Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

This paper discusses the place of reading instruction in the education of brain-injured children and presents some arguments for early reading instruction for children in general. Reading instruction is especially suitable for brain-injured children because reading presents an additional means of stimulating the brain. Meaning is attached to printed words in exactly the same way that meaning is attached to spoken words. The ideal age for learning to read is identical with the ideal age for learning speech. Case histories indicate that the brain grows in response to the demands placed on it. (VM)

This book provides directions and sample activities to help parents teach their children to follow an easy system for study reading: set clear purposes for study; ask targeted questions; read quickly for specific information; summarize effectively; and gather information from charts and tables. The first section, Flexibility and Reading Speed, discusses basic procedures for study reading--the PARS Approach (purposes, ask, read, summarize). It also discusses notetaking and speed reading. The second section addresses following instructions and reading graphs and tables. Based on the self-directed learner philosophy, this book and the others in the series provide: essential comprehension techniques; basic vocabulary and phonics skills; clear guidelines for efficient study; critical thinking frameworks; and activities that lead to becoming a self-directed learner. Each book in the series also provides quick answers to pressing learning problems; easy practice activities for basic skills; common language explanations; and step-by-step guidance to engage children in active learning. (RS)

This book provides directions and sample activities to help parents teach their children to follow an easy system for study reading: set clear purposes for study; ask targeted questions; read quickly for specific information; summarize effectively; and gather information from charts and tables. The first section, Flexibility and Reading Speed, discusses basic procedures for study reading--the PARS Approach (purposes, ask, read, summarize). It also discusses notetaking and speed reading. The second section addresses following instructions and reading graphs and tables. Based on the self-directed learner philosophy, this book and the others in the series provide: essential comprehension techniques; basic vocabulary and phonics skills; clear guidelines for efficient study; critical thinking frameworks; and activities that lead to becoming a self-directed learner. Each book in the series also provides quick answers to pressing learning problems; easy practice activities for basic skills; common language explanations; and step-by-step guidance to engage children in active learning. (RS)

This bulletin is concerned with how children learn to read. It describes as simply as possible the teacher's part in the reading experiences children have, and the ways parents can help in making the learning-to-read years of the child's life both happy and successful. Learning to read is not limited to the first grade. During each year a child spends in school, he discovers new ways to use reading for information and for pleasure and as he does so he needs to acquire new and more complex skills. He does not acquire these incidentally but is guided by good teachers who see the importance of reading throughout the lifetime of every individual. The part of the bulletin that deals with skills in the mechanics of reading is an attempt to explain to parents, especially, why and how methods of teaching beginning reading have changed. Of equal importance to the parents should be the suggestions of ways they can use to determine how well a child is reading. Teachers and parents may find the point of view developed here one that is suitable for use as a springboard in discussing together the reading program in the individual school. It is there that school and community should evaluate today's reading methods and purposes as objectively as possible. Following a foreword, contents of this bulletin include: (1) What happens when a child starts to kindergarten?; (2) Suppose a child doesn't go to kindergarten?; (3) What happens when a child enters first grade?; (4) What about the children who are slow in "catching on"?; (5) What are the next steps in learning to read?; (6) What are these basic skills in the mechanics of reading?; (7) How then is a child helped to recognize words he has met before and to take apart the new words that he meets for the first time?; (8) What are the learning-to-read problems of the child in the intermediate grades?; (9) How does a child learn to read?; and (10) How can a parent judge whether or not his child is reading up to capacity? (Contains 4 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.]

This bulletin is concerned with how children learn to read. It describes as simply as possible the teacher's part in the reading experiences children have, and the ways parents can help in making the learning-to-read years of the child's life both happy and successful. Learning to read is not limited to the first grade. During each year a child spends in school, he discovers new ways to use reading for information and for pleasure and as he does so he needs to acquire new and more complex skills. He does not acquire these incidentally but is guided by good teachers who see the importance of reading throughout the lifetime of every individual. The part of the bulletin that deals with skills in the mechanics of reading is an attempt to explain to parents, especially, why and how methods of teaching beginning reading have changed. Of equal importance to the parents should be the suggestions of ways they can use to determine how well a child is reading. Teachers and parents may find the point of view developed here one that is suitable for use as a springboard in discussing together the reading program in the individual school. It is there that school and community should evaluate today's reading methods and purposes as objectively as possible. Following a foreword, contents of this bulletin include: (1) What happens when a child starts to kindergarten?; (2) Suppose a child doesn't go to kindergarten?; (3) What happens when a child enters first grade?; (4) What about the children who are slow in "catching on"?; (5) What are the next steps in learning to read?; (6) What are these basic skills in the mechanics of reading?; (7) How then is a child helped to recognize words he has met before and to take apart the new words that he meets for the first time?; (8) What are the learning-to-read problems of the child in the intermediate grades?; (9) How does a child learn to read?; and (10) How can a parent judge whether or not his child is reading up to capacity? (Contains 4 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.]

This bulletin is concerned with how children learn to read. It describes as simply as possible the teacher's part in the reading experiences children have, and the ways parents can help in making the learning-to-read years of the child's life both happy and successful. Learning to read is not limited to the first grade. During each year a child spends in school, he discovers new ways to use reading for information and for pleasure and as he does so he needs to acquire new and more complex skills. He does not acquire these incidentally but is guided by good teachers who see the importance of reading throughout the lifetime of every individual. The part of the bulletin that deals with skills in the mechanics of reading is an attempt to explain to parents, especially, why and how methods of teaching beginning reading have changed. Of equal importance to the parents should be the suggestions of ways they can use to determine how well a child is reading. Teachers and parents may find the point of view developed here one that is suitable for use as a springboard in discussing together the reading program in the individual school. It is there that school and community should evaluate today's reading methods and purposes as objectively as possible. Following a foreword, contents of this bulletin include: (1) What happens when a child starts to kindergarten?; (2) Suppose a child doesn't go to kindergarten?; (3) What happens when a child enters first grade?; (4) What about the children who are slow in "catching on"?; (5) What are the next steps in learning to read?; (6) What are these basic skills in the mechanics of reading?; (7) How then is a child helped to recognize words he has met before and to take apart the new words that he meets for the first time?; (8) What are the learning-to-read problems of the child in the intermediate grades?; (9) How does a child learn to read?; and (10) How can a parent judge whether or not his child is reading up to capacity? (Contains 4 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.]

Addressing current research on the foundational skills of reading for the state of Alaska, this booklet is designed to get the most current information available about how children learn to read into the hands of everyone who can help children learn and grow as readers. It outlines previously researched core abilities including phonemic awareness, alphabetic principles, sound-spelling correspondence, decoding ability, comprehension skills, and spelling, vocabulary, and writing skills. The booklet discusses essential components of research-based programs for beginning reading instruction and features of classrooms and schools that support effective beginning reading instruction. It then outlines reading performance standards and includes a chart indicating proficiency levels for Alaska Performance Standards for Reading. (SC)

Addressing current research on the foundational skills of reading for the state of Alaska, this booklet is designed to get the most current information available about how children learn to read into the hands of everyone who can help children learn and grow as readers. It outlines previously researched core abilities including phonemic awareness, alphabetic principles, sound-spelling correspondence, decoding ability, comprehension skills, and spelling, vocabulary, and writing skills. The booklet discusses essential components of research-based programs for beginning reading instruction and features of classrooms and schools that support effective beginning reading instruction. It then outlines reading performance standards and includes a chart indicating proficiency levels for Alaska Performance Standards for Reading. (SC)

Suggesting that the contention that phonemic awareness must be taught directly and that children need explicit systematic instruction in phonics is less of a scientific "fact" than an exercise in political persuasion, this book presents the story of the political campaign that is taking place to change the minds of Americans about how young children learn to read. The book begins with a close look at the empirical research being used to support a massive shift in the national understandings about language, literacy, and learning and concludes by revealing the ways in which research studies on early reading instruction are being used by the federal and state governments to support a new methodology that has turned early reading instruction into "a massive business of unprecedented commercial worth." The chapters in the book are: (1) In Which We Are Told Training in Phonemic Awareness Is the Key to Reading Success; (2) In Which Phonemic Awareness Research Is Analyzed from an Experimental Psychological Perspective; (3) In Which Phonemic Awareness Research Is Analyzed from a Sociocultural Perspective; (4) In Which We Find Foorman's Research Does Not Support the NICHD [National Institute of Child Health and Human Development] Proposition That "Phonological Processing Is the Primary Area Where Children with Reading Difficulties Differ from Other Children"; (5) In Which Teachers Are Turned into Clerks and We Discuss Power, Privilege, Racism and Hegemony; (6) In Which Governor Bush's Business Council Holds a Pre-Summit Meeting in Texas; (7) In Which We Have an"If-They-Say-It's-So-It-Must-Be-So" Attitude toward Experimental Research; (8) In Which the Kindergarten Children in North Carolina Are No Longer Expected To Try To Read and Write; (9) In Which I Become the Documentation on Which I Build My Case; (10) In Which We Are Told That in America We Are All Equal. Are We or Aren't We?; (11) In Which We Find the Desks and Chairs Are Broken and the Toilets Don't Work; (12) In Which We Ask: Do You Think America Likes Children?; (13) In Which We Consider If We Are Comfortable Mandating Reading Programs based on Neuroimaging Research and Genetic Studies of Reading Disabilities; (14) In Which California Politically Reinvents How Young Children Learn To Read; (15) In Which California Ends Local Control and the State Board of Education Leads the Jihad; and (16) In Which We Enter the Central Chamber of the Hegemonic Labyrinth. (Contains approximately 250 references; an appendix that offers a response to preliminary statistical analyses used to support the nationally publicized findings of the NICHD Houston reading studies, and an appendix that offers "late-breaking" news about the NICHD Houston reading studies are attached.) (RS)

Suggesting that the contention that phonemic awareness must be taught directly and that children need explicit systematic instruction in phonics is less of a scientific "fact" than an exercise in political persuasion, this book presents the story of the political campaign that is taking place to change the minds of Americans about how young children learn to read. The book begins with a close look at the empirical research being used to support a massive shift in the national understandings about language, literacy, and learning and concludes by revealing the ways in which research studies on early reading instruction are being used by the federal and state governments to support a new methodology that has turned early reading instruction into "a massive business of unprecedented commercial worth." The chapters in the book are: (1) In Which We Are Told Training in Phonemic Awareness Is the Key to Reading Success; (2) In Which Phonemic Awareness Research Is Analyzed from an Experimental Psychological Perspective; (3) In Which Phonemic Awareness Research Is Analyzed from a Sociocultural Perspective; (4) In Which We Find Foorman's Research Does Not Support the NICHD [National Institute of Child Health and Human Development] Proposition That "Phonological Processing Is the Primary Area Where Children with Reading Difficulties Differ from Other Children"; (5) In Which Teachers Are Turned into Clerks and We Discuss Power, Privilege, Racism and Hegemony; (6) In Which Governor Bush's Business Council Holds a Pre-Summit Meeting in Texas; (7) In Which We Have an"If-They-Say-It's-So-It-Must-Be-So" Attitude toward Experimental Research; (8) In Which the Kindergarten Children in North Carolina Are No Longer Expected To Try To Read and Write; (9) In Which I Become the Documentation on Which I Build My Case; (10) In Which We Are Told That in America We Are All Equal. Are We or Aren't We?; (11) In Which We Find the Desks and Chairs Are Broken and the Toilets Don't Work; (12) In Which We Ask: Do You Think America Likes Children?; (13) In Which We Consider If We Are Comfortable Mandating Reading Programs based on Neuroimaging Research and Genetic Studies of Reading Disabilities; (14) In Which California Politically Reinvents How Young Children Learn To Read; (15) In Which California Ends Local Control and the State Board of Education Leads the Jihad; and (16) In Which We Enter the Central Chamber of the Hegemonic Labyrinth. (Contains approximately 250 references; an appendix that offers a response to preliminary statistical analyses used to support the nationally publicized findings of the NICHD Houston reading studies, and an appendix that offers "late-breaking" news about the NICHD Houston reading studies are attached.) (RS)

Suggesting that the contention that phonemic awareness must be taught directly and that children need explicit systematic instruction in phonics is less of a scientific "fact" than an exercise in political persuasion, this book presents the story of the political campaign that is taking place to change the minds of Americans about how young children learn to read. The book begins with a close look at the empirical research being used to support a massive shift in the national understandings about language, literacy, and learning and concludes by revealing the ways in which research studies on early reading instruction are being used by the federal and state governments to support a new methodology that has turned early reading instruction into "a massive business of unprecedented commercial worth." The chapters in the book are: (1) In Which We Are Told Training in Phonemic Awareness Is the Key to Reading Success; (2) In Which Phonemic Awareness Research Is Analyzed from an Experimental Psychological Perspective; (3) In Which Phonemic Awareness Research Is Analyzed from a Sociocultural Perspective; (4) In Which We Find Foorman's Research Does Not Support the NICHD [National Institute of Child Health and Human Development] Proposition That "Phonological Processing Is the Primary Area Where Children with Reading Difficulties Differ from Other Children"; (5) In Which Teachers Are Turned into Clerks and We Discuss Power, Privilege, Racism and Hegemony; (6) In Which Governor Bush's Business Council Holds a Pre-Summit Meeting in Texas; (7) In Which We Have an"If-They-Say-It's-So-It-Must-Be-So" Attitude toward Experimental Research; (8) In Which the Kindergarten Children in North Carolina Are No Longer Expected To Try To Read and Write; (9) In Which I Become the Documentation on Which I Build My Case; (10) In Which We Are Told That in America We Are All Equal. Are We or Aren't We?; (11) In Which We Find the Desks and Chairs Are Broken and the Toilets Don't Work; (12) In Which We Ask: Do You Think America Likes Children?; (13) In Which We Consider If We Are Comfortable Mandating Reading Programs based on Neuroimaging Research and Genetic Studies of Reading Disabilities; (14) In Which California Politically Reinvents How Young Children Learn To Read; (15) In Which California Ends Local Control and the State Board of Education Leads the Jihad; and (16) In Which We Enter the Central Chamber of the Hegemonic Labyrinth. (Contains approximately 250 references; an appendix that offers a response to preliminary statistical analyses used to support the nationally publicized findings of the NICHD Houston reading studies, and an appendix that offers "late-breaking" news about the NICHD Houston reading studies are attached.) (RS)

Methods used for teaching children to read could be the whole language approach, or the phonics approach, or maybe a balance of both. This paper is a discussion of appropriate and effective teaching practices through interesting methods such as music, the use of culturally diverse materials, and the role of toys and television as they relate to reading. The paper begins with a review of the literature on teaching methods in reading and then discusses each practice in turn. It suggests that teachers, whether they opt for phonics or whole language or a combination of both, need to use a variety of classroom practices to engage students in beginning reading. (NKA)

Evidence from a nine-month longitudinal study of deaf children's early attempts at learning to read provides the construct for an instructional model that stresses that even though the children may have, at the least, a meager expressive sign language vocabulary, they can be lead successfully through the holophrastic or one-word stage of reading development by matching signs and meaning to print. In addition, the evidence identifies three levels of change in this word-reading development. At the first level, the child knows about printed word symbols, can handle a book properly, and begins to attend to stories and label pictures with manual signs. At the next level, the child can: recognize words on food labels, cereal boxes, and road signs in picture contexts; recognize the alphabet using finger spelling; read and print a first name; and attempt to sequence and recall stories. During the third level, the child rapidly increases a sight-word vocabulary, spelling and printing knowledge, and story reciting and sequencing abilities. Two classroom experiments and parent interviews provide additional evidence to support this instructional model. The findings of these efforts suggest that children's communicative interactions about reading related activities using finger spelling and manual signs with parents, teachers, or peers act as precursors to and possibly shape the reading acquisition process that follows. (HOD)

Published originally in 1952, the bulletin "How Children Learn to Read" was the first in a series designed to illustrate the philosophy and principles set forth in The Place of Subjects in the Curriculum, Bulletin 1949, No. 12. It was planned to describe as simply as possible, especially for inexperienced teachers and for parents, the process of learning to read as it is developed in the elementary school. Since the bulletin first appeared in 1952, many aspects of beginning reading have become increasingly controversial. This revised bulletin discusses what many reading specialist recommend concerning when, where, and how phonics can be used appropriately in relation to other reading skills. The part of this bulletin that deals with skills in the mechanics of reading is an attempt to explain to parents especially the why and how of methods of teaching beginning reading. Of equal importance to the parent should be his own attitude toward reading and the suggestions of ways he can use to determine how well his child is reading. It is in each individual school that parents and school teachers should evaluate today's reading methods and purposed as objectively as possible. Teachers and parents should find the point of view developed in this bulletin one that is suitable for use as a springboard in discussing together children's reading needs, purposed, and problems in the 1960's and beyond. The revised bulletin includes a selected, annotated bibliography, More to Read about Reading. (Contains 15 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.]

Published originally in 1952, the bulletin "How Children Learn to Read" was the first in a series designed to illustrate the philosophy and principles set forth in The Place of Subjects in the Curriculum, Bulletin 1949, No. 12. It was planned to describe as simply as possible, especially for inexperienced teachers and for parents, the process of learning to read as it is developed in the elementary school. Since the bulletin first appeared in 1952, many aspects of beginning reading have become increasingly controversial. This revised bulletin discusses what many reading specialist recommend concerning when, where, and how phonics can be used appropriately in relation to other reading skills. The part of this bulletin that deals with skills in the mechanics of reading is an attempt to explain to parents especially the why and how of methods of teaching beginning reading. Of equal importance to the parent should be his own attitude toward reading and the suggestions of ways he can use to determine how well his child is reading. It is in each individual school that parents and school teachers should evaluate today's reading methods and purposed as objectively as possible. Teachers and parents should find the point of view developed in this bulletin one that is suitable for use as a springboard in discussing together children's reading needs, purposed, and problems in the 1960's and beyond. The revised bulletin includes a selected, annotated bibliography, More to Read about Reading. (Contains 15 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.]

This paper considers reading research carried out by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The paper presents a synthesis of this research on reading. It begins with a note about the NICHD research program and a discussion of how the program is different from other studies of reading. It then discusses a new understanding of reading based on identifying the nature of reading difficulties and their causes. The next section discusses research on treatment for reading difficulties, arguing for early identification and treatment; explicit, systematic instruction in sound-spelling correspondences; and that prediction from context is not a useful strategy for word recognition. The next section presents seven key research-based principles of effective reading instruction: (1) begin teaching phonemic awareness directly at an early age; (2) teach each sound-spelling correspondence explicitly; (3) teach frequent, highly regular sound-spelling relationships systematically; (4) show children exactly how to sound out words; (5) use connected, decodable text for children to practice the sound-spelling relationships they learn; (6) use interesting stories to develop language comprehension; and (7) balance use of interesting stories with decoding instruction, but do not mix comprehension instruction and decoding instruction. The paper concludes with a brief description of other important research questions and findings, as well as future directions of NICHD research. Contains 49 references, one figure, and two tables of data. (RS)

Are you trying to help your child develop his or her reading skills? In this article, I am going to share with you a few tips that can make a big difference to the progress of your child. Discover how you can teach your young child to become a fluent reader by spending only 5 to 10 minutes per day.

Are you trying to help your child develop his or her reading skills? In this article, I am going to share with you a few tips that can make a big difference to the progress of your child. Discover how you can teach your young child to become a fluent reader by spending only 5 to 10 minutes per day.

Some children become capable readers and writers before ever attending school and without exposure to formal instruction. This phenomenon--sometimes referred to as natural literacy development--is not, in the strictest sense, natural; as the adult presents much of the literacy environment to the child in a socialized, mediated form, teaching is also involved. The implications for literacy development in early childhood are that a child is not given a preexisting literacy environment, but is actively involved in creating his or her literacy environment. The child's initiations, temperament, questions, and other actions or qualities actually affect the nature and frequency of literacy mediated activities occurring in the child's environment. To determine what role the child's environment plays on literacy development, future research should carefully document (1) what information is in the environment for the child to assimilate, (2) how finely tuned the environment is to the child's development, and (3) what strategies the child develops over time for dealing with written language. (HOD)

A study examined the effectiveness of specific teaching strategies in the reading curriculum that would help underachieving first-grade students meet reading standards by the end of the school year. Subjects, 6 underachieving students, were given the Basic Phonics Skills Test (BPST), the Results high frequency word list, and the Results reading test at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Three strategies and interventions were used: phonics/phonemic awareness instruction, reading in leveled decodable books at least four times a week, and learning the first 100 high frequency words. Parents were also encouraged to participate: students took the decodable books home and read them to their parents. Results indicated that (1) the scores on the BPST correlated with the reading level scores of the students; (2) students who returned their decodable books each day and exchanged them for new books had higher reading scores than those who did not read at home each day; (3) the more high frequency words a student knew, the higher his/her reading level was; (4) parents believed the strategies were key to their child's successful reading development; and (5) students who read at home on a consistent basis showed more of a desire to read independently. An action plan based on these findings includes assessing students' reading progress throughout the year; teaching phonemic awareness; teaching a daily systematic program of phonics instruction; teaching the first 100 high frequency words; using leveled/decodable books; having students take home books; and involve parents in their child's reading development. (RS)

A study examined the effectiveness of specific teaching strategies in the reading curriculum that would help underachieving first-grade students meet reading standards by the end of the school year. Subjects, 6 underachieving students, were given the Basic Phonics Skills Test (BPST), the Results high frequency word list, and the Results reading test at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Three strategies and interventions were used: phonics/phonemic awareness instruction, reading in leveled decodable books at least four times a week, and learning the first 100 high frequency words. Parents were also encouraged to participate: students took the decodable books home and read them to their parents. Results indicated that (1) the scores on the BPST correlated with the reading level scores of the students; (2) students who returned their decodable books each day and exchanged them for new books had higher reading scores than those who did not read at home each day; (3) the more high frequency words a student knew, the higher his/her reading level was; (4) parents believed the strategies were key to their child's successful reading development; and (5) students who read at home on a consistent basis showed more of a desire to read independently. An action plan based on these findings includes assessing students' reading progress throughout the year; teaching phonemic awareness; teaching a daily systematic program of phonics instruction; teaching the first 100 high frequency words; using leveled/decodable books; having students take home books; and involve parents in their child's reading development. (RS)