Notes that to work at the cutting edge of children's reading development, primary-grade teachers need to consider some important questions about materials and curriculum. Discusses why word-recognition prompts are important, describes research on word-recognition prompts, and discusses teachers' materials and word-recognition prompts. Considers word prompts for learning about print, word-recognition prompts for breaking "the code," and word-recognition prompts for increasing fluency. Presents some general guidelines for word prompts. (SG)