In the history of education, few topics have sparked such public debate as the teaching of reading. Because reading is at the heart of every child s learning, it has been a principal educational focus for more than a century. Both of these research efforts sparked widespread interest in all aspects of the reading process, particularly at the beginning stages of learning to read.
Emphasis is placed on intensive phonics instruction that is highly sequenced.
Children learn letter-sound relationships by sounding out words. They learn letter sounds, consonant blends, and long and short vowels. Typically, this approach uses reading programs that offer stories with controlled vocabulary made up of letter-sound relationship and words with which children are already familiar. Goodman was a leader in the development of the psycholinguistic perspective, which asserts that readers rely more on the structure and meaning of language rather than on the graphic information from text. He and others also noted that literacy development parallels language development.