Phonics: Practice, Research and Policy unravels the controversy surrounding phonics which currently characterises much of the discussion about reading standards and teaching reading. Bringing some much-needed balance to the debate - the book offers genuinely focused advice on how to make sense of the various theories and on their applications in practice, helping teachers to find the right practical solutions to suit the children in their settings. The book includes chapters on: - How children learn to read and how phonics helps - The role of early phonics teaching - Classroom approaches to phonics teaching - Involving parents and carers - Speaking and phonological awareness - Spelling links - Staff development - Responses to the Rose Review on Early Reading. It will be essential reading for student teachers on initial training courses, and for more experienced staff in a range of school settings.

This groundbreaking book offers critical perspectives on the teaching of reading and phonics, openly challenging contemporary policy in both England and the US.

This book supports teachers using phonics in their teaching of early reading. The authors show how important it is to ensure that children acquire a wide range of reading strategies, while also setting out practical 'pointers' which will enable teachers to translate the theory into effective practice. Readers will learn: - How to plan phonics within a rich, interactive and playful literacy pedagogy - How to construct relationships with the young readers in their classes and the texts around them - How to embed the teaching of phonics in carefully selected high quality materials - particularly in children's literature. Written for practicing teachers, student teachers on initial teacher training courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, the book will also be useful for advisors working on continuing professional development. Dr Kathy Goouch and Dr Andrew Lambirth are based at Canterbury Christ Church University in the field of early and primary education and literacy.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Learning to Read brings together different disciplinary perspectives and studies on reading for all those who seek to extend and enrich the current practice, research and policy debates. The breadth of knowledge that underpins pedagogy is a central theme and the book will help educators, policy-makers and researchers understand the full range of research perspectives that must inform decisions about the development of reading in schools. The book offers invaluable insights into learners who do not achieve their full potential. The chapters have been written by key figures in education, psychology, sociology and neuroscience, and promote discussion of: comprehension gender and literacy attainment phonics and decoding digital literacy at home and school bilingual learners and reading dyslexia and special educational needs evidence based literacy visual texts. This book encompasses a comprehensive range of conceptual perspectives on reading pedagogy and offers a wealth of new insights to support innovative research directions.

Reading Across International Boundaries, edited by Roger Openshaw and Janet Soler, clearly demonstrates these broader characteristics of debates about the teaching of reading. It sets the educational issues firmly in the context of the social, cultural and political dynamics that inform and animate them and give them their meaning. It does so by setting out to understand their historical and comparative dimensions. Establishing the historical context highlights the origins and also the longevity of the problems and conflicts that are now widely familiar. The comparative approach also gives purchase on the wide range of approaches taken to these issues in nations around the world. More than this, however, this collection takes us into the realm of international influences. It underlines how debates in this area are not simply national, but are international and global in their scale. Moreover this is the case not only in relation to the broad fabric of policy debate, but also in the everyday struggles of pupils, parents and teachers in schools, classrooms and homes. Such an agenda is unsettling and provocative. It has the potential to challenge received opinion, to hustle preconceptions. It may also propose alternative visions for the improvement of teaching in this area that might be taken up and taken seriously in different localities or even more broadly. Most of all, it enables us to enrich and broaden our understanding of the learning and the teaching of reading at a time when awareness and vision are sorely needed. This collection of articles by leading scholars based in several different countries will be a significant contribution to the research field, but also a major resource when put to good use by policy makers and practitioners, as it should surely be.

Weaving together the latest knowledge and best practices for teaching children to read, this indispensable text and professional resource provides a complete guide to differentiated instruction for diverse learners. Uniquely integrative, the book places the needs of English language learners and students with disabilities front and center instead of treating them as special topics. Accessible chapters on each of the core components of literacy clearly demonstrate how to link formal and informal assessment to evidence-based instruction. Special features include Research Briefs, Tech Tips, Internet Resources, Reflection and Action Questions, and dozens of reproducible student activities and assessment tools.

Should not mislead children into thinking that reading is sounding out letters, learning sight words or using context clues--it involves all these skills in the right combination. Topics include: Phonics: Purpose and Limitations; Phonics: History and Controversy; Prerequisites for Phonics Instruction; Moving into Reading; Consonant Letter-Sound Relationships; Vowel Letter-Sound Relationships; and Structural Analysis Skills. For teachers of reading.

A Critique of Pure Teaching Methods and the Case of Synthetic Phonics examines how research into the effectiveness of teaching methods can and should relate to what takes place in the classroom. The discussion brings to light some important features of the way we classify teaching activities. The classifications are unlike those we use in natural science – for instance, how we classify drug dosages. This point has very important implications for what should be considered the appropriate relationships between educational research and classroom practice. Andrew Davis applies the results of this discussion to the teaching of early reading, focussing in particular on the approach known as synthetic phonics. He provides a philosophical investigation into the nature of reading, and into the concepts that feature in approaches to teaching it, such as the idea of building words from letter sounds, the nature of words themselves and reading for meaning. He concludes with a discussion of why this matters so much, reflecting on how stories and books can be part of a child's emerging identity within the family. He explores how values of family life should be weighed against the importance of achievements in school, and argues for the claim that school reading policies of certain kinds may have a destructive impact if they are felt to trump the private interests of children and their families.

Recommended by the Ontario Ministry of Education Routman takes a hard look at many societal issues and at teachers who need to be clear about their goal and beliefs