A Balanced Approach to Beginning Reading Instruction

Book excerpt: If you are an educator of young children, you're likely to have participated in the ongoing dialogue about the reading wars - the historical debate about the best way to teach reading. You can address some of the difficult issues at the center of these debates with this synthesis of more than 30 years of literacy research that provides compelling evidence for a balanced approach to beginning reading instruction. Author Cowen's discussion of six U.S. studies, from the 1967 First-Grade Studies to the 2000 National Reading Panel Report, makes the findings and conclusions of this vital research accessible and reader friendly to stakeholders in the early literacy community, enabling you to make more informed decisions about teaching reading to young children.