Various studies and statements from G. Reid Lyon, Acting Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Report on Learning Disabilities Research, from Reid Lyon
Testimony of G. Reid Lyon, Ph.D. on Children's Literacy, Before the Committee on Education and the Workforce U.S. House of Representatives
From Letters to Sound
Why Johnny Can't Decode. Washington "Post" articles of October 27, 1996.
Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children: 1998 report from the National Research Council (NRC)

Bibliographic Records from the ERIC Database and Education Abstracts Online

TITLE: Getting ready for reading: early phoneme awareness and phonics teaching improves reading and spelling in inner-city second language learners
AUTHOR(S): Stuart,-Morag
SOURCE: The British Journal of Educational Psychology v 69 pt4 Dec 1999. p. 587-605
ABSTRACT: Previous studies demonstrate that phoneme awareness training, particularly when combined with letter-sound teaching, results in improved reading and spelling development. This study seeks to extend previous findings by (a) including children learning English as a second language, who have typically been excluded from previous studies; (b) providing training for whole classes, rather than small groups; (c) using a commercially available programme; and (d) giving minimal training to teachers administering the programme. Two groups (N = 112) of 5-year-olds, 96 of whom were learning English as a second language, were enrolled into either the experimental (phoneme awareness and phonics) programme or the control programme, which took a more holistic approach based on Holdaway's (1979) use of Big Books. Children were pretested on measures of spoken and written language, phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge, prior to a 12-week intervention using either the experimental or control programme. Children were post-tested on all measures immediately after intervention, and again one year later. The experimental programme accelerated children's acquisition of phoneme awareness and of phonics knowledge, and their ability to apply these in reading and writing. In the year following intervention both groups made comparable progress in most areas; however, at the end of this year the experimental group were still significantly ahead in phoneme awareness and phonics knowledge, and on standardised and experimental tests of reading and spelling. Early concentration on teaching phoneme awareness and phonics can radically improve reading and spelling standards in inner city second language learners.

AN: ED430215
AU: Dakin,-Alexandra-B.
TI: The Effectiveness of a Skill Based Explicit Phonics Reading Program K-2 as Measured by Student Performance and Teacher Evaluation.
PY: 1999
NT: Master of Science in Education, Dominican College.
PR: EDRS Price MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.
DL: http://orders.edrs.com/members/sp.cfm?AN=ED430215
AB: This study focuses on the effectiveness and advantages of using an explicit phonics based reading program in kindergarten through second grade. The methods of decoding words that teachers introduce to the beginning readers must prove to be effective in introducing and building reading skills. Most recent studies have revisited and concurred with studies done in the 1930s and 1960s that the lack of phonics based reading instruction leaves students without important decoding skills necessary in recognizing letter/sound relationships in reading. The subjects in this study are 12 inner-city Catholic elementary school students. Four students at each grade level are evaluated and interviewed. Each student is at a different reading level identified as high, medium and low. Another component of the study is the teacher interview directed at each grade level teacher kindergarten through second grade. The teachers are interviewed as to their philosophy, style and methodology of teaching reading using explicit phonics instruction. The research method used is qualitative. Data gathering, evaluation and results are coded to ensure interviewed and research subjects confidentiality and anonymity. The implications of this study are to add to the existing research that the learning of the phonological structure of a word through use of phonetic decoding skills determines the success of the emergent reader kindergarten through second grade. An appendix contains unnumbered charts and tables of data, teacher interview questions and responses, a reading diagnosis chart, and several word lists. Contains 26 references. (RS)

AN: EJ571300
AU: Adams,-Marilyn-Jager; Foorman,-Barbara-R.; Lundberg,-Ingvar; Beeler,-Terri
TI: The Elusive Phoneme; Why Phonemic Awareness Is So Important and How To Help Children Develop It.
PY: 1998
SO: American-Educator; v22 n1-2 p18-29 Spr-Sum 1998
NT: Theme issue: "The Unique Power of Reading and How To Unleash It." Comments on and presents excerpts from "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum" by the authors of this article.
AB: The 51 lessons in the full curriculum show how children can be brought step-by-step to understand the architecture of their language through phonemic awareness and how this understanding prepares them for reading and writing. Activities, some of which are presented, are developed for kindergarten but can be used in first grade or special education. (SLD)

AN: EJ570177
AU: Smith,-Corinne-Roth
TI: From Gibberish to Phonemic Awareness: Effective Decoding Instruction.
PY: 1998
SO: TEACHING-Exceptional-Children; v30 n6 p20-25 Jul-Aug 1998
AB: Stresses the importance of the development of phonemic awareness skills for students with reading difficulties. Research suggesting phonemic awareness may be a more powerful predictor for reading progress than IQ is noted. Insets offer specific phonological awareness assessment tasks and corresponding phonological awareness instructional tasks. (DB)

AN: ED418392
AU: Fernandez,-Melanie
TI: Phonemic Awareness: One Key To Literacy Acquisition.
PY: 1998
PR: EDRS Price MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS.
AB: For the young child, the onset of speech and language acquisition is a milestone to be expected somewhere between 10-30 months of age. Behaviors exhibited by the people in the child's environment both before and after the onset of speech have infinitely more impact upon language learning--and eventually all learning--than the onset of the event itself. It is the nature of language learning which currently influences success in school. Children from mainstream American homes begin along their path toward a positive school experience almost immediately. Phonemic awareness is a very powerful predictor of whether a child will become a good reader and is one of the elements necessary for students to gain knowledge of the orthographic cipher. Students who arrive at school with little or no exposure to print are not phonemically aware. They need instruction and literacy events which will give them the phonemic awareness necessary for the beginning of reading instruction. (CR)

AN: EJ579720
AU: Bruck,-Maggie; Teiman,-Rebecca; Caravolas,-Marketa; Genesee,-Fred; Cassar,-Marie
TI: Spelling Skills of Children in Whole Language and Phonics Classrooms.
PY: 1998
SO: Applied-Psycholinguistics; v19 n4 p669-84 Dec 1998
AB: The spelling skills of grade three children who had received whole-language instruction since they began to learn to read were compared with those of grade three children attending a phonics program. Overall, the phonics group produced more accurate word spellings than the whole-language group. In addition, the phonics children's spelling of nonwords included more conventional, phonologically accurate patterns. (Author/ER)

AN: EJ588803
AU: Stahl,-Steven-A.
TI: Understanding Shifts in Reading and Its Instruction.
PY: 1998
SO: Peabody-Journal-of-Education; v73 n3and4 p31-67 1998
AB: Proposes a new understanding of what reading is, using that understanding to propose a new sense of balanced reading instruction. Discusses shifts in reading instruction over the years, examines three goals of reading (automatic word recognition, comprehension, and motivation), and describes the balance needed between direct instruction of skills and whole language to achieve the goals. (SM)

AN: EJ546698
AU: Snider,-Vicki-E.
TI: The Relationship between Phonemic Awareness and Later Reading Achievement.
PY: 1997
JN: Journal-of-Educational-Research; v90 n4 p203-11 Mar-Apr 1997
DE: *Beginning-Reading; *Phonics-; *Reading-Achievement
AB: Two longitudinal studies examined the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading achievement in primary grades. Results found a significant correlation between kindergarten performance on phonemic awareness tasks and second-grade reading achievement. A three-year followup of low-scorers indicated that most of those students (who were a heterogeneous group) could not read fluently. Includes "Test of Phonemic Awareness." (SM)

AN: EJ544232
AU: Fielding-Barnsley,-Ruth
TI: Explicit Instruction in Decoding Benefits Children High in Phonemic Awareness and Alphabet Knowledge.
PY: 1997
JN: Scientific-Studies-of-Reading; v1 n1 p85-98 1997
NT: Published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Journal Subscription Dept., 10 Industrial Ave., Mahwah, NJ 07430-2262.
DE: *Decoding-Reading; *Instructional-Effectiveness; *Reading-Achievement
AB: Notes that 32 preschool children were trained to a high level in phonemic awareness over a 12-week period, and then in kindergarten, the children were taught 10 real words using either decoding and encoding techniques or a whole word method. Finds that children taught decoding and encoding techniques were superior in reading and writing compared to the whole word group. (RS)

AN: EJ549015
AU: Honig,-Bill
TI: Reading the Right Way.
PY: 1997
SO: School-Administrator; v54 n8 p6-15 Sep 1997
AB: Extensive research and practical experience demonstrate that learning to read comes less naturally than learning to speak. Although half of all children intuit the alphabetic system from exposure to print and context-driven activities, many (particularly dyslexic, low-socioeconomic, and second-language kids) need an organized program that teaches phonemic awareness, letter-sound correspondence, and decoding skills. (MLH)

AN: ED396242
AU: Honig,-Bill
TI: Teaching Our Children To Read: The Role of Skills in a Comprehensive Reading Program.
PY: 1996
AV: Corwin Press, Inc., 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 (cloth: ISBN-0-8039-6404-8, $42.95; paper: ISBN-0-8039-6405-6, $18.95).
AB: Presenting the viewpoint that teaching reading is not an "either/or" situation of phonics versus whole language, this book offers a comprehensive compilation of research and best practice on the specifics of skill development and how skills should be organized, taught, and integrated into the language arts program. The book helps educators understand the importance of skill development strands in teaching children to read and provides guidance on the instructional and curricular issues that must be addressed if they are to successfully integrate whole language principles with the necessary foundation skills and successfully teach all children to read. Chapters in the book are: (1) The Case for a Balanced Approach; (2) What Skilled Readers Do; (3) Beginning-to-Read Instruction for Preschool and Kindergarten; (4) Beginning-to-Read Instruction for Early First Grade; (5) Reading Instruction for Middle First Grade to Upper Elementary Grades; (6) Spelling, Beginning Writing, and Vocabulary; (7) Comprehension and Assessment; (8) Writing and Speaking; (9) Frequently Asked Questions; and (10) Conclusion and Lessons Learned. Contains 116 references. Appendixes present the 24 major points of the role of skills in a comprehensive elementary reading program, and a reading skills curriculum timeline--preschool through fifth grade. (RS)

AN: EJ477302
AU: Stanovich,-Keith-E.
TI: Romance and Reality.
PY: 1994
SO: Reading-Teacher; v47 n4 p280-91 Dec-Jan 1993-94
AB: Reviews significant findings from the author's research and speculates on differential responses to his work. Argues that appropriately chosen direct instruction in the spelling-sound code is the reality that will enable the romance with whole language to be a long-lasting one and that educators must let scientific evidence answer questions about the reading process. (SR)

AN: EJ474132
AU: Olson,-Mary-W.; Griffith,-Priscilla TI: Phonological Awareness: The What, Why, and How.
PY: 1993
SO: Reading-and-Writing-Quarterly:-Overcoming-Learning-Difficulties; v9 n4 p351-60 Oct-Dec 1993
NT: Mini-Theme: Learning, Teaching, and Learning to Teach in the Reading Recovery Early Intervention Program.
AB: Describes the problems of a hypothetical disabled reader in terms of his possible lack of phonological awareness. Explains phonological awareness and its subunits with examples. Discusses research that supports the notion that phonological awareness is necessary for reading success, as well as the issue of whether children can be taught phonological awareness. Describes activities that encourage phonological awareness. (RS)

AN: EJ460128
AU: Griffith,-Priscilla-L.; and-others
TI: The Effect of Phonemic Awareness on the Literacy Development of First Grade Children in a Traditional or a Whole Language Classroom.
PY: 1992
SO: Journal-of-Research-in-Childhood-Education; v6 n2 p85-92 Spr-Sum 1992
AB: Examined the acquisition of decoding and spelling skills and the writing fluency of first graders who received either whole-language or traditional basal instruction. Children with high phonemic awareness outperformed those with low phonemic awareness on all literacy measures, regardless of the instructional method used. (MM)

AN: ED353571
AU: Griffith,-Priscilla-L.; Klesius,-Janell-P.
TI: Kindergarten Children's Developing Understanding of the Alphabetic Principle.
PY: 1992
NT: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Reading Conference (42nd, San Antonio, TX, December 2-5, 1992).
PR: EDRS Price MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DL: http://orders.edrs.com/members/sp.cfm?

AN=ED353571
AB: A study investigated the relationship among the linguistic units that make up spoken language, the symbols of written language, and how spoken language is mapped onto written language (the alphabetic principle). Subjects, 79 kindergarten children from 5 classrooms in 4 schools in a large southeastern school district, were tested for their knowledge of the alphabetic principle, phonemic awareness, letter name knowledge, and orthographic knowledge. Results indicated that: (1) significant amounts of the variance in understanding of the alphabetic principle can be explained by phonemic awareness and letter name knowledge; but (2) these two variables did not do a very good job of explaining the variance in scores measuring children's understanding of the orthographic patterns of written English; (3) the distribution of scores on the orthographic information measure indicated that children were aware that words did not contain numbers and that most children were able to discern mock and letters in words; and (4) phonemic awareness rarely developed in the absence of letter name knowledge. Instructionally the implications are that experimentation with paper and pen may be as important to the literacy development of children as is reading. (Six tables and three figures of data.) (RS)

AN: EJ455224
AU: Griffith,-Priscilla-L.; and-others
TI: Student-Curriculum Maps: Applying the Rasch Model to Curriculum and Instruction.
PY: 1992
SO: Journal-of-Research-in-Education; v2 n1 p13-22 Spr 1992
AB: Describes the use of Rasch item statistics for curricular analysis and instructional decision making. Uses a case study of application of the Rasch model in the pilot testing of items selected for criterion-referenced tests developed for grades one through eight in Charleston (South Carolina) schools. (SLD)

AN: EJ439120
AU: Griffith,-Priscilla-L.; Olson,-Mary-W.
TI: Phonemic Awareness Helps Beginning Readers Break the Code.
PY: 1992
SO: Reading-Teacher; v45 n7 p516-23 Mar 1992
AB: Presents strategies teachers might use to assess and promote beginning readers' phonemic awareness, a factor shown to be strongly linked to the successful acquisition of reading ability. (MG)

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