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From Phonemic Awareness to Fluency:Effective Decoding Instruction in a

Research-Based Reading Program

DAVIDJ. CHARD JOHNJ. PIKULSKI SHANE TEMPLETON

IntroductionIn todays society, it is absolutely critical that

every child has the fullest opportunities to becomean accomplished reader. Anyone unable to read andwriteproficiently faces enormous social, personal,and economic limitations in todays complex,information-flooded world. There is widespreadagreement that the reading demands are greater

now than at any previous time in history. Tofunction successfully, readers must be able toconstruct complex understandings, make criticalcomparisons, draw inventive conclusions, andcarefully evaluate the materials they read. Inaddition, to fully capitalize on the power of reading,readers must also be able to appreciate the artistryof an accomplished author. Reading involves thesemultiple goals and much more. This view of readingas an active, dynamic, constructive, and criticalprocess is the view reflected in recent reviews ofreading research (e.g., National Research Council,

1998; National Reading Panel, 2000) and is the viewof reading reflected in this paper.One feature that distinguishes reading from

other vehicles for acquiring, evaluating, applying,and appreciating information, such as listening toa lecture or witnessing a demonstration, is thatreading depends on the ability to translate print intomeaning. The first vitally important step in readingis being able to decode or recognize print. The

process of being able to translate or transcodeprinted words into their spoken language equivalenthas been variously labeled as word identification,word recognition, or decoding.

The Literacy Dictionary (Harris & Hodges, 1995)defines word recognition as the process ofdetermining the pronunciation and some degree

of meaning of a word in written or printed form.(p. 283) Reading is sometimes seen as involvingtwo major factors: word recognition that determinesa words pronunciation; and comprehension, orunderstanding its meaning.

English is an alphabetic language in that thereis an orderly relationship between the phonemes(sounds) that are part of the oral form of languageand the graphemes (letters and letter combinationssuch as "sh" and "th") that make up the printed formof the language. We refer to this orderly relationshipin which the graphemes of written languagerepresent the phonemes of oral language as thealphabetic principle. In order to understand that thereis an orderly relationship, learners must be awareof sounds, or phonemes, of the spoken form of thelanguage (phonemic awareness), and they must

become very familiar with the letters of the alphabet(orthographic familiarity). Children can identifythousands of words they have never seen in printbefore if they learn a body of information about

C u r r e n t R e s e a r c h

I N REA D IN G/ LANGUAGE ARTS


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There is at least one other important way inwhich decoding and comprehension are related.In the last example, we attempted to show howcomprehension or knowledge of word meaningaffects decoding. There is also, however, very clearevidence that decoding affects comprehension.

Beyond the obvious case in which a young childwho cannot decode is completely cut off fromcomprehending written text, incomplete orinadequate decoding can limit comprehension.Particularly beyond the beginning stages of learningto read, as the comprehension demands of readingmaterials steadily increase, it is not sufficient fordecoding to be accurate; it must also be rapid andefficient. This ability to decode rapidly, accurately,and efficiently is known asfluency. The LiteracyDictionary (Harris & Hodges, 1995) morecomprehensively defines fluency as "freedom from

word-identification problems that might hindercomprehension in silent reading or the expressionof ideas in oral reading; automaticity." (p. 85)

Well over two decades ago, Laberge and Samuels(1974) showed that a lack of decoding fluencyresulted in poor comprehension. They demonstratedthat comprehending text always requires activeattention; however, decoding words can become soautomatic that it can be accomplished with minimalactive attention. Since human beings have limitedattention capacity, this theoretical formulation, TheTheory of Automaticity, explains that if a reader hasto devote sizeable attention to decoding, insufficientattention will be available for comprehending, thatis, actively constructing the meaning of text.

In the following sections, we outline the researchfindings and theoretical formulations that haveimplications for building the skills that will allowstudents not only to decode written texts, but alsoto develop the decoding efficiency that supportsconstructive, critical-reading comprehension.Although fluent decoding is not sufficient for highlevels of reading comprehension, it is definitely aprerequisite for comprehension.

the sounds the various graphemes are likely torepresent. This body of information is referred toasphonics. The National Research Council (1998)highlighted the importance of the alphabeticprinciple and phonics when they observed, "Visualword recognition can flourish only when children

displace the belief that print is like pictures with theinsight that written words are comprised of lettersthat, in turn, map to speech sounds." (p. 45)

Although there is an "orderly" relationshipbetween the sounds and graphemes of English, itis not a perfect one-to-one relationship. (If it were,"was" would rhyme with "pass" and "put" would

be pronounced as "putt.") Therefore, readers whouse their knowledge of phonics and other wordidentification skills are often uncertain they havedecoded a word correctly if that word is not one theyhave heard before. For example, when encountering

the word cabal for the first time in print, the readermay not know whether it is pronounced as ahomophone for cable or whether the a in the firstsyllable is a short a, a long a, a schwa, or pronouncedlike the a infather. Moreover, the reader may notknow whether the accent is on the first or the secondsyllable. This makes a very critical pointtheapplication of the alphabetic principle, or morespecifically, phonics, leads to a decisive decodingof a word only when that word is in the readersmental lexiconthe store of words he knows interms of their pronunciation; otherwise the readermust confirm his decoding attempt with an outsidesource such as a dictionary, a computer, or aknowledgeable person.

While failing to have a word in a readerslistening/speaking vocabulary can be a seriouslimitation for decoding, having a word in oneslistening/speaking vocabulary can support thedecoding of a word that is new in printed form in amajor way. For example, the child who in mid-firstgrade encounters the word water for the first timemight try pronouncing the first part of the word sothat it rhymes with hat and then add the commonword ending er to get /wt-er/. However, if that

child has been taught that reading should makesense, she might recognize her attempt as close to thereal word water and consider this pronunciationa good possibility. If she had encountered the wordin the sentence, "The water was too deep forswimming," checking the tentative pronunciationin the sentence context would have confirmed thedecoding of the word.

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Foundations forLearning to Decode

Understanding the Functions and

Value of ReadingIt is critically important that children learn to

decode in the early grades. There is evidence thatchildren who do not have a successful start inlearning to read are not likely to catch up with theirpeers and become proficient readers (Frances,Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz & Fletcher, 1996).What do children need in order to be successful inlearning to read? Adams (1990), in her comprehensivereview of the topic of learning to decode, concludesthat . . . the most important activity for buildingthe knowledge and skills eventually required for

reading is that of reading aloud to children. (p. 86)She goes on to elaborate:

It is not just reading to children that makesthe difference, it is enjoying the books withthem and reflecting on their form and content.It is developing and supporting the childrenscuriosity about text and the meanings itconveys. It is encouraging the children toexamine the print. And it is showing thechildren that we value and enjoy readingand that we hope they will too. (p. 87)

Adams estimates that preschool children who livein literacy-rich environments come to schoolhaving been read to for over 1,000 hours and thatthis figure may be double in some cases. She alsopoints out, however, that preschool children fromenvironments that provide few literacy experienceshave been read to for 25 hours or less, and somenot at all. She suggests that there is much that needsto be done to provide children with the fullestopportunities to learn to read:

To this end, the great value of research onprereaders may lie in the clues it gives us

toward determining what the less preparedprereader needs most to learn. For thesechildren, we have not a classroom momentto waste. The evidence strongly suggeststhat we must help them to develop theirawareness of the phonemic composition ofwords. And we must also teach them theletters of the alphabet and the phonemic

significance of each. But what else? Thereading-ready child enters school with asubstantial base of prereading skills andwealth of experience with and knowledgeabout the pleasures and functions of textand about literary language and styles. (p. 90)

Adams goes on to cite the importance of creatinga literate classroom environment; of relating readingto work, play, and living; and of providingopportunities to see how reading provides neededinformation. She concludes that just as we mustprovide for the physical and emotional needs ofyoung children, We must do as much with reading.In our society, their lives depend on it. (p. 107)

In the sections that follow we outline theimportance of teaching and developing a number ofmore specific areas important for reading success.Those factors, however, should be considered in the

broad context of ensuring that children have manyopportunities to understand the functions, the benefits,and the joys of reading, and ensuring, as fully aspossible, that they have many opportunities fordeveloping confidence in their ability to learn to read.

Language Development

There is a clear and obvious link between thevarious aspects of language development. Listening,speaking, reading, and writing are all forms oflanguage development, and as such are highlyinterrelated. Listening and speaking skills, oralforms of language, develop earlier and form afoundation for building reading and writing skills,written forms of language development. Theword home, for example, raises a host of meanings,associations, and memories regardless of whether itis read or heard. As the National Research Council(1998) points out, Many basic cognitive processesare shared during reading and listening. Syntacticand inferential processes as well as background andword knowledge play a role in both. (p. 64) Thatcouncil goes on to cite studies that show that thecorrelations between listening comprehension and

reading comprehension tend to be low in the earlygrades, but they rise through about sixth grade. Therelationship between language development andreading achievement is lower in the early grades forseveral reasons. First, achievement in reading inthe early grades is highly dependent on decodingskills, which are less directly related to languagedevelopment. Second, most beginning reading


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paper, English is an alphabetic language, whichmeans that a small number of graphemes representthe sounds of the oral forms of the language. InEnglish there are approximately 42 to 44 differentspeech sounds. (Linguistic experts disagree on theexact number, and the number of different sounds

varies from one English dialect to another.) Thetermsphonological andphonemic awareness refer to theinsight that spoken language consists of identifiableunits; for example, that utterances are composed ofspoken words, that spoken words consist of one ormore syllables, that spoken words and syllables arecomposed of sounds.

Measures of phonemic awareness are among thebest, if not the best, predictors of success in learningto read (Adams, 1990; National Research Council,1998; Learning First Alliance, 1998; National ReadingPanel, 2000). In the early stages of learning to read,

children rely on sounding out wordsassociatingprinted letters with the sounds of oral language andblending these sounds together. If children have notdeveloped the insight that oral words are composedof a limited number of units called sounds, they willnot be able to use this fundamental approach toword identification. Being able to think about thesounds in spoken words (phonemic segmentation)is critically and directly related to spelling ability,and being able to blend sounds together to formoral words (phonemic blending) is criticallyimportant and directly related to acquiring readingskills. While the term phonological awareness refersto a variety of sound units in spoken language suchas spoken word, syllable, onsets, and rimes, thecritical units for reading appear to be phonemes,and the critical phonemic awareness skills appearto be blending and segmenting phonemes (NationalReading Panel, 2000). (See Pikulski & Templeton,1998, for a fuller discussion of phonemic awareness.)

Identifying WordsResearchers have demonstrated that learning to

read words is not a matter of memorizing the visualappearance of each written word. Such a processwould place overwhelming demands on memory.Rather, learners must make connections between theletters in the visual array of written words and thesounds that correspond to those letters. Beginningreaders, therefore, need to pronounce a word as theylook at the spelling of the word, thinking about theconnections between the letters and the sounds.

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materials minimize language and conceptualchallenges in order to allow children to focus theirenergies and attention on word identification. Even

beginning reading instruction, however, shouldinclude language expansion activities so thatchildren build the language skills and background

information they will need to read more complexreading materials as they progress throughthe grades.

Concepts of Print

The term concepts of print refers to childrensknowledge of the conventions of printed Englishlanguage, for example, that we read English fromleft to right and top to bottom. The term alsodescribes familiarity with and the ability to useterms like letter, word, and sentence as applied toprint. It also describes the insight that there is a

correspondence between the number of printedwords in a text and the number of spoken wordsthat are read, and the ability to apply that insightwhile reading, often referred to as the abilityto track print. As the Learning First Alliancedocument (1998) indicates, "Children need to knowthat stories and other texts are written from left toright, and that there is a one-to-one correspondencebetween the words on a page and the words areader says." (p. 11)

Letter Recognition

Letters are the building blocks of print. It seemsonly reasonable that learning to read dependscompletely on the ability to accurately and rapidlyrecognize the letters of the alphabet and todiscriminate each letter from the others, sometimesreferred to as orthographic familiarity. Indeed, thereis massive research evidence to support thisconclusion (Andersen, et al., 1985; Adams, 1990;Ehri, 1991; National Research Council, 1998). Forexample, Adams (1990) concludes, There exists awealth of evidence that the speed and accuracy withwhich young readers can recognize individual letters

is a critical determinant of their reading proficiencyand future growth. (p. 112)

Phonemic Awareness

Concepts of print and letter recognition dealwith the visual dimensions of language; phonemicawareness deals with the oral dimensions oflanguage. As explained in other parts of this


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How Words Can Be Identified

Readers have several possibilities available foridentifying written words:

1. Sequential decoding2. Use of spelling patterns or analogy

3. Use of morphemic elements4. Use of context clues5. Automatic recognition6. Strategically using combinations

of the above

Beginning readers who are drawing upon full-alphabetic knowledge, through their knowledge ofphonics and their ability to blend phonemes, areable to decode words sequentially, letter-by-letter,identifying the sound associated with each letterand then blending the sounds together. While thisis a relatively time and energy-consuming wayto identify words, it is reliable, and this carefulprocessing of print allows the beginning reader tostore letter patterns and eventually whole wordsthat can be used to more efficiently and effectivelydecode words. As a result, beginning readers whocarefully process print can move into the consolidatedalphabetic stage of development and recognizecommon letter combinations or spelling patterns(at, og, etc.) as units.

Readers can also identify a word by analogy:If a part of the word looks like another word that theyknow, they can use that information to determine

the identity of the unknown word. The unfamiliarword snake would be recognized as containing thepattern -ake, which also occurs in cake, a word thatis known.

As students progress through the grades, theyalso increasingly use morphology to decode words(Scott & Nagy, 1994; Smith, 1998; Sternberg & Powell,1983; Wysocki & Jenkins, 1987). Morphemes, thesmallest units of meaning in a language, can beindividual words that have meaning on their own,such as deskand run; they can be word parts thatchange and extend the meaning of words to which

they are added, such as prefixes (un-, re-, dis-) orsuffixes (-ful andity); and they can be Greek orLatin word roots that usually do not stand alone aswords but are the meaning "anchor" to which affixesattach, such as chron ("time," as in chronology) andtract ("draw or pull," as in tractor and attract). Likethe use of spelling patterns and word patterns, theuse of morphemes to identify words is efficient

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Syllable patterns come to play a role in wordrecognition (Taft, 1991) as well as meaning ormorphemic patterns (Derwing, Smith, & Wiebe,1995; Fowler & Liberman, 1995; Templeton, 1992).More advanced readers, therefore, apply theirknowledge of spelling and meaning patterns in

recognizing words.Anumber of researchers have emphasized the role

of spelling in the development of word knowledge(Ehri, 1986, 1997; Frith, 1985; Henderson, 1990;Templeton & Bear, 1992; Treiman, 1993). They havedemonstrated that reading words and spelling wordsare not separate, distinct processes but rather processesthat draw upon the same types of underlying wordknowledge. The type of alphabetic information thatreaders use to read words is the same type ofinformation they use to spell words. For example,a child in thepartial alphabetic phase whose mental

representation for the written word sun issn is alsolikely to spell the word as sn. In fact, instruction inspelling is probably the best way for partialalphabetic readers to become fully phonemicallyaware. At this phase and at thefull alphabetic phase,spelling can be a "pacemaker" for reading: In theprocess of spelling or writing, students extendtheir knowledge of the alphabetic system, andthis knowledge informs the strategies they use todecode words during reading (Frith, 1985; Morris& Perney, 1984).

Beginning in first grade, when most childrenhave developedfull alphabetic knowledge, spellinginstruction should be coordinated with readinginstruction, as well-organized, systematic lessonsin spelling are critical. Later, beginning in theconsolidated alphabetic phase, reading becomes thepacemaker for spelling as students encounterrepeated examples of the spelling patterns in wordsthey read. After learners have experienced thesewords and patterns in print a number of times, theyare then able to learn their conventional spellings.

Later still, through the examination of wordssuch as sign/signature and crumb/crumble, students willlearn how meaning is a clue to remembering the

spelling of so many words; e.g., although thepronunciation of the letters in sign and crumbchanges depending on the word in which theyoccur, their spelling does not change because itrepresents and preserves the meaning relationshipthat these words share (Templeton & Morris,1999, 2000).


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because the reader is responding to units larger thana single letter.

Beginning readers can sometimes use context tohelp identify an unknown word. Context includesthe surrounding text as well as picture clues.However, there is substantial research showing that

younger and poorer readers rely more on contextthan do skillful readers (Stanovich, 1980; Adams,1990). If beginning readers rely heavily on contextas a word identification strategy, they experienceconsiderable difficulty in developing their sight-word vocabularies. Even when they correctlyidentify a word using context, they will most likelynot know the word the next time they encounterit in printthey have no way of holding onto itin memory because they did not examine theconnections between letters and sounds withinthe words. As Adams puts it, To the extent that

children use context to avoid fully processing and,thereby, learning about the spelling of words, it mayin the long run slow their reading growth. (p. 178)

On the other hand, contextual analysis is usefulin that it can provide confirmation of an initialhypothesis about a words identity. Ifreadersunderstand how to decode a word using phonics,their knowledge of spelling patterns, syllablepatterns, and/or morphemic elements, then contextcan provide a useful "check" or confirmation of theword. This check occurs, however, after the wordhas at least been tentatively identified using morereliable, effective strategies such as letter-by-lettersounding out of the word or use of word parts.

The best means of identifying words duringreading is to retrieve them from memory, withoutconscious effort, as sight words. A primary goal forbeginning reading, therefore, is to assist children indeveloping sight vocabularies. It is critical that theimportant goal of developing a large fund of sightwords not be confused with the outdated, discreditedsight approach to teaching words in which beginningreaders were instructed to learn words as "wholes"without reference to letter-sound associations andspelling patterns. Instead, research shows that

instruction can best be done through 1) helpingchildren to examine the spellings of words, thinkingabout how the spellings symbolize sounds, andthen blending the sounds, and 2) engaging them inreading texts in which they have opportunities toreinforce their developing sight vocabulary andapply word recognition strategies to unfamiliarwords, which become part of their sight vocabularies.

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Developing readers need to be taught to beflexible and strategic in their approach toidentifying words. In the initial stages of learningto read, they will need to rely on sequentialdecoding, paying careful attention to the orderly rela-tionship that exists between letters and sounds and

monitoring their decoding attempts to ensure thatwhat they are reading makes sense. As theirexperience with printed words and word parts grows,they will recognize clusters of letters and wholewords, which will move them towardgreater fluency; however, even fluent readers willsometimes need to revert to sequential decodingin order to decode an unfamiliar word.

Characteristics of EffectivePhonics Instruction

Children benefit from organized instruction thatcenters on sounds, letters, the relationships betweensounds and letters, and the application of thisknowledge to reading words and interesting texts.Effective phonics instruction has the followingkey characteristics:

Early

The process of learning to read begins early in thepreschool years with the development of orallanguage and an understanding of the functions

of print. In kindergarten, children should be taught toaccurately identify the letters of the alphabet.Childrens alphabet knowledge is enhanced whenthey are engaged in activities where they learn toidentify and name both upper case and lower case let-ters through games, songs, and activities that encour-age them to practice writing the letters they are learn-ing.

In addition to alphabet knowledge, children inkindergarten need to develop their phonemicawareness, progressing from identifying rhymingwords and creating rhymes to learning that

sentences are made up of separate words. Theythen learn that words are composed of syllablesand of sounds that can be separated from each other,and manipulated and used in other words.

As children acquire knowledge of the alphabet andbegin to hear and play with the sounds in words, theyare ready for early instruction in associating lettersand sounds, phonics. The benefit of phonics instruc-


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sounds forj andybecause many morewords contain t and m.

c. Introducing consonants and vowels in asequence that permits children to read words.

d. Introducing consonant digraphs and blends/clusters after single consonants are taught.

e. Providing blending instruction with wordsthat contain the sound-letter relationshipsthat the children are learning.

f. Providing practice opportunities that includenew sound-letter relationships as well ascumulative review of previously taughtrelationships. It is particularly importantthat children have opportunities to readtexts that contain words that use recentlytaught phonics elementsoften referredto as decodable texts.

Direct-Explicit

Phonics instruction is usually categorized asexplicit or implicit. The National Reading Panel(2000) analysis indicated that "explicit, systematicphonics instruction is a valuable and essential partof a successful classroom reading program." (p. 10)In explicit phonics instruction, the sounds associatedwith the letters are identified in isolation and then

blended together to form words. The teacherdirectly tells students the sound represented byan individual letter. For example, The letter smakes the sound /sss/. When children have

learned several letter/sound correspondences,including one or two vowels, they can read words

by blending the sounds for the letters together. Forexample, students who have learned the sound-letter correspondences /s/ /a/ and /t/ can blendthem to read sat.

On the other hand, the National Reading Paneldefined implicit (also called analytic phonics) as:teaching students to analyze letter-sound relationsin previously learned words to avoid pronouncingsounds in isolation. (p. 8)

The issue of whether phonics should be taught

explicitly or implicitly has been among the mosthotly debated topics in the field of reading. Criticsof explicit phonics charge that many consonantsounds cannot be produced without distortingthem by adding a vowel sound to make thempronounceablee.g., in an attempt to blend thephonemes in cup, a child could add a schwasound, which would result in something like

tion in kindergarten is documented in the recentreport of the National Reading Panel (2000): Theability to read and spell was enhanced in kinder-gartners who received systematic phonics instruc-tion. (p. 9) The report also states: Although con-ventional wisdom has suggested that kindergarten

students might not be ready for phonics, thisassumption was not supported by the data. Theeffects of systematic early phonics instruction weresignificant and substantial in kindergarten and firstgrade, indicating that systematic phonics programsshould be implemented at those age and gradelevels. (p. 10)

Systematic

The recent National Reading Panel Reportcontrasted systematic and incidental phonicsapproaches in this way, The hallmark of a

systematic phonics approach or program is thata sequential set of phonics elements is delineatedand these elements are taught along a dimensionof explicitness depending on the type of phonicsmethods employed. Conversely, with incidentalphonics instruction the teacher does not followa planned sequence of phonics elements buthighlights particular elements opportunisticallywhen they appear in text. (p. 8)

As a result of their rigorous analysis of theavailable research, the panel concluded: Themeta-analysis indicated that systematic phonics

instruction enhances childrens success in learningto read and that systematic phonics instruction issignificantly more effective than instruction thatteaches little or no phonics. (p. 9)

Thus, systematic phonics instruction refers toinstruction that follows a carefully planned sequence;however, there is no one correct sequence forphonics instruction. Rather, there are logicalprinciples that should guide a scope and sequencefor teaching phonics. Those principles involve:

a. Moving from easier to more difficult instructionalactivities. For example, introducing the sound

for letters like m and s early because theirsounds can be elongated and emphasized(it is easy to say mmm) as contrasted with thesounds for t or b, which cannot be held onto.

b. Teaching in a sequence in which most usefulinformation is taught early and less usefulinformation is taught later. For example,teaching the sounds for t and mbefore the


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/k/ / / // /p/ / / and go unrecognized as cupby the novice reader. On the other hand, the 1985Commission on Reading (Anderson, et al. 1985)points out that implicit phonics approaches, wheresounds are never isolated, where instead childrenare told statements like "m has the sound heard at

the beginning of mother," places very high phonemicsegmentation demands on beginning readers, manyof whom have difficulty with this skill. What can beconcluded from research studies and reviews?

More than three decades ago Jeanne Chall(1967), based on her research review, concludedthat explicit phonics is more effective and affirmedthis position in her 1983 publication. The 1985Commission on Reading (Anderson, et al. 1985),though cautious, arrived at the followingconclusion, In the judgment of the Commission,isolating sounds associated with most letters and

teaching children to blend the sounds of the letterstogether to try to identify words are useful,constructive strategies. These are the strategiesof explicit phonics. (p. 42) The Commission goeson to urge flexibility in phonics instruction. Afterexamining all the reliable available evidence, theNational Reading Panel (2000) concluded thatexplicit (synthetic) phonics has a positive andsignificant effect for low-socioeconomic-statuschildren and for children who have difficultylearning to read. Thus, the major research reviewsof beginning reading instruction support teachingphonics explicitly.

Efficient

Several important principles reflect theimportance of teaching phonics efficiently. First,it is important to avoid teaching a large number ofuseless rules or generalizations. Many phonics rulescan be learned by students, but memorizing rulesdoes not facilitate childrens reading growth. Forexample, it is probably not efficient to teach manygeneralities governing the pronunciation of vowels.

Second, it is equally important to avoid teaching

phonics via "rote memorization," through drill andpractice. Relatedly, it is best to avoid teaching manyletter-sound relationships before providing realreading practice. As was mentioned earlier, letter-sound relationships that have high usage should betaught so that the children can read words as soon aspossible, and so that reading in connected text can

be used to practice and review phonics knowledge.

The National Reading Panel draws an unequivocalconclusion here: Programs that focus too much onthe teaching of letter-sound relations and not enoughon putting them to use are unlikely to be effectivein implementing systematic phonics instruction.Educators must keep the end in mind and ensurethat children understand the purpose of learningletter sounds and are able to apply their skillsaccurately and fluently in their daily reading andwriting activities. (p. 10)

Flexible and Strategic

Finally, an efficient phonics program adjusts theform and intensity of instruction to the needs ofchildren who are learning to read; different childrenseem to need varying amounts of phonics instructionand practice. Consequently, frequent diagnosticchecks should be part of instruction. While somestudents will quickly master decoding skills, otherswill require reteaching and appropriate forms ofadded practice.

In an efficient decoding program, teachers willmodel the various decoding processes for students,and demonstrate how these processes can be appliedflexibly and strategically during the reading of realtexts so that students will understand how to applythe decoding skills they have and to strategicallyuse multiple sources of information to confirm ameaning suggested by an analysis of an unfamiliarword. Starting in first grade, teachers may begin to

use think-alouds to demonstrate for students howskilled readers approach new words. To be effective,these think-aloud models should demonstrate howthe reader identifies familiar chunks or word partswithin the word and then applies a "sounding out"strategy, reading the sounds and parts from left toright. Once the word is read, the reader tries to connectthe pronunciation with a known word. Teachersshould also model flexibility, so that studentsunderstand that attempts to apply their decodingstrategy may not always be successful and thatdecoding some words may require multiple

attempts. For example, a teacher can model a flexiblestrategy with a word like habit. Because this wordsspelling follows a common pattern in which thevowel in the first syllable is quite often long, shepronounces it as /habit/. This pronunciation, ofcourse, does not sound like a word the studentsknow. The teacher then tries a short vowelpronunciation for the first vowel, /habit/. Thestudents recognize this pronunciation, and the


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ConclusionsProficient reading is essential for success in

todays world, and efficient decoding skills areessential, though not sufficient, for proficient reading.Students who fail to develop fluent decoding will

not be proficient readers nor are they likely tosucceed in school. Recent research, particularlymajor research syntheses (Adams, 1990; LearningFirst Alliance, 1998; National Reading Panel, 2000;Snow, et al., 1998) provides informed guidanceabout instructional practices that lead to thedevelopment of efficient decoding skills. Decodingskills need to build on a foundation of orallanguage and phonemic and orthographicawareness in children who understand the functionsand value of reading. Early phonics instructiondevelops an understanding of the alphabetic

principle and helps young children make use ofthe orderly relationship that exists between lettersand sounds. Effective phonics instruction leadsdeveloping readers to systematically process printthrough sequential decoding and, through thatprocessing, to develop the ability to rapidly recognizecommon groups of letters and whole words. Widereading extends the rapid recognition of word partsand words. This fluency allows the maturing readerto focus attention on actively constructing andresponding to the meaning of print.

Well over a decade ago, Keith Stanovich (1986;

also see Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998) publishedwhat has become a classic article in the field ofreading. He made the all-important point thatstudents who receive excellent decoding instructionare off to a fast start in reading and are motivated toread widely. That wide reading, in turn, furtherenhances the development of reading skills andachievement of those students. Conversely,students with poor decoding skills are motivatedto avoid reading and their failure to read limitsthe development of their reading skills andachievement. As a consequence, the gap betweenachieving and non-achieving readers widens asthey progress through school. In other words,The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Thusdecoding fluency is of monumental importance inthat it unlocks the world of reading.

teacher then reads the whole sentence in whichthe word occurs, and confirmswith the studentsthat this is indeed the correct word.

Extended

Decoding skills strategies should be flexibleand grow as readers grow. In the middle and upperelementary grades, the strategy includes decodingmultisyllabic words through dividing words intosyllables and through the identification of basewords and word roots, and prefixes and suffixes.

Students need instruction and guidance indecoding even as they move beyond the initialstages of learning to read. As they encounter longerwords, one of their greatest challenges is to dividethose words into pronounceable syllables. Whilemature readers, because of much practice indecoding, develop "a sense" of where to divide

words they have not seen before (Adams, 1990),developing readers may need to be taught toflexibly and strategically use a small number ofuseful generalizations for dividing words andpronouncing syllables. For example, a third graderencountering the word suddenly in print for the firsttime might have difficulty with the beginning partof the word but recognize ly as a common ending;knowing that the beginning part of the word hasthe pattern of a vowel followed by two consonantsand another vowel (referred to as a VCCV pattern)and that words with this pattern often divide

between the two consonants, can serve as a usefulnext step to decoding the word; now there are twoshort syllables to read, sud and den which are easilypronounced by analogy, recognition of word parts,or sequential decoding. Notice, however, that thevowel sound in the second syllable needs to beadjusted to get at the real word suddenly. This alsoillustrates that meaning, deciding the tentativepronunciation arrived at through decoding, andflexibly adjusting the pronunciation, is a veryimportant aspect of decoding.

Much of students learning of sight words and

of strategies for decoding longer and often morestructurally complex words is related to theirvocabulary growth. Students must read widely;and if, in addition, they understand how wordparts combine to create words, they have at theirdisposal one of the most powerful strategies fornot only decoding new words in reading but alsofor increasing their vocabularies.

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ReferencesAdams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to Read:

Thinking and Learning About Print. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.

Anderson, R. C., Hiebert, E. H., Scott, J. A., &Wilkinson, I. A. G. (1985). Becoming a Nation ofReaders. The National Academy of Education &the Center for the Study of Reading.

Bear, D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton , S., &Johnson, F. (2000). Words Their Way: Word Studyfor Phonics, Spelling and Vocabulary Development(2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

Cunningham, A. E, & Stanovich, K. E. (1998).What Reading Does For The Mind. AmericanEducator, 22, 817.

Ehri, L. (1991). Development of the ability toread words. In R. Barr, M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, &P. Pearson, eds. Handbook of Reading Research.(Vol II, pp. 383417). New York: Longman.

Ehri, L. (1997). Learning to read and learningto spell are one and the same, almost. In C. Perfetti,L. Rieben, & M. Fayol, eds. Learning to spell:Research, theory, and practice across languages(pp. 237269). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ehri, L, & Wilce, L. (1985). Movement into reading:Is the first stage of printed word learning visual orphonetic? Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 163179.

Ehri, L., & Wilce, L. (1986). The influence ofspellings on speech: Are alveolar flaps /d/ or /t/?In D. Yaden & S. Templeton, eds. Metalinguisticawareness and beginning literacy (pp. 101114)Portsmouth, NH.

Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Shaywitz, S. E.,Shaywitz, B. A., & Fletcher, J. M. (1999). The casefor early remediation in California. State Board ofEducation. Read All About It! Readings to informthe profession. Sacramento, CA: Sacramento CountyOffice of Education. pp. 103115.

Frances, D. J., Shaywitz, S. E., Stuebing,K. K., Shaywitz, B. A., & Fletcher, J. M. (1996).Developmental lag versus deficit models for readingdisability: An individual growth curves analyses.

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Juel, C. (1999). Learning to read and write:A longitudinal study of 54 children from firstthrough fourth grade. In California ReadingInitiative. Read all about it: Readings to inform the

profession. Sacramento, CA: Sacramento CountyOffice of Education.

LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Towarda theory of automatic information processing inreading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293323.

Learning First Alliance (1998). Every ChildReading: An Action Plan. Learning First Alliance.

National Reading Council (1998). PreventingReading Difficulties in Young Children. NationalAcademy Press.

National Reading Panel (2000). Report of theNational Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read.National Institutes of Health Pub. No. 00-4754.

Smith, M. L. (1998). Sense and sensitivity: Aninvestigation into fifth-grade children's knowledgeof English derivational morphology and its relation-ship to vocabulary and reading ability. DissertationAbstracts International Section A: Humanities andSocial Sciences. Vol 59 (4-A): 1111.

Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in thedevelopment of reading fluency. Reading Research

Quarterly, 16, 3271.Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in

reading: Some consequences of individualdifferences in the acquisition of literacy.Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360406.

Templeton, S. (1992). Theory, nature, and pedagogyof higher order orthographic development in olderstudents. In S. Templeton and D. R. Bear, eds.Development of orthographic knowledge and thefoundation of literacy: A Memorial Festschrift forEdmund Henderson (pp. 253277). Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Templeton, S., & Morris, D. (2000). Spelling.In M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson. & R. Barr,eds. Handbook of reading research: Volume 3 (pp.525543). Mawah, NJ: Lawrence Ellbaum Associates.

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Authors

David J. Chard

David J. Chard is Assistant

Professor in the Departmentof Special Education at the

University of Texas at Austin

and the Director of the Texas

Center for Reading and

Language Arts. His work

focuses on early literacy and

mathematics

instruction for students with mild disabilities or

at risk for school failure. Dr. Chard has published

widely on topics related to students with learning dis-

abilities. He is an author ofHoughton Mifflin Reading:A Legacy of Literacy.

John J. Pikulski

John J. Pikulski is Professor

of Education at the University

of Delaware, where he has

served as Director of the

Reading Center and as Chair of

the Department of Educational

Development. Active in the

International Reading

Association, he has served

on its Board of Directors and was president of

the Association in 199798. He has served on

the editorial advisory boards of The Reading Teacher,

Reading Research and Instruction, and The Journal

of Reading Behavior. He is a member of the

Planning Committee of the National Assessment

of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading.

Dr. Pikulski is co-author of The Diagnosis, Correction

and Prevention of Reading Disabilities

and Informal Reading Inventories, and co-editor

ofApproaches to the Informal Evaluation of Reading

and The Acquisition of Reading . Dr. Pikulski is

a senior author ofHoughton Mifflin Reading:

A Legacy of Literacy.

Shane Templeton

Shane Templeton is

Foundation Professor ofCurriculum and Instruction

at the University of Nevada,

Reno. Dr. Templetons

res ea rch has focused on

developmental word knowl-

edge in elementary, middle,

and

high school students. His books include Childrens

Literacy: Contexts for Meaningful Learning and

Teaching the Integrated Language Arts. He is

co-author of Words Their Way: Word Study forPhonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction.

Dr. Templeton is the senior author ofHoughton

Mifflin Spelling and Vocabulary and an author of

Houghton Mifflin English andHoughton Mifflin

Reading: A Legacy of Literacy.

Copyright 2000 by H oughton M iffli n Company.

A ll rights reserved. STR75M 1100 G -22334

chard pik temp

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