Reading Pedagogues

Paper Summary:

Through a review of ten articles, this paper looks at the importance of building up "domain knowledge" and prominently features the findings of a National Reading Panel study conducted some years ago that argues (among other things) that vocabulary building, phonemic awareness exercises, systematic phonics instruction, and in-service upgrades for teachers all positively correlate to student achievement.

Table of Contents:
Abstract
Article Summaries
Article Summary One: Teaching children to read
Article Summary Two: The Nature of Effective First-Grade Literacy Instruction
Article Summary Three: The Utility of Phonic Generalizations in the Primary Grades
Article Summary Four: Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge - of Words and the World
Article Summary Five: What Reading Does for the Mind
Summary Six: The Case for Bringing Content into the Language Arts Block and for a Knowledge-Rich Curriculum Core for all Children
Summary Seven: Teaching Decoding
Summary Eight: One Down and 80,000 to Go
Summary Nine: Teaching Vocabulary: Early, Direct, and Sequential
Summary Ten: Findings and Determinations of the National Reading Panel by Topic Areas

From the Paper:

"Theodore Clymer (1963) reports that five types of generalizations have historically been utilized (at least if teacher's manuals are any indication) in teaching children to pronounce words: vowels, consonants, endings, syllabication, and miscellaneous relationships. Eventually, Clymer came up with a list of 45 generalizations or rules for study. These were arrived at by asking whether or not a candidate generalization was sufficiently specific that it could be said to actually assist (or hinder) in the pronunciation of a particular word. Clymer then made up a composite word list of all the words introduced in the four basic series from which the generalizations were drawn - plus words from the Gates Reading Vocabulary for the Primary Grades. On pages 186 and 187 of the study, Clymer outlines the basic approach undertaken to assess the efficacy of the 45 phonic generalizations; this step-by-step approach is rather complicated and cannot be easily described in the space we are allotted. Nonetheless, the study found that many commonplace phonics generalizations are of limited worth; in particular, vowel generalizations are especially unreliable while consonant generalizations are a little better. One thing that complicates Clymer's study is that his success rate for an effective phonics generalization (75 percent or above) is quite high - as he himself acknowledges.

Sample of Sources Used:

• Biemiller, Andrew. (2000). Teaching vocabulary: early, direct, and sequential. Perspectives, 26(4): no pages numbers provided by client.
• Clymer, Theodore. (1963, reprinted in 1996). The utility of phonics generalizations in the primary grades. The Reading Teacher, 50(3): 182-187.
• Cunningham, Anne E., and Stanovich, Keith E. (2001). Journal of Direct Instruction, 1(2): 137-149.
• Hirsch, E.D., Jr. (2006). The Case for Bringing Content into the Language Arts Block and for a Knowledge-Rich Curriculum Core for all Children. Pp.1-22
• Hirsch, E.D., Jr. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge - of words and the world. American Educator, 10-29

More papers on Reading Pedagogues:

• Research Paper # 118773 : "Effects of Parental Participation in Students' Reading"
• Research Paper # 96891 : "Reading Comprehension"
• Essay # 89940 : "Benefits of Reading"

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