider drawing a "Mind Map."  If you are going to be tested on this book, get
someone to teach you how to use Tony Buzan's "Mind Map" method of remembering
the entire book in a single drawing. Our mind recalls pictures better than words. A
Mind Map enables you to "picture" the whole book as a single picture. Mind-mappers
appear to have "photographic" minds. Of course all our minds are photographic. That
is how the brain remembers things best. So, even if you haven’t learned this process
try to draw the book on a single page with words and pictures—watch how much you
can recall later when you ”see” the entire book as a picture!

7. But if you borrowed the book, and your can't mark it, dog-ear it, or otherwise
"use" these retention techniques use sticky notes as your dog-ears, and write your
comments on half-sheets of paper as you go.

Finally, remember that speed-reading is not some magical secret you can pick up in
ten minutes by reading this article. It takes practice and time to develop. However,
you can learn to read faster; anyone reading this article can double their present speed
in just two weeks. To become a life-long rapid reader (like becoming an expert race
car driver) will take more time. This short article will get you started though. Try and
see!

What Works in Fluency Instruction

By: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Fluency, reading in a fast and fluid manner, is what often distinguishes to observers the reading
performance of a good reader from a poor reader. Find out what the research says about the two
most common instructional methods for developing fluency: guided oral reading and independent
silent reading.

Fluent readers are able to read orally with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. Fluency is
one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension.
Despite its importance as a component of skilled reading, fluency is often neglected in the
classroom. This is unfortunate. If text is read in a laborious and inefficient manner, it will be
difficult for the child to remember what has been read and to relate the ideas expressed in the
text to his or her background knowledge.

Recent research on the efficacy of certain approaches to teaching fluency has led to increased
recognition of its importance in the classroom and to changes in instructional practices.

Two instructional approaches, each of which has several variations, have typically been used to
teach reading fluency. One approach, called guided repeated oral reading, encourages students
to read passages orally with systematic and explicit guidance and feedback from the teacher.
The other approach, called independent silent reading, encourages students to read silently on
their own, inside and outside the classroom, with minimal guidance or feedback.

Guided oral reading

The National Reading Panel concluded that repeated oral reading procedures that included
guidance from teachers, peers, or parents had a significant and positive impact on word
recognition, fluency, and comprehension across a range of grade levels.

These studies were conducted in a variety of classrooms in both regular and special education
settings with teachers using widely available instructional materials. These results also apply to
all students – good readers as well as those experiencing reading difficulties.

Independent silent reading

There has been widespread agreement that encouraging students to engage in wide,
independent, silent reading increases reading achievement. Literally hundreds of correlational
studies find that the best readers read the most and that poor readers read the least.

These correlational studies suggest that the more that children read, the better their fluency,
vocabulary, and comprehension. However, these findings are correlational in nature, and
correlation does not imply causation. No doubt, it could be that the more that children read, the
more their reading skills improve, but it is also possible that better readers simply choose to read
more.

In order to address this issue of causation, the panel examined the specific impact that
encouraging students to read more has on fluency, vocabulary development, and reading
comprehension. The studies that were identified that address this issue were characterized by
three major features.

First, the studies emphasized silent reading procedures with students reading on their own with
little or no specific feedback. Second, the studies did not directly assess fluency or the actual
increase in the amount of reading due to the instructional procedures. Rather, only changes in
vocabulary and/or comprehension were typically measured as outcomes rather than increases in
fluency that could be expected from the increased reading practice. Third, very few studies that
examined the effect of independent silent reading on reading achievement could meet the NRP
research review methodology criteria (n = 14), and these studies varied widely in their
methodological quality and the reading outcome variables measured. Thus, a meta-analysis
could not be conducted. Rather, the 14 studies were examined individually and in detail to
identify converging trends and findings in the data.

Findings and determination

With regard to the efficacy of having students engage in independent silent reading with minimal
guidance or feedback, the Panel was unable to find a positive relationship between programs and
instruction that encourage large amounts of independent reading and improvements in reading
achievement, including fluency.

In other words, even though encouraging students to read more is intuitively appealing, there is
still not sufficient research evidence obtained from studies of high methodological quality to
support the idea that such efforts reliably increase how much students read or that such
programs result in improved reading skills. Given the extensive use of these techniques, it is
important that such research be conducted.

It should be made clear that these findings do not negate the positive influence that independent
silent reading may have on reading fluency, nor do the findings negate the possibility that wide
independent reading significantly influences vocabulary development and reading
comprehension. Rather, there are simply not sufficient data from well-designed studies capable
of testing questions of causation to substantiate causal claims.

The available data do suggest that independent silent reading is not an effective practice when
used as the only type of reading instruction to develop fluency and other reading skills,
particularly with students who have not yet developed critical alphabetic and word reading skills.
In sum, methodologically rigorous research designed to assess the specific influences that
independent silent reading practices have on reading fluency and other reading skills and the
motivation to read has not yet been conducted.

Cognitive Elements of Reading

Let’s begin by picturing a child reading a book silently to herself. She's just
sitting there, fairly motionless, staring at a book. Occasionally, she turns a
page. Sometimes she laughs quietly to herself for no apparent reason. It is a
serene and beautiful picture, but only because we know that inside her head,
she is exploring a story and listening to the author tell a tale through a voice
that only she can hear. If she was sitting motionless, occasionally laughing to
herself while staring intently at a potted plant, it would be somewhat
disturbing, but because she is acting this way with a book in her hands, it's a
Kodak moment.

The silent, motionless act of reading belies the activity happening inside the
reader's head. The symbols on the page are being converted into a meaningful
message that the reader understands—a message constructed by an author
that she has probably never met. In the reader’s head, the author's tale is
unfolding word-for-word exactly as the author wrote it, but the reader scarcely
moves a muscle.

As the reader sits motionless, she is simultaneously decoding the text and
comprehending the message contained within the text. That is what reading is all about—decoding and
comprehension. The integration of these two skills is essential to reading, and neither one is more or less
essential than the other. If somebody was kind enough to read the story out loud to her, she would not need
to decode it herself. She could sit with her eyes closed, listen to somebody else tell the story, and just focus
on comprehending it. The comprehension she experiences listening to somebody else read aloud is the same
comprehension she would experience reading the text silently to herself. There are subtle differences, but
essentially, the only thing that makes reading different from listening is the act of decoding the text.
If reading is the product of two cognitive elements (language comprehension and decoding), two questions
must be addressed:

 What is required to be good at understanding language?

 What is necessary to be good at decoding text?

Examining each of these elements, we find a collection of interrelated cognitive elements that must be well
developed to be successful at either comprehending language or decoding. This text will examine both
language comprehension and decoding, along with the subordinate cognitive elements that underlie each. All
of these underlying knowledge domains will be described as discrete and distinct cognitive elements, but
only for the benefit of this examination. It is important for reading teachers to understand what these
elements are and how they fit in the "big picture" of reading acquisition, but it is also important for teachers
to understand that these elements are all interdependent and interrelated in a child’s head.

Let us begin this examination of the cognitive processes involved in reading acquisition where the child
begins — with Language Comprehension.

Language comprehension generally refers to one's ability to understand speech (there are
other forms of language, but for the sake of the current conversation, we will only consider
speech). It is important to remember that language is not at all generic. There are different
"levels" of language. Adults do not speak to children the way they speak to other adults;
stories for adults are aimed at a "higher level" than stories for children.

Further, there are different types of language. Language can be informal, as it often is in
routine discourse among friends and family, or it can be formal, as it often is in classroom
environments. Informal language for young children is usually very context dependent; the conversation
typically focuses on information that is immediately relevant and often concrete. Formal language, on the
other hand, is often decontextualized and abstract (e.g., asking a child to retell a story or to consider the
perspective of a character in a story). Some children have more experience with formal language than
others, and naturally, this gives them an advantage in formal classroom learning environments.

It is also worth noting that there are different types and levels of language comprehension. The most
mundane form is explicit comprehension—the listener merely understands what is explicitly stated. The
listener may not draw any inferences or elaborate on what is said, but at least the listener understands what
is specifically stated.

A more elaborate form of language comprehension builds inferential understanding on top of explicit
comprehension. Sometimes, in order to truly understand language, the listener must consider the context in
which communication is taking place. Sometimes, one needs to "read between the lines" and draw
inferences. Sometimes, these inferences are context dependent, meaning that it is necessary to consider the
speaker and the audience. Consider the following statements out of context: "My car broke down the other
day, and it’s going to cost $2000 to fix! This couldn’t have come at a worse time, either. Bob Junior needs
braces, and Mary hasn’t been able to work very many hours recently."

Out of context, this person seems only to be seeking sympathy. However, what would you think about these
statements if you knew that this person was speaking to his boss? He never says it explicitly, but it is
obvious that he is asking for a raise. In real communication, sometimes the true message is never explicitly
stated—the listener must deduce the speaker’s intent behind the message.

For language to work, it is assumed that both the speaker and the listener are cooperating in their
communication: The speaker is attempting to convey only the information that is relevant and interesting for
the listener; the listener is trying to ascertain the important and relevant message that the speaker is
conveying.
The context, the nature of the discourse, the speaker’s underlying intent — these and many other factors
are important to comprehension. Often, what is not said is as important to the communication as what is
said. Consider these quotes taken from actual performance evaluations used by the military to determine
qualifications for promotion:

 "He is inquisitive, and his wife is charming."

 "I am quite confident that he has many admirable qualities."
 "His performance under my command has never once dropped below average."

Are there hidden messages in these evaluations? None of these evaluations are particularly negative or
derogatory, but the very fact that they are not laudatory speaks volumes. In these evaluations, the speaker
is trying not to explicitly say something, and hopefully, the listener will hear what the speaker is trying so
hard not to say.

More than just an appreciation for the social context of communication and the ability to draw inferences,
language comprehension involves a general awareness that the purpose of communication is to coherently
convey information. Children need to develop an understanding of different genres, voices, perspectives,
and styles. Children also need to understand how those elements may reflect the intent of the speaker,
author, or storyteller, and how those elements affect the underlying meaning of communication. Young
children typically do not have a well-developed appreciation of the pragmatics of speech, and teachers must
often draw their attention to these comprehension skills explicitly.

It is also relevant to note that, particularly in the Southwest United States, sometimes there are cross-
language issues related to language comprehension. A child’s native language may be Spanish, and she may
have high levels of understanding in Spanish, but if she is in a classroom in the United States, her language
comprehension is most likely being assessed in English.

Language comprehension in this context, then, refers to the child’s ability to understand and draw
inferences from speech that is in a language the child understands, and that is at a level the child should be
able to understand. If a child is expected to read English text, the child must understand spoken English
adequately. If the child does not speak English, the text will be more meaningful if it is written in the
language the child does speak and at a level she understands.

The importance of connecting the child's spoken language to the text is paramount, but it is frequently
overlooked when assessing the reading instruction needs of children. This is not just a concern when
addressing the needs of students who are learning English as a second language, or addressing the needs of
children who speak a non-standard dialect of English. This is a concern that every reading teacher of every
child should be aware of. Some children—English speaking children—grow up in an impoverished linguistic
environment. Despite the fact that English is their native language, their language comprehension skills are
underdeveloped. Furthermore, explicit instruction aimed at developing linguistic comprehension usually
takes a back seat to explicit instruction of text-awareness or decoding skills in the classroom. The balance is
important, and reading teachers need to consciously maintain that balance.

The second important element underlying reading comprehension is decoding, which

generically refers to the child’s ability to recognize and process written information. While
that may sound straightforward, it should be noted that children may try many different,
often inappropriate decoding strategies before they become skilled decoders.

Initially, children learn that certain symbols "stand for" concepts, but these symbols are
highly contextualized. For example, many children recognize the golden arches of
McDonald’s restaurants—these children recognize that the golden arches represent a
concept, which, in this case is food that they would like to eat. This is sometimes called "environmental print
reading," and, although it signals that the child is on the road to literacy, it is not the same as "decoding." In
this case, the symbols and words the child recognizes depend upon their context for recognition. The child
may recognize the word "milk" when it is written on the milk carton, but does not recognize that same word
when it is in a storybook. Similarly, a child may recognize the word, "McDonald’s" when it is accompanied by
the golden arches, but may be unable to recognize it out of that context.

Farther along the road to decoding, children typically develop the ability to recognize certain high-frequency
and familiar words. This is sometimes called "sight-word reading." It involves the child memorizing the
shape of each whole word, or some unique feature in each word, and recognizing it when it comes up in
print. This approach works only for a very short time—children can only memorize so many words, and as
their "sight vocabulary" grows, their capacity for learning new words diminishes. They tend to confuse words
and forget words. Sight-word readers are limited to the words that they have memorized—they can not
make sense of unfamiliar words, and can not read text that is comprised of words outside of their sight
vocabulary.

As emergent readers become more advanced, they learn how to use the conventions of written English to
"sound out" or "decipher" words. This approach is generative, which means there is no limit to the number
of words that can be created or read by those with this ability. Consequently, young readers who can
decipher words can make sense of words they have never encountered before in print.

Unfortunately, in English, there is more to decoding than using the conventions of written English to
decipher words. In English, virtually every spelling-sound convention has exceptions—English would make
more sense if "one" sounded like "own" and if "too" did not sound like "two," but in English, there are a host
of words whose correct pronunciations violate the conventions of English spelling-sound relationships in
some way. To become an expert decoder, a child needs to learn to decipher words, but further, the child
needs to begin learning how to correctly identify irregular or exception words.

It is important to note that learning irregular words is a process that develops throughout a reader's life.
Even adult readers come across new words that are not pronounced the way they are spelled. (How do you
pronounce "calliope"?) However, it is reasonable to say that readers are decoding text appropriately if they
are correctly recognizing irregular or exception words within their vocabulary and pronouncing unfamiliar
words in a way consistent with the conventions of written English.

The elements that support language comprehension and decoding

We have described reading comprehension as the product of decoding skills and language comprehension
skills—both of which depend upon more fundamental cognitive elements. Each of these elements is worth
examining in some detail.

Language comprehension and the cognitive elements that support it

Children learn their native language relatively easily—they do not need much in the way of explicit
instruction to learn basic communication skills. Unless they are severely deprived of opportunities to
experience their language, almost all children develop those functional communication skills long before they
enter school. This process of language acquisition starts very early—in fact, there is evidence that children
begin learning about certain aspects of language while still in the womb. After they are born, children
naturally practice and experiment very actively with language.

Despite children’s natural tendencies to actively learn their native language, language skill instruction should
not be neglected in the classroom. Some children need to be taught some aspects of language formally and
explicitly. Children may need little formal instruction to be able to communicate basic needs, but for
academic success in a formal learning environment, children need to be versed in certain aspects of formal
language, decontextualized language, and metalinguistic knowledge.

It is rare to find children whose language experiences are so impoverished that their language development
is inadequate for basic communication, but it is not uncommon to find children who are not prepared to deal
with the formal, decontextualized language used in classrooms. Some children are raised in homes where
more formal, decontextualized language is common, and their early experiences with formal language
prepare them for the more formal learning environment of a classroom. However, other children do not
benefit from such rich and diverse language experience. While their language experience is typically
adequate for basic expression and typical discourse, they are at a disadvantage when trying to function in
academic settings.
Teachers should make no assumptions about their students’ language comprehension skills. They should
know that the children in their classes do not necessarily come from similar linguistic environments and may
not have approximately equal language development. Every child’s language skills need to be assessed, and
areas of need should be addressed.

To have strong language comprehension skills, children must know about the world in which
they live, and must have elaborate background knowledge that is relevant to what they are
trying to understand. This knowledge is more sophisticated than mere facts or word
definitions—it is a reference base for personal experiences, scripts, and schemas that help
those children understand how the world works.

To really understand and appreciate a story, children need to know more than the
definitions of words in the story; they need to have a frame of reference so they can make
sense of the plot.

Children learn by comparing new information against information they already have in their heads—and that
information must be relevant to the story they are listening to. "Casey at the bat," for instance, makes more
sense to people who are familiar with baseball, and teaching children about baseball will help them to
appreciate "Casey at the bat." This point seems trivially obvious, but the issue is raised here to emphasize a
non-trivial point—not all children have the same background knowledge. Children can not understand what
is being said to them if they do not share some background knowledge with the speaker. Likewise, they
cannot understand a story if they do not have some background knowledge related to the topic of the story.

Similarly, children depend on life experiences to develop schemas and scripts about how the world should
work. Certain events are more likely to happen at a baseball game than at a restaurant, and events typically
take place in a certain order or sequence. We depend on our internal schemas and scripts to help us
organize and anticipate events in a story.

Languages are composed of sounds that are assembled to form words, which are combined
to form sentences, which are arranged to convey ideas. Each of these processes is
constrained and governed by linguistic rules. An implicit knowledge of their structure and
their integration is essential to language comprehension. Three basic elements come
together to support linguistic knowledge:

 To understand language, one must be able to hear, distinguish and categorize the
sounds in speech (phonology).

 One needs to be implicitly familiar with the structure that constrains the way words fit together to
make phrases and sentences (syntax).

 One must be able to understand the meaning of individual words and sentences being spoken and
the meaningful relations between them (semantics).

Linguistic knowledge depends upon all three elements being synthesized rapidly and fluently. Each of these
elements can be examined in some detail.
 To understand spoken language, a child must be able to hear and distinguish the sounds
that make up the language. Virtually every child raised in a normal linguistic environment
has the ability to distinguish between different speech sounds in her native language.
Almost all native English speakers can therefore hear the difference between similar English
words like "grow" and "glow." When children produce these words themselves, however,
they may not be able to articulate distinctly enough for others to hear the distinction.
Difficulty with articulation does not imply difficulty with perception.

Hearing the difference between similar sounding words such as "grow" and "glow" is easy for most children,
but not for all children. Some children are raised in homes where English is not spoken, or where non-
standard dialects of English are spoken. Likewise, some children suffer auditory trauma or ear infections that
affect their ability to hear speech. Any child who is not consistently exposed to English phonology may have
difficulty perceiving the subtle differences between English phonemes. Obviously, children who are not able
to hear the difference between similar-sounding words like "grow" and "glow" will be confused when these
words appear in context, and their comprehension skills will suffer dramatically.

In German, the main verb typically comes at the end of a clause. In Romance languages,
adjectives typically follow the noun. Different languages have different rules of syntax that
constrain the way words and phrases can be arranged. In another language, the sentence,
"Billy has a black dog" might be written, "A dog black Billy has." However, the rules of
English syntax prohibit us from rearranging the words in sentences haphazardly. The way
that words are arranged in English sentences has a fairly stringent structure, and one does
not need to be able to formally diagram sentences to understand that structure implicitly.

The stringent structure of English syntax is not accidental. Syntax provides some meaning and helps
minimize ambiguity. Consider these actual newspaper headlines:

 "Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax"

 "Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter"
 "New York Police Kill Man with Hammer"

All of the words make sense, but the poor syntax makes the sentences ambiguous. People who have a
limited appreciation for English syntax may not understand why these sentences are confusing.

Syntax can also help people figure out meanings for unfamiliar words. For example, consider the sentence,
"I fell asleep while waiting for Mary to return from the tembal." Your knowledge of English syntax helps you
to develop some ideas about what "tembal" might mean, but if you were not familiar with English syntax,
you might not even know that "tembal" is a noun.

The fact that the rules of syntax change from language to language can confuse people learning English as a
second language. However, again, this is not exclusively a problem for second language learners. Children
who come from impoverished linguistic environments are usually comfortable only with very simple syntactic
structure. Unfortunately, without a moderately sophisticated implicit understanding of the rules of syntax,
language comprehension is severely limited for these children, especially when they are expected to work in
more formal linguistic settings like schools.

The ultimate goal of language is to convey meaning. While phonology carries information
that makes spoken words distinct, and syntax constrains the arrangement of words in
language, semantics refers to the information contained within the language. Semantics is a
global term that collectively describes meaning at three different levels of language; the discourse /
sentence level, the vocabulary level, and the morphology level.

Semantics at the discourse / sentence level

The celebrated linguist, Noam Chomsky, coined the sentence, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously," to
illustrate the fact that phonology and syntax can be preserved even in the absence of semantics. The words
in the sentence are composed of speech sounds found in English (otherwise, the words themselves would
not make sense), and the sentence is syntactically correct (the words sound right together), but the
sentence is not semantically acceptable.

Artificial, meaningless sentences like Chomsky’s do not come up often in typical conversation, but children
often face real sentences that do not make sense to them. To understand or gain meaning from speech, a
listener must examine meaning at several different levels simultaneously. At the more global level, meaning
can be examined at the level of discourse, sentences, and phrases. As Chomsky’s sentence illustrates, it is
possible to combine meaningful words in meaningless ways, but this is not typically a problem. People do
not make a habit of producing meaningless sentences deliberately. More typically, when meaning breaks
down at this global level, it is because a sentence has meaning for one person but not for another. (Or the
sentence may mean something different for another person.) Similarly, meaning may break down at the
global levels because certain statements or sentences do not fit appropriately in the discourse. If two people
are discussing literature, and one of them interjects a non sequitur about baseball, the other may wonder if
she has missed some part of the conversation.

Semantics at the vocabulary level

Meaning can also be examined at the level of the individual word (vocabulary). If you were learning a
foreign language, and you knew only the most basic words for communication, you would certainly have
difficulty understanding a native speaker. If you have studied the language, you might understand a few of
the words, and you might try to piece the words you know together to get the gist of the communication.
You would be attempting to assemble meaning at the sentence or phrase level, but you really would not
have much confidence in your understanding. You would probably perform poorly if you were tested on your
comprehension, especially if you did not understand some of the words in the test. To understand speech,
you have to understand most of the words that are spoken. (It is worth noting that while you can infer the
meaning of a few words from context, you must understand most of the words in order to build that
context.)

Children face this bewildering problem every day—people are constantly using words around them that they
do not understand. New vocabulary is introduced on a daily basis. The average student learns about eight
new words per day (3,000 words per year) for the first few years of formal education.

Semantics at the morphology level

The third and most basic level of meaning analysis is morphology, or the meaning of word parts. A
morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of speech, so a single word may contain more than one
morpheme (e.g., the word "smallest" has two morphemes, "small" and "est"—each part has meaning). A
child’s vocabulary is greatly enriched when the child learns to examine the structure of words—to examine
words at the morpheme level. The child learns that words with common roots have common meanings, and
that affixes influence the meaning of a word in specific ways. Children use their understanding of
morphology to learn new words, and when they learn to read, a good understanding of morphology helps
children spell and pronounce words correctly (helping them understand why "doing" does not rhyme with
"boing").

The problem of learning to read, as stated previously, is made up of two equally important
components: language comprehension and decoding. Even among children who have
adequate language comprehension skills, there are children who have difficulty reading because they have
only mastered one of the two components. Just as some children are fortunate to be raised in environments
rich in language experiences, some children are fortunate to be raised in homes surrounded by literature
and text. Usually, these environments are one in the same—but not always. Some children, for example,
come from cultures with rich storytelling traditions, but with limited use of text and writing. There are many
children who are only rarely exposed to text in their household—these children may enter school with only
scant appreciation for what text is. To be a good reader, a child will need to understand what text is, how it
works, and what it is used for. Unfortunately, as every teacher of young children knows, not all children
have the same foundations for literacy. The appreciation for text that children have when they come to
school varies tremendously, and this variability needs to be addressed as early as possible. Each child’s text-
related skills must be assessed, and focused instruction in appropriate reading and writing skills should start
as soon as the child comes to school, be that in first grade, kindergarten, or pre-kindergarten.

Researchers have found that a child's ability to decode words in the first grade is an excellent predictor of
the child’s reading comprehension skill in the fourth grade. Many organizations, such as the International
Reading Association (IRA) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), have
published position statements saying it is never too early to begin literacy instruction, and that literacy
instruction should be the concern of anybody working with young children (preschool, daycare, etc.). The
assessment and instruction provided in these vital first years of formal education should focus on the
cognitive elements that research has shown to be crucial to the process of developing decoding skills. These
areas include cipher knowledge, lexical knowledge, an awareness of phonemes, knowledge of the alphabetic
principle, knowledge of letters, and understanding concepts about print. Each of these cognitive elements
can be examined in turn.

Cipher knowledge basically refers to the underlying knowledge that allows children to read
and pronounce regular words correctly. The term "cipher knowledge" may not be a familiar
term, but it is a technically precise term, and if teachers are to become experts, they should
become familiar with the correct terminology. The technically precise term, "cipher
knowledge," is used here to distinguish it from "decoding." Again, if teachers are to become
experts, they should understand how a "cipher" differs from a "code."

While a cipher refers to a regular and consistent relationship, a code refers to a more
arbitrary and nonsystematic relationship. If you were to replace every letter in written English with a
number (e.g., a=1, b=2, c=3, etc.), then you would have developed a cipher, and "deciphering" it would be
a matter of following basic rules of translation. On the other hand, if you were to replace whole words with
arbitrary numbers (e.g., "the"=11, "of"=21, "and"=13, etc.), then you would have created a code, and a
codebook would be required for translation. Thus, when we talk about "deciphering" text, we are talking
about the ability to "sound out" regular words (sometimes called "word attack" skills). Cipher knowledge,
then, is demonstrated when a person appropriately sounds out words she has never seen before.

Early in the development of cipher knowledge, children learn that certain letter combinations are valid and
others are invalid. Young children who are gaining cipher knowledge, despite limited vocabularies, are able
to tell that "pem" could be a word, but that "pvm" could not possibly be.

As children continue to develop cipher knowledge, they begin to understand that the English writing system
is, for the most part, regular and consistent. They understand, at least implicitly, that words with similar
spellings are usually pronounced similarly. Children quickly start to recognize common letter groups in
words, and they begin to "read by analogy." Thus, when a child who has realized that words with similar
spellings are pronounced similarly comes across a word she has never seen before, such as "pone," she can
pronounce it correctly based on her knowledge of other similar words that she is familiar with, such as
"lone," "prone," "bone," "tone," "phone," "zone," or "cone." There is some small possibility that her
pronunciation will be incorrect ("pone" might rhyme with "done" or "gone"), but chances are the new word
will follow the same pattern as known words with similar spellings.
This ability to decipher words is critically important to decoding, and its usefulness can not be overstated.
This ability, like the English language itself, is generative, and the foundation of decoding rests upon the
ability to decipher.

Again, a technically precise, although probably unfamiliar term is used here: Lexical
knowledge simply refers to the knowledge that enables a child to correctly recognize and
pronounce familiar, irregular words. As discussed earlier, the English writing system is fairly
structured with some fairly consistent spelling-sound relationships. Some have attempted to
formally identify a set of "rules" that capture English spelling-sound relationships, but these
attempts have always been somewhat unsatisfactory — there are always many exceptions
to any rule. For example, in a phonics lesson, the teacher may tell the children, "Words that
end in silent-e have long vowels," but that is only true 60 percent of the time. Children
seem to be much better at recognizing patterns and making generalizations based upon observed patterns
than at applying explicit rules when decoding words.

The consistent patterns that exist in the English writing system would be described as the "cipher" (see
Cipher Knowledge). As children try to identify patterns, however, they are faced with potentially confusing
information because many words in English are "exception" or "irregular" words. The pronunciations of these
irregular words are not consistent with other words that are spelled similarly: "Colonel" really should not
sound like "kernel," and "tongue" ought to be spelled  T-U-N-G. Unfortunately, in order to become proficient
readers of English, children must be able to fluently and correctly identify both regular and irregular words.

Fortunately, even for irregular words, most of the word can be accurately deciphered or "sounded out." The
irregular word, "friend," for example, is only irregular because of the vowel sound—the rest of the word is
regular. Deciphering the word results in a pronunciation that is nearly correct—close enough that the young
reader can usually figure it out. (Extremely irregular words like "colonel" and "aisle" are actually rare in
English.) When a child encounters a regular word, deciphering it is enough, but when she encounters an
irregular word, after attempting to decipher it, the child may need to mentally compare that word against
other known words. To do this, the child needs an internal representation of all of the words she knows that
includes information about spelling, pronunciation, conjugation, meaning, and other relevant details.
Reading specialists call this internal representation of all of the words we know our "lexicon"—basically, it is
the dictionary in your head. To correctly pronounce irregular words, young readers depend upon their lexical
knowledge, which develops with practice, feedback, and exposure to text.

Lexical knowledge develops throughout a reader's life. (Even adults are constantly learning new words —
you, for example, might have just learned the word "lexicon.") But the development of lexical knowledge is
most visible in children. Young readers start out as sight-word readers: They memorize words as wholes, or
they look for some salient feature in a word. Sight-word reading is extremely inefficient and very limited,
but the few words the young reader is familiar with are all pronounced correctly. (Whether the word is
regular or irregular is not relevant at this point.)

When the child realizes the limitations of memorizing whole words and starts learning to decipher words, she
may appear to be taking a step backwards. She might struggle to recognize and correctly pronounce
irregular words that she seemed to know previously. Eventually, through experience with the words and
with feedback from the teacher, she will begin to learn correct pronunciations for irregular words. The more
the child reads, and the more feedback she gets, the more irregular words she will be able to identify
correctly.

Spoken words are made up of sounds. This is obvious to adults, but it is surprisingly
obscure for young children who perceive spoken words as wholes. Within a word, there may
be other words (as in the case of compound words). There may also be multiple syllables.
And, of course, every spoken word is comprised of phonemes.

When a child becomes generally aware of the fact that spoken words are made up of sounds, she is
described as having "phonological awareness." Phonological awareness can take the form of awareness of
rhyme, awareness of syllables, awareness of the onsets of words, etc.

Do not confuse phonological awareness with

phoneme awareness, however. Phoneme awareness
Phonological awareness is different from phoneme
is a more specific term that falls under the umbrella
of phonological awareness. It refers to the specific awareness. Or more precisely, phoneme awareness is a
understanding that spoken words are made up of type of phonological awareness. Skills that would
individual phonemes—not just sounds in general, but generally be described as phonological awareness skills
phonemes. Children with phoneme awareness know include the ability to rhyme words, the ability to break
that the word "wait" is made up of three phonemes, words into syllables, and the ability to break syllables
and that the words "pill" and "map" both contain the
  into their onset and rime. Phoneme awareness goes  
phoneme /p/. In short, they know that phonemes
are the building blocks of spoken words, and that beyond phonological awareness by placing the emphasis
these building blocks can be rearranged and on the individual phonemes within the word. Phoneme
substituted to make different words. awareness skills, then, would include the ability to isolate
a phoneme (first, middle, or last) from the rest of the
Phonological awareness is a step in the right word, the ability to segment words into individual
direction, but phoneme awareness is what is phonemes, or the ability to delete a specified phoneme
necessary for the child to understand that the letters from a word.
in written words represent the phonemes in spoken
words (the alphabetic principle). Understanding that
the letter M stands for the sound /m/, by itself, is not
phoneme awareness. Teachers need to ensure that
children understand that, for example, the word "camel" has an /m/ sound in it, and that the /m/ sound in
the middle of "camel" is the same as the /m/ sound at the end of "home" and at the beginning of "moon."

Phoneme awareness and phonological awareness are often confused with phonics, but phonics is an
instructional approach that emphasizes letter-sound relationships and rules for pronunciation. The emphasis
in a phonics classroom is the mapping between letters and phonemes (as in the previous example—the
letter m represents the sound /m/). Phoneme awareness is not necessarily related to phonics. It is possible
for a child to have phoneme awareness without having much experience with written letters or with letter
names, and conversely it is possible for a child to provide examples of letter-sound relationships without
ever developing phoneme awareness (a child with no phoneme awareness may know the letter m represents
the sound /m/ without knowing that the word "ham" has an /m/ sound in it). Many children do not develop
phoneme awareness from traditional phonics instruction; simply learning letter-sound relationships does not
necessarily help a child to gain phoneme awareness. New phonics programs are incorporating explicit
instruction in phoneme awareness, but traditionally, phoneme awareness instruction was never a part of
phonics classrooms.

Another concept that people often confuse with phoneme awareness is phonology. However, phonology (as
discussed in the elements under language comprehension), has to do with being able to distinguish between
similar phonemes when they are embedded in the context of whole words. Phonology has to do with being
able to hear the difference between the spoken words "sip" and "ship;" phoneme awareness has to do with
being aware that the word "sip" is made up of three sounds: /s/, /i/ and /p/. Most children entering school
have normal phonologic skills, but most children lack phoneme awareness when they come to school. For
most children, phoneme awareness must be explicitly taught.

The importance of teaching phoneme awareness cannot be overstated. Hundreds of studies of phoneme
awareness conducted over the past 25 years indicate the following:

 Phoneme awareness is essential to the process of learning to read.

 Explicitly teaching phoneme awareness facilitates later reading acquisition.
 Some reading failure has been linked to a lack of phoneme awareness.
As important as it is, however, it is possible to go overboard teaching phoneme awareness. English contains
many confusing phonemes such as diphthongs and glides that even mature, experienced readers can have
trouble identifying. (How many phonemes do you hear in "play" or "cube"?) Furthermore, certain phonemes
are not universally defined. (What are the phonemes in "wring" or "fur"?)

It is important for the teacher to remember that a child does not need to be an Olympic champion at
phoneme manipulation; she just needs to demonstrate knowledge of the fact that spoken words are made
up of phonemes and that phonemes can be rearranged and manipulated to make different words. That level
of awareness is all a child needs to understand the alphabetic principle (more on that later), which is
the only reason that phoneme awareness is important in learning to decode text. An appropriate level of
phoneme awareness can be instilled and supported with a select subset of phonemes. Phoneme awareness
can be taught using words that do not contain consonant clusters or glides, and that have phonemes which
are easy to pronounce in isolation. (The phoneme /b/, for example, is often avoided in phoneme awareness
lessons because it can not be pronounced without a subsequent vowel sound. Pronouncing /b/ so that it
sounds like /buh/ is confusing to a child trying to develop phoneme awareness.)

Teaching Listening : Top Down or Bottom Up?

In a previous article, I made a distinction between teaching listening and practising listening.
Practising listening is just a matter of giving students constant and frequent exposure to the language,
and presumes that this will gradually increase their familiarity with its sounds, rhythm, intonation etc,
allowing easier decoding. An approach aimed at teaching listening, on the other hand, starts from the
premise that the students’ comprehension is blocked by specific features of the language or listening
process, and that in our lessons we can focus on those features one at a time and improve the
students’ ability to deal with them. We looked in detail at what some of those features might be in the
article Why Don’t They Understand? If we are teaching, rather than just practising listening, the focus
on these features will form the objectives of our listening lesson.

In recent years there have been two major approaches to explaining the listening process – rather
unfortunately called the top-down and bottom-up approaches. The bottom-up approach sees
comprehension as a matter of listeners first decoding (or understanding) the smallest elements of what
they hear – the sounds. /p/ is recognised as being /p/ and not /b/, /i:/ as being /i:/ and not /i/ or /e/
and so on. These sounds are then combined and the individual words are decoded – the listener
recognises that s/he has heard /pi:t/ and not /pit/ /bit/ /bi:t/ /bi:d/ or some other word. The words
are then combined into sentences and the listener works out the meaning of /pi:t/ : as in I saw Pete
yesterday or I bought some peat for the garden. To this will be added recognition of features such as
intonation and so on, until we finally reach the non-linguistic context.

The top-down approach starts from the opposite end : it sees understanding as starting from the
listener’s background knowledge of the non-linguistic context and of working down towards the
individual sounds. Listeners will actively interpret what they hear in terms of their understanding of
the situation and the world in general. For example, imagine I tell you :

McKenzy brought me another present today. It was too late to save it so I buried it in the garden. I
think I’m going to have to put a bell round his neck.

You will certainly understand all the words in this passage, but do you understand the meaning? Think
back to what happened as you read. The first sentence probably went quite smoothly. But there was
more than just decoding of words going on. Without your even being aware of it, subconscious
expectations were forming in your mind based on your knowledge of the world – McKenzy is probably a
friend, probably a man as only the surname is used, the present will be something nice etc. The
existence of these presuppositions is shown by the fact that you probably did a double-take when you
got to the second sentence – buried it? Eh?? And at that point you will have started to search quite
consciously for the meaning.

Maybe by the end you’d worked it out. If so, then notice that it was your knowledge of the world which
helped you understand – not what’s in the text. Or maybe you’re still in the dark. I can help you by
giving you some contextual or situational knowledge : McKenzy is the name of my cat. Combine that
with your knowledge of the world (the habit cats have of bringing their owners “presents” of half dead
birds and mice which they’ve caught, and the fact that the noise of a bell will prevent the cat from
creeping up on them unheard) and you have the meaning of the passage.

However much help you did or didn’t need, you can see that in understanding the passage a lot more
was going on than just passively decoding the sounds (or in this case letters, as you were reading it -
but the principle is the same) then the words, then the sentences. Your mind was working actively to
interpret the passage, and using a large amount of non-textual information to do so. And how easy it
was will depend on how close to the forefront of your mind that information was. If, as you read the
passage, your cat was sitting on your lap, you probably tuned in immediately. If you have never owned
a cat, it may have taken longer.

In recent years it has been the chief approach to listening comprehension in the EFL classroom, and has
led to teachers telling students things such as You don’t need to understand every word, What would
you expect him to say? or Try and identify the main ideas and guess the rest.

I’m not trying to suggest that this is not a valid approach. It is. The switch to a top-down approach was
a necessary change from the exaggerated bottom-up approach which in some cases remained current in
foreign language teaching as late as the 1960s. In this approach, the learner’s listening ability was seen
as being evidenced by his or her ability to take down a dictated paragraph in exactly the same form as
it was read out, or to answer detailed comprehension questions on a written passage read by the
teacher. With no exposure to the natural features of spoken language, and with no training in the type
of listening strategies emphasised in the top-down approach, it was little wonder that even supposedly
advanced level students returned from their first trip to Britain, the States etc saying I didn’t
understand a word anyone said!

Since the mid-20th century, things have changed. The advent of the tape recorder meant that recorded
dialogues could be used in the classroom for the first time. Research into the spoken language and the
invention of video as well as audio tape led to the use of authentic and semi-authentic materials which
incorporated the type of features of the spoken language which I focused on in Why Don’t They
Understand? And finally, research into the listening process itself led to our recognition of the
importance of top-down processing.

But have we gone too far? Students still come back from their trips saying I didn’t understand a
word and still frequently hate doing listening comprehension in the classroom. However often the
teacher says If you’ve been able to answer the questions then you’ve understood the text, they don’t
really believe it. They know there were chunks that they were unable to decode, and feel insecure – in
the worst case scenario losing confidence in the teacher or the course.

Why is this happening? I would suggest that for a while we went too far over to the other extreme, and
have often forgotten that, even if they start from the top, students still need to get to the bottom.
Listening lessons have tended to stop half-way. We help students apply knowledge of the world and
contextual knowledge to the text. We encourage them to focus on what they do understand rather
than what they don’t by teaching them to focus on key words and infer connections. All this is valid
and necessary. But what about the rest? I would argue that if we are going to help students improve
their comprehension, we do need to focus on what they don’t understand. For example, if the item
that blocked comprehension was a weak form we need to help them analyse the pronunciation features
so that they will be more ready for it the next time. For while it is true that native speakers don’t
“hear” every word either, there’s a difference. If, as a native speaker I hear a sequence of sounds
something like umgernaseeyimlader or eelerbinsurprised, I have no trouble decoding those sentences
as I’m going to see him later and He’ll have been surprised, even though I can’t be said, for example,
to have heard the words to, will or have – they simply weren’t there. But as a native speaker I have a
non-conscious knowledge of both the phonological features and the grammar of the language. The first,
for example, means that I expect him to be pronounced /ɪm/, and know that if /ɪm/ is preceeded by a
vowel, the linking consonant /j/ will be inserted. So when I hear what is apparently “yim”, I have no
problem decoding it as him. Decoding “er” (the schwa sound) as have is also a matter of knowing
that have is often pronounced like this in a unstressed position, but it is also helped by my knowledge
of grammar : I know that if I’ve decoded will and been, then have must be in the middle, whether I
hear it or not.

Non-consciously then, my native-speaker brain is working actively to interpret the sounds and to give
them a meaning. It’s a bit like the picture above. What do you see? A face? Rubbish – it’s just two
circles, a straight line and a curved line. Totally unconnected. But your brain puts them together and
tries to make sense of them. Because it’s seen a lot of faces and knows that they have to have those
elements, that’s what it sees. It’s the same with listening - the words don't have to "be there" for the
competent listener to "hear" them.

The problem for our learners of course is that they don’t have native speaker competence and
therefore their brains can’t “fill in the gaps” like this. Which is why, using the top-down approach, we
need to help them develop other listening strategies to the full, to help them to compensate.
However, by also taking a bottom-up approach, I think we can help them improve their ability to
decode sounds , words and phrases

I’ll exemplify this in the next article in this series, Planning the Listening Lesson,  by looking at a
possible structure for a listening lesson which incorporates both approaches. It starts with a top-down
approach, but then moves on to activities aimed at improving students ability to decode sounds, words
and phrases “bottom-up”.
What Is the Top-Down Reading Model?
For current adults, recollections of their early years as students attempting to learn to read
probably calls to mind memories of tracing letters, of sounding out letters, of beginning to
sound out words and eventually reading books of increasing size, density and abstract content.

This is the traditional model of teaching reading. In many ways, it is effective, but as research
into cognitive processes continues to develop and teachers seek ways to engage all learning
styles, a number of other reading models have been introduced to the classroom.

The top-down theory of reading is designed to teach children to read using the theory that it is
the brain of the reader and not the words on the page that make sense of what is written. This
sounds abstract and potentially confusing, especially to parents who wonder why the method that
they grew up with isn't good enough anymore.

How Is the Top-Down Theory of Reading Implemented?

In the top-down reading model, the emphasis is placed on a student's engagement with the text. It
is not enough to get students to simply know the word they see, understand its general meaning
and know how to pronounce it if reading aloud. The goal of the top-down reading theory is to get
students to become active readers. Active readers have increased comprehension skills and
larger vocabularies and are more capable of engaging in abstract and logical thought.

Active readers have meaningful engagement with the text. A large reason for this is that active
readers tend to pursue texts in which they are interested. Rather than simply being able to read
the words off an exercise page that is presented to them, top-down readers learn by reading
actual texts that they choose and begin to decode with the help of a teacher.

When students select a certain text, they have to use clues beyond sounding out words to
understand what they are reading. They need to bring themselves and their experiences to what
they know of the subject matter. The top-down theory of perception posits that it is this
connection between what a reader's unique brain perceives when reading and the words on the
page that produces meaning.

What Is the Bottom-Up Theory of Reading?

However good at creating actively engaged readers, the top-down approach in reading does not
work solely on its own. Students still need to have a grasp of phonics, spelling and the
alphabet to engage with any text. This is where the bottom-up theory comes into play. While the
top-down approach in reading has been shown to have significant benefits, it cannot succeed
alone.
The bottom-up reading model is what most parents of children are familiar with: learning the
alphabet, learning what sounds the letters make, beginning to string the sounds together while
getting an understanding of phonics and then eventually approaching a text. The top-down model
incorporates much of this work into its approach. By choosing a real text with which to engage,
the student begins to feel an imperative to decode the words.

The bottom-up model helps the top-down model to do what it does so well. Students begin to
recognize words, which increases their speed and begins to give them the chance to use context
to figure out what new words are. The context is also supplied by the theme or content of the
work in question. Readers are not passive recipients of information but are active contributors to
the meaning of the text.

Phonics Instruction
By: National Reading Panel

Phonics instruction is a way of teaching reading that stresses the acquisition of letter-sound
correspondences and their use in reading and spelling.

The primary focus of phonics instruction is to help beginning readers understand how letters are
linked to sounds (phonemes) to form letter-sound correspondences and spelling patterns and to
help them learn how to apply this knowledge in their reading.

Phonics instruction may be provided systematically or incidentally. The hallmark of a systematic

phonics approach or program is that a sequential set of phonics elements is delineated and these
elements are taught along a dimension of explicitness depending on the type of phonics method
employed. Conversely, with incidental phonics instruction, the teacher does not follow a planned
sequence of phonics elements to guide instruction but highlights particular elements
opportunistically when they appear in text.

Types of phonics instructional methods and approaches

This table depicts several different types of phonics instructional approaches that vary according
to the unit of analysis or how letter-sound combinations are represented to the student. For
example, in synthetic phonics approaches, students are taught to link an individual letter or
letter combination with its appropriate sound and then blend the sounds to form words. In
analytic phonics, students are first taught whole word units followed by systematic instruction
linking the specific letters in the word with their respective sounds.
 Phonics instruction can also vary with respect to the explicitness by which the phonic elements
are taught and practiced in the reading of text. For example, many synthetic phonics approaches
use direct instruction in teaching phonics components and provide opportunities for applying
these skills in decodable text formats characterized by a controlled vocabulary. On the other
hand, embedded phonics approaches are typically less explicit and use decodable text for
practice less frequently, although the phonics concepts to be learned can still be presented
systematically.
 Analogy phonics

Teaching students unfamiliar words by analogy to known words (e.g., recognizing that the rime
segment of an unfamiliar word is identical to that of a familiar word, and then blending the
known rime with the new word onset, such as reading brick by recognizing that -ick is contained
in the known word kick, or reading stump by analogy to jump).

 Analytic phonics

Teaching students to analyze letter-sound relations in previously learned words to avoid

pronouncing sounds in isolation.

 Embedded phonics

Teaching students phonics skills by embedding phonics instruction in text reading, a more
implicit approach that relies to some extent on incidental learning.

 Phonics through spelling

Teaching students to segment words into phonemes and to select letters for those phonemes
(i.e., teaching students to spell words phonemically).

 Synthetic phonics

Teaching students explicitly to convert letters into sounds (phonemes) and then blend the
sounds to form recognizable words.

Findings and determinations

The meta-analysis revealed that systematic phonics instruction produces significant benefits for
students in kindergarten through 6th grade and for children having difficulty learning to read.
The ability to read and spell words was enhanced in kindergartners who received systematic
beginning phonics instruction. First graders who were taught phonics systematically were better
able to decode and spell, and they showed significant improvement in their ability to comprehend
text. Older children receiving phonics instruction were better able to decode and spell words and
to read text orally, but their comprehension of text was not significantly improved.

Systematic synthetic phonics instruction (see table for definition) had a positive and significant
effect on disabled readers' reading skills. These children improved substantially in their ability to
read words and showed significant, albeit small, gains in their ability to process text as a result
of systematic synthetic phonics instruction. This type of phonics instruction benefits both
students with learning disabilities and low-achieving students who are not disabled. Moreover,
systematic synthetic phonics instruction was significantly more effective in improving low
socioeconomic status (SES) children's alphabetic knowledge and word reading skills than
instructional approaches that were less focused on these initial reading skills.

Across all grade levels, systematic phonics instruction improved the ability of good readers to
spell. The impact was strongest for kindergartners and decreased in later grades. For poor
readers, the impact of phonics instruction on spelling was small, perhaps reflecting the consistent
finding that disabled readers have trouble learning to spell.

Although conventional wisdom has suggested that kindergarten students might not be ready for
phonics instruction, this assumption was not supported by the data. The effects of systematic
early phonics instruction were significant and substantial in kindergarten and the 1st grade,
indicating that systematic phonics programs should be implemented at those age and grade
levels.

The NRP analysis indicated that systematic phonics instruction is ready for implementation in the
classroom. Findings of the Panel regarding the effectiveness of explicit, systematic phonics
instruction were derived from studies conducted in many classrooms with typical classroom
teachers and typical American or English-speaking students from a variety of backgrounds and
socioeconomic levels.

Thus, the results of the analysis are indicative of what can be accomplished when explicit,
systematic phonics programs are implemented in today's classrooms. Systematic phonics
instruction has been used widely over a long period of time with positive results, and a variety of
systematic phonics programs have proven effective with children of different ages, abilities, and
socioeconomic backgrounds.

Discussion
These facts and findings provide converging evidence that explicit, systematic phonics instruction
is a valuable and essential part of a successful classroom reading program. However, there is a
need to be cautious in giving a blanket endorsement of all kinds of phonics instruction.

It is important to recognize that the goals of phonics instruction are to provide children with key
knowledge and skills and to ensure that they know how to apply that knowledge in their reading
and writing. In other words, phonics teaching is a means to an end.

To be able to make use of letter-sound information, children need phonemic awareness. That is,
they need to be able to blend sounds together to decode words, and they need to break spoken
words into their constituent sounds to write words. Programs that focus too much on the
teaching of letter-sound relations and not enough on putting them to use are unlikely to be very
effective.

In implementing systematic phonics instruction, educators must keep the end in mind and
ensure that children understand the purpose of learning letter sounds and that they are able to
apply these skills accurately and fluently in their daily reading and writing activities.

Of additional concern is the often-heard call for "intensive, systematic" phonics instruction.
Usually the term "intensive" is not defined. How much is required to be considered intensive?

In addition, it is not clear how many months or years a phonics program should continue. If
phonics has been systematically taught in kindergarten and 1st grade, should it continue to be
emphasized in 2nd grade and beyond? How long should single instruction sessions last? How
much ground should be covered in a program? Specifically, how many letter-sound relations
should be taught, and how many different ways of using these relations to read and write words
should be practiced for the benefits of phonics to be maximized? These questions remain for
future research.

Another important area is the role of the teacher. Some phonics programs showing large effect
sizes require teachers to follow a set of specific instructions provided by the publisher; while this
may standardize the instructional sequence, it also may reduce teacher interest and motivation.
Thus, one concern is how to maintain consistency of instruction while still encouraging the
unique contributions of teachers. Other programs require a sophisticated knowledge of spelling,
structural linguistics, or word etymology. In view of the evidence showing the effectiveness of
systematic phonics instruction, it is important to ensure that the issue of how best to prepare
teachers to carry out this teaching effectively and creatively is given high priority.

Knowing that all phonics programs are not the same brings with it the implication that teachers
must themselves be educated about how to evaluate different programs to determine which ones
are based on strong evidence and how they can most effectively use these programs in their own
classrooms. It is therefore important that teachers be provided with evidence-based preservice
training and ongoing inservice training to select (or develop) and implement the most
appropriate phonics instruction effectively.

A common question with any instructional program is whether "one size fits all." Teachers may
be able to use a particular program in the classroom but may find that it suits some students
better than others. At all grade levels, but particularly in kindergarten and the early grades,
children are known to vary greatly in the skills they bring to school. Some children will already
know letter-sound correspondences, and some will even be able to decode words, while others
will have little or no letter knowledge.

Teachers should be able to assess the needs of the individual students and tailor instruction to
meet specific needs. However, it is more common for phonics programs to present a fixed
sequence of lessons scheduled from the beginning to the end of the school year. In light of this,
teachers need to be flexible in their phonics instruction in order to adapt it to individual student
needs.

Children who have already developed phonics skills and can apply them appropriately in the
reading process do not require the same level and intensity of phonics instruction provided to
children at the initial phases of reading acquisition. Thus, it will also be critical to determine
objectively the ways in which systematic phonics instruction can be optimally incorporated and
integrated in complete and balanced programs of reading instruction. Part of this effort should be
directed at preservice and inservice education to provide teachers with decision-making
frameworks to guide their selection, integration, and implementation of phonics instruction within
a complete reading program.

Teachers must understand that systematic phonics instruction is only one component – albeit a
necessary component – of a total reading program; systematic phonics instruction should be
integrated with other reading instruction in phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension
strategies to create a complete reading program.

While most teachers and educational decision-makers recognize this, there may be a tendency in
some classrooms, particularly in 1st grade, to allow phonics to become the dominant component,
not only in the time devoted to it, but also in the significance attached. It is important not to
judge children's reading competence solely on the basis of their phonics skills and not to devalue
their interest in books because they cannot decode with complete accuracy. It is also critical for
teachers to understand that systematic phonics instruction can be provided in an entertaining,
vibrant, and creative manner.

Systematic phonics instruction is designed to increase accuracy in decoding and word recognition
skills, which in turn facilitate comprehension. However, it is again important to note that fluent
and automatic application of phonics skills to text is another critical skill that must be taught and
learned to maximize oral reading and reading comprehension. This issue again underscores the
need for teachers to understand that while phonics skills are necessary in order to learn to read,
they are not sufficient in their own right. Phonics skills must be integrated with the development
of phonemic awareness, fluency, and text reading comprehension skills.