Reviews and News:
How to read fast and well: Ignore the speed-reading gurus, start early (with phonics), and read more. “Reading is a much more recent cultural invention, and it must be deliberately taught. Moreover, there is one way of teaching reading that works best: phonics, or showing children exactly how the words they hear connect to the letters they see on the page. Yet many teachers resist offering phonetic instruction to their young students, preferring to proceed on the basis of their experience, their observations and, yes, their intuition. As natural as these inclinations may feel, Seidenberg is unsparing about the harm they do: ‘A look at the science reveals that the methods commonly used to teach children are inconsistent with basic facts about human cognition and development and so make learning to read more difficult than it should be. They inadvertently place many children at risk for reading failure. They discriminate against poorer children. They discourage children who could have become more successful readers.'”
