The "reading wars" pit "whole language" advocates against "synthetic phonics" advocates. Sadly, it's the kids who are losing the war. Even for a bright college educated parent, the issues get confusing. The Brain Connection has a series that helps to de mystify.
The Components of Effective Reading Instruction Decades of research in the fields of education and cognitive psychology have shown that the following skills are critical to learning to read proficiently:* Phonemic awareness (The ability to distinguish amongst, and manipulate, the smallest sounds in language that can change meaning. )
* Letter-word correspondence skills
* Fluent word recognition
* Vocabulary
* Comprehension skills
* Appreciation of literature
Once students have developed good phonemic awareness skills, research strongly supports concurrent training of the other five reading skills (letter-word correspondences, word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension, and appreciation of literature) as the next step towards reading fluency.
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