Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print

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Summary: A summary is available.
Review: I have 30 years of experience as an educator in the area of indigenous education. This is a wonderful and exciting book for educators and researchers, who are used to the technical terminology and academic genre, but for teachers and parents, a 148-page summary of the book has been published, which is not an easy-reading style, but is beautifully written. Unfortunately it is out of print, but it is listed on Amazon.com, and sometimes it might be available used. This unabridged version was comissioned by the US government, to evaluate all of the research in beginning reading to the date when it was written. The author did a remarkable job of pulling it all together under one cover, and a brilliant job of evaluating and applying the research. Obviously there could be one or another research project since its publication which might invalidate some conclusion in the book. However, the major questions involved in teaching beginning reading have been thoroughly researched and there ARE definitive answers to the questions that are still being debated by teachers and parents ten and twenty years after the research was done. For example, this book (and its summary edition) tells you what kind of reading methods are most effective (there is no reason to continue to debate the phonics vs. whole language issue based on how you feel about them - see what research has proven to be most effective), what kind of preschool experience can still set the students apart even when they are graduating from high school, and other important facets of education which teachers and parents ignore to the detriment of their students.

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Summary: Adams' book is the most informed source on reading ,
Review: Marilyn Adams lead a Federally funded research team to conclusively determine what methods best support beginning readers. All educators can gain for Adams' informed investigation of whole language, phonics and other methods for teaching reading. The limits and strengths of these programs are clearly defined. More importantly, Adams defines what works for all readers- understanding the role the 44 sounds of spoken language plays in reading. Adams has put this understanding- phonemic awareness- in the forefront of reading. 70% of students acquire this awareness as part of their early development, as part of learning to speak. The 30% of students -millions of people- that do not pick this up after learning to speak and being exposed to literature rich environments need explicit instruction in this code. This is not phonics, but must be taught before phonic can help struggling readers. This is a wonderfully simple, easy to teach method that makes sense to children. It makes sense because this is how our brains have learned to process sounds for hundreds of thousands of years. This is important reading. Adams' other book, "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children", is a wonderful methods book for children under 6 years old.

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Summary: Research?
Review: Recent eye movement research by Dr. Eric Paulson refutes most of the finding in this text.

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Summary: Academic review of reading that is not fun to read
Review: The problem with this book is that it was written with bureacrats in mind. For example, (from page 413 and the summary): "It is because of the process of comprehension consists of actively searching the overlap among words for syntactic and semantic coherence that reading depends so critically on the speed and automaticity of work recognition."

While not incomprehensible, this sentence does not easily pass into semantic coherence for me.

Which is not to say that there are not gems there to discover in this book. It is most assuredly a comprehensive survey of current and past literature and it attempts--and in my opinion succeeds-- in reconciling the fight between the phonics versus whole language camps. So for some it might be just the ticket.

Personally, I find it sad that the message was not `toned down' for the masses. [Read: made an easier read.] And if anyone were interested in receiving the same information in a `tastier' format, I would suggest Mem Fox's "Reading Magic". Or the slightly less digestible "Raising Lifelong Learners" by Lucy McCormick Calkins.

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Summary: Brilliant review
Review: This book offers a wealth of information about reading development. It is a terrific source, as well for the scientist, as for the interested layman. Although it is biased toward the Seidenberg and McClelland model, the wealth of empirical data is more than compensating. It is an heroic attemt to synthesize different viewpoints.

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Summary: The best research compendium available on learning to read.
Review: This book was written under a federal contract in conjunction with the International Reading Association. Marilyn Jager Adams has compiled the most comprehensive review of the literature on learning to read done in the last 25 years. I have worked with teachers of reading for 20 years and this is the best book I have ever seen to give them guidance on what they should and should not do in the classroom. Well worth the money

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Summary: The resource book on learning to read!
Review: This is the book that other books on teaching reading refers to. It provides all of the "who, what, where, when, why, and hows" of teaching reading to children. A must-buy if you're a teacher of reading or at all interested in the topic.

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Summary: The resource book on learning to read!
Review: This is the book that other books on teaching reading refers to. It provides all of the "who, what, where, when, why, and hows" of teaching reading to children. A must-buy if you're a teacher of reading or at all interested in the topic.

Rating:
Summary: The resource book on learning to read!
Review: This is the book that other books on teaching reading refers to. It provides all of the "who, what, where, when, why, and hows" of teaching reading to children. A must-buy if you're a teacher of reading or at all interested in the topic.