Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
Should I teach phonics? If so, where and when do I begin? How much instruction is necessary? What other instructional methods should I use? Teachers have struggled with these questions since the teaching of reading to young children began, with the anticipated outcome that all recipient children will become successful readers. And, although the education community has debated the best form of beginning reading instruction for decades, the questions about the most effective way to teach children to read have not been answered. A Balanced Approach to Beginning Reading Instruction: A Synthesis of Six Major U.S. Research Studies contends that landmark reading research studies can empower educators to build a consensus about effective beginning reading instruction and help prevent young children's reading difficulties. The purpose of this book is threefold: (1) to summarize and review six influential research studies of beginning reading instruction (see table of contents below for the studies covered), (2) to show how the studies support a balanced approach to beginning reading instruction, and (3) to make the research findings more accessible to all educators, resulting in informed decision making in teaching reading to young children. Author John Edwin Cowen's synthesis of these studies will provide preservice and inservice teachers with a clearer perspective of current knowledge about beginning reading instruction, particularly the importance of phonics instruction in creating a balanced approach to beginning reading. A Balanced Approach to Beginning Reading Instruction will help you get the most from the research and more effectively teach young children to read.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
A great reference for Reading Teachers
Customer Rating:
I never would have picked up this book had it not been assigned reading for my class. However, once I got into it, I really appreciated what it was setting out to do. Cowen tracks the six major reading research studies conducted since the 1960's that report their findings on what methods/approaches improve reading performance. The nice thing about it is he has done the work to cull through all the detailed research and presents in a succinct format the basic and most important aspects and findings of each study. There is a list in this book of the fifteen elements to a good reading program developed by a group of successful classroom teachers. I loved that! I found myself agreeing whole-heartedly and making mental notes of what to tweak in my classroom for next year. Not only do these studies recommend what practices cultivate successful readers, but also how much time the research says should be devoted to those practices in the classroom. This is really a must read for beginning reading teachers in any grade as well as seasoned teachers looking for meaningful/applicable professional development. Its 80 pages that will really give you a big pictures of the trends in reading instruction and the consensus among researchers and classroom teachers about best practices. One of the greatest aspects of this book is that Cowen presents all this data in a way that validates the classroom teacher. He actually addressed in his introduction that one of the biggest problems in public policy regarding education is that the classroom teacher is seen and treated as the problem and not the solution. He has high regard for the work of classroom teachers, and points out that all of the six studies show that the most important predictor of a child's reading success is their classroom teacher. The methodology and the materials are a distant second. This would be a great book for a curriculum coordinator to use for inservice training.
Select button not working? 
