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Phonics Instruction is Introduced
In the readings, the authors explain how speller books and reading instruction was mainly used with various methods. The authors in the book 'Making Sense of Phonics' state that 'although various methods appeared in the professional literature from time to time, phonics was the prevailing approach to teaching beginning reading from the Colonial period into the 1920s' (Beck & Beck 2013).This helped to shape reading instruction and create more effective learning opportunities. -
Jeanne Chall & Two Families of Instructional Approaches
Reading and writing instruction were not critically considered until these books, written by Jeanne Chall, were released. Her books include 'Learning to Read, The Great Debate', 'Stages of Reading Development', 'Qualitative Assessment of Text Difficulty: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Writers', and 'The Academic Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom'. Furthermore, she seperated instructional approaches into 2 families: 'meaning-emphasis methods and code-emphasis methods' (Beck 2013). -
Diederich & other approaches
Diederich was a graduate student in Chicago who studied the connection between 'initial construction between letters and sounds' that support reading development (Beck & Beck 2013). Its also interesting to note his classroom experiences - 'initial instruction in letter-sound relationships and pronunciation rules was done to death.. children learn abstract material by rote' (Beck & Beck 2013). He and his colleagues began developing look-say/whole-word/sight-word methods. -
Chall & Integration of Phonics
With Chall's two families of approaches, schools began distinguishing between the two and choosing which ones to use. 'House that published meaning-emphasis programs began to incorporate substantial phonics instruction very early in the instructional sequences of their newer editions' (Beck & Beck 2013). Phonics was then divided into explicit and implicit forms, which refers to how direct teachers are. -
National Commission on Reading Publishes 'Becoming a Nation of Readers'
A group of educational representatives from the research community were collectively called the National Commission on Reading. They released a publication outlining the impact and effective implementation of phonics, up to this time period. This book 'concluded that early and systematic phonics was essential and whole langauge is to be embraced' (Beck & Beck 2013). -
Whole Langauge Movement
In California, educators had established new standards for reading and writing instruction. These standards centered around 'construction of meaning, functional language, the use of iterature in a variety of forms, the writing process through which learners write, revise, and edit written words, cooperative student work, and an emphasis on affective aspects of the students' learning experiences' (Beck & Beck 2013). This was to be implemented through the use of the three-cueing system. -
Whole Language Ends & National Reading Panel is Born
Over time, educators began to notice that students needed to have developed certain phonics skills in order to effectively learn from whole language approach activities. The authors state 'the wave of dissatisfaction with how reading was being taught in the primary grades contributed to the creation of the National Reading Panel' (Beck & Beck 2013). -
Basal Reading Programs are Developed
During the 'late 1990s and early 2000s, basal reading methods provided explicit, systematic phonics instruction, although from our review, there is variations in the instruction quality' (Beck & Beck 2013). -
The Current Thinking about Phonics & Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
In the book 'Making Sense of Phonics', the authors communicated with many educators to see what the overall opinion was about the current state of using phonics. The authors state that many responded with explaining the 'Common Core State Standards in association with phonics' (Beck & Beck 2013). Most educators felt that less time would be available for effective phonics instruction and the CCSS would have little influence.
