Reading Instruction, Which Direction?

Numerous concepts in the teaching of reading have been emphasized since the middle of the 20th century. Four such concepts are the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), traditional linguistic procedures, rebus, and programmed reading. Each has advantages and serious disadvantages. ITA stressed a rather consistent sound/symbol relationship, but pupils had to make the transition from ITA to traditional graphemes. Traditional linguistic approaches suffered from the problem that, as one child said, "no one speaks that way." Rebus suffered from the problem that there were too many difficult words that could not be shown in picture form. Fragmentation of subject matter read is inherent in the programmed reading approach. Basal reading approaches, with their many imperfections, are liked by many teachers. In teaching early primary grade pupils, the experience chart is commonly used, but experience charts do not meet the needs of talented and gifted pupils. Individualized reading's strength is that pupils may choose their reading materials, but some teachers report that too many pupils cannot find a book of interest and fail to stay on task when reading library books. Reading teachers need to take into consideration students' reading interests, the complexity of the reading material, purpose for reading, the meaning that pupils attach to the story content, and the amount of assistance that a pupil needs to achieve in reading. (RS)