fies it as a topic for this thesis alternative. Following this contextual discussion, the report presents a review and discussion of empirical studies assessing the relative effectiveness of the basal and literature-based approaches to instruction in reading.
Lerner (1992) has discussed both the nature of reading and its importance to contemporary society. This section of the report reviews these topics.
Reading, according to Lerner (1992), consists of the use of a set of word skills. These skills are connected to cognitive development and are acquired in certain growth stages. Lerner states that the sequences of stages which the child goes through in acquiring reading skills are:
(1) The Development of Reading Readiness. Reading readiness is derived from the development of certain foundational skills including the development of: auditory and visual discrimination; cognitive thinking, and the ability to attend to and concentrate on activities. Only when children have attained these cognitive skills, can they be said to be ready to learn to read.
(2) The Initial Stages of Learning to Reading. At this second stage of reading skill acquisition, Lerner (1992) states that children are primarily learning a decoding process regarding written symbols (e.g. they are learning that a given letter is associated with a certain sound, and so forth). Further, it is at this stage that children typically begin to develop several foundational skills including the building of a sight vocabulary, the ability to associate sound with the visual symbols of letters, and the ability to learn to follow a line of print from left to right.
(3) Rapid Development of Reading Sills. This third stage of reading acquisition, which according to Lerner (1992) normally occurs when children are in the second and third grades, is essentially a refinement, extension, and amplification of the skills developed in the second stage. In this stage, t...