Word recognition: The interface of educational policies and scientific research

As a result of a tremendous amount of research in educational, cognitive and developmental psychology on the nature and acquisition of reading skills, practitioners have a goldmine of evidence upon which to design effective educational programs for beginning and problem readers. This evidence is highly consistent in terms of delineating different stages of reading that young children pass through, the types of skills that they are to acquire, and the sorts of difficulties that they are likely to encounter. The purpose of this paper is to broadly outline current knowledge of the beginning stages of reading acquisition for both normal and problem readers and to relate this knowledge to current language arts curricular practices in North America.