A Brief History of Beginning Reading Instruction

A Brief History of Beginning Reading Instruction What are the assumptions about children and about reading made in the development of each text? What are the pros and cons of each?

Horn Book – This one, a replica of one used during the time of Shakespeare, is very similar to ones used during the Colonial period in America.

From the New England Primer, 1690.

From the New England primer, 1690

McGuffy Reader 19th Century – Instructions to teachers including the “phonic method,” the “word method, and the “combined phonic and word method.””

Scott Foresman, 1950s-60s.

Scott Foresman, i.t.a. edition, 1965.

From Alpha Land, New Dimensions in Education, Inc, 1972

Nat on the Mat A fat cat sat on a mat. The fat cat is Nat. Pat Nat, the fat cat. Is the mat on Nat? Nat is on the mat. From Merrill Linguistic Reading Program, 1986 edition

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? I see a red bird looking at me.

Predictable books often have rhyme, rhythm, repeated phrases, and pictures that closely match text, allowing beginning readers to predict what will come next and to read the story successfully without being able to decode all the words first.

“Through the graphophonic door” – Assuming that students must master decoding first. Semantics and pragmatics “Through the meaning door” – Focus on meaning from the beginning. Grapho-phonics syntactics

What are the assumptions? • Guided Reading? • Language Experience Approach? • Accelerated Reader? • Other approaches?

Shared Reading • Shared Reading is one way to scaffold students’ reading. • It introduces children to reading through the meaning door. • It provides success and enjoyment for all students. • It develops concepts of print and sight words. • It provides a real context in which to demonstrate how strategies such as phonics, context clues, and structural analysis are used.

A Brief History of Beginning Reading Instruction