Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print

Recommend the book!I was a product of the California sight reading of the forty's/fifty's. I still could not read when I was in fifth grade, But, I was lucky, my grandmother got angry and found a teacher who had been run out of the California school system because she would not give up using phonics to teach reading. Anyway the teacher took me on and was able to have me reading at grade level in one semester, spring of 1954. One of my main hobbies is reading and have way too many books.Marilyn Jager Adams makes a very good positive case for using phonics in teaching reading. Her writing and word usage is admirable, kept me reading her book. The "Afterward" by Dorthy Strickland and Bernice Cullinan brought out my cynicism about the school systems.

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.

Despite being over 20 years old, this is still THE text on reading instruction. The Adams model is very widely used, and as a PhD student this is the text my school of education recommends. As a reading teacher, this helped me understand how my instruction impacted my students, and as a researcher, this text helps me understand what's going on in classrooms while teachers provide reading instruction. The overviews of major issues in reading are still relevant, and each topic is so well explained and so thorough that it makes reading research accessible to everyone- teachers, parents, administrators, researchers. A word of advice: do not get rid of your copy once your classes are over! I've had to repurchase this book because it truly is the best resource to brush up on orthographic processing and phonological processing and why those are important etc. etc. :-) It's full of instructional tips and strategies, and most importantly you will understand WHY you are using these strategies, which empowers you to make the best instructional decisions for your students!

The book is a wonderful tool and resource. The shipping company took an extra week to ship.

At times I read this and it’s mind blowing. Other times it puts me to sleep and I resent buying it.

This is a good book for those that are learning to teach literacy.

this book is cited in almost every article on learning to read so it is great to have the original

I read, and enjoyed this book a great deal when I read it in hard copy 20 years ago. The Kindle edition was compiled electronically via out of date software with the text thrown together in wild disorder. Attempting to read this fine book in such a carelessly compiled edition is almost impossible.

I used this book a lot when writing my dissertation, so much so, that I missed it and had to have my own copy! A must for anyone interested in learning more about reading acquisition.

really helpful in my research project into phonological awareness. arrived in good time and good quality for second hand book.

A grad. student found this, and used it extensively in her thesis on phonemic awareness and the introduction of English (and, in particular, reading) into the Japanese primary education system. Although focused on education in the U.S., it has some good information on the whys and hows of teaching literacy to younger learners. I would recommend that, if you are in Primary Education, you purchase this fine resource book.