Drawing comparisons with the United Kingdom and the United States, this educational reference details the often bitter disagreements that occur in Australia between the critics who want to reclaim old ways of teaching literacy and the educators who emphasize the possibilities for creative change. It illustrates the strong beliefs, deep divisions, and politicization of the debate, which has repercussions for policy decisions and funding. An essential reference for anyone involved with literacy education, this contention explains that the challenge facing li.

Originally published in 1992. This book brings together the work of a number of distinguished international researchers engaged in basic research on beginning reading. Individual chapters address various processes and problems in learning to read - including how acquisition gets underway, the contribution of story listening experiences, what is involved in learning to read words, and how readers represent information about written words in memory. In addition, the chapter contributors consider how phonological, onset-rime, and syntactic awareness contribute to reading acquisition, how learning to spell is involved, how reading ability can be explained as a combination of decoding skill plus listening comprehension skill, and what causes reading difficulties and how to study these causes.

In this much anticipated follow-up to their groundbreaking book, Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom, authors Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, together with co-author Katie Cunningham, extend the conversation in Shifting the Balance 3-5: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Upper Elementary Classroom. This new text is built in mind specifically for grades 3-5 teachers around best practices for the intermediate classroom. Shifting the Balance 3-5 introduces six more shifts across individual chapters that: Zoom in on a common (but not-as helpful-as-we-had-hoped) practice to reconsider Untangle a number of "misunderstandings" that have likely contributed to the use of the common practice Propose a more science-aligned shift to the current practice Provide solid scientific research to support the revised practice Offer a collection of high-leverage, easy-to-implement instructional routines to support the shift to more brain-friendly instruction The authors offer a refreshing approach that is respectful, accessible, and practical - grounded in an earnest commitment to building a bridge between research and classroom practice. As with the first Shifting the Balance, they aim to keep students at the forefront of reading instruction.

Reading fluency has been identified as a key component of proficient reading. Research has consistently demonstrated significant and substantial correlations between reading fluency and overall reading achievement. Despite the great potential for fluency to have a significant outcome on students’ reading achievement, it continues to be not well understood by teachers, school administrators and policy makers. The chapters in this volume examine reading fluency from a variety of perspectives. The initial chapter sketches the history of fluency as a literacy instruction component. Following chapters examine recent studies and approaches to reading fluency, followed by chapters that explore actual fluency instruction models and the impact of fluency instruction. Assessment of reading fluency is critical for monitoring progress and identifying students in need of intervention. Two articles on assessment, one focused on word recognition and the other on prosody, expand our understanding of fluency measurement. Finally, a study from Turkey explores the relationship of various reading competencies, including fluency, in an integrated model of reading. Our hope for this volume is that it may spark a renewed interest in research into reading fluency and fluency instruction and move toward making fluency instruction an even more integral part of all literacy instruction.

All the tips and tools you need to realize the goal of balanced literacy learning. Students learn to read and write best when their teachers balance literacy instruction. Best-selling authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan help you strike the right balance of skills and knowledge, reading and writing, small and whole group instruction, and direct and dialogic instruction, so that all students can learn to their maximum potential. Using this essential guide, tap your intuition, collaborate with your peers, and put the research-based strategies embedded within to work in your classroom for a strong and successful balanced literacy program.

We’ve been teaching reading wrong—a leading cognitive scientist tells us how we can finally do it right

From the Back Cover: In this incendiary sequel to his earlier best-seller, Why Johnny Can't Read, Rudolf Flesch contends that our most common method of teaching reading is fraudulent and pernicious and has failed miserably. For fifty years the vast majority of American schoolchildren have been taught to read by the look-and-say method rather than by traditional phonics. Because of it, says Dr. Flesch, the majority of today's American adults are handicapped readers. Indeed, the U.S. literacy rate has dropped below that of every European nation. His wide-ranging research shows how educators have conducted a continuing defense of this teaching method despite hundreds of scientific studies proving its ineffectiveness. Bound to stir controversy and discussion, this book is must reading for parents, educators, administrators, and public officials responsible for allocating educational funds.