Product Review

What does research tell us about how teachers can most effectively help young students learn to read? In Research-Based Methods of Reading Instruction, Grades K-3, Sharon Vaughn and Sylvia Linan-Thompson explore the research on reading, providing a comprehensive overview of the five core instructional areas and how each affects student achievement:

* Phonemic awareness
* Phonics and Word Study
* Fluency
* Vocabulary
* Comprehension

The authors include dozens of reading activities and lesson plans that teachers can use immediately, all of which have worked in actual classrooms and are grounded in solid research. A glossary and annotated resource lists will help you better understand key reading concepts and find reliable resources, including relevant Web sites.

Whether your students have special needs or show no apparent learning difficulties, this book will expand your repertoire of teaching strategies and help you put students on the road to literacy.

Sharon Vaughn is the director and H.E. Hartfelder/Southland Corporation regent's chair of the University of Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts in Austin.

Sylvia Linan-Thompson is an assistant professor in special education at the University of Texas at Austin.