Studies word learning in predictable text by investigating three important factors in facilitating young children's word learning: the reader, the text, and the task. Offers specific suggestions for teaching. (SR)

Analyzes the compilation of the 220 words included in the Dolch Basic Sight Word List from studies done in the 1920's. Compares this list to the representatively selected 50,406 words in rank order from the Kucera-Nelson Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English (1967). (MB)

Describes how the author worked with one struggling reader to help him learn to make balanced and consistent use of different cues for word identification (graphophonic cues, how words look, grammatical appropriateness of words, sentence meaning, or background knowledge). (SR)

Investigates context effects on children's reading accuracy when reading words in a story context and from a word list. Notes that although many children read words in context which they could not read from lists, this result did not apply to good readers. (MM)

Finds the test useful but criticizes its lack of generalizability of norms and the absence of reliability, validity, or normative information for the Spanish version. (FL)

Describes a strategy to teach early readers to look for smaller words that they know within a large word they do not know. (SR)

Reports on a study in which 12 good and 12 poor fourth-grade readers read selections in their original format and with the words in random order; concludes that the results indicate that word identification errors elicited on tests in isolation do not constitute a solid basis for predicting errors in connected text. (ET)

Reports that teaching educable mentally handicapped children to compare unknown words to words they already have in their sight vocabularies seems to improve their reading abilities. (FL)

Offers suggestions for helping the older child who has not learned to read, including developing a sight word bank using a memorized book, using these sight words as the basis for decoding instruction, and including the nonreader in a reading group. (ARH)

The authors define phonics as a system for encoding speech sounds into written symbols and for teaching learners to use the relationship between letters and sounds to recognize words. The origin of the term "explicit, systematic phonics" is traced historically through studies and reviews of phonics instruction and policy documents. Results from a…

Concludes that preschool children know that print conveys information, yet frequently use environmental cues rather than letter knowledge when they appear to read. (FL)

Argues that encouraging poor readers to correct their miscues helps them to improve their skills in reading for meaning. Proposes a four-step procedure to encourage corrections. (FL)

Shows that fingerspelling makes learning the task of separating the word into its parts fun as well as easier for some students. (FL)

Presents an instructional framework for use with beginning readers that focuses on strategy development and the use of authentic, purposeful materials. Provides a teaching "guide" to help teachers understand the important metacognitive features of the program, but notes that it is up to teachers to plan, teach, and evaluate their students'…