Page iv

Beginning To Read:
Thinking and Learning about Print
Marilyn Jager Adams
Contents
Foreword by P. David Pearson
v
Acknowledgments ix
PART I Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Putting Word Recognition in Perspective 3
Chapter 2 Reading Words and Meaning: From an Age-Old Problem to a Contemporary Crisis
13
PART II Why Phonics? 29
Chapter 3
Program Comparisons (And, by the Way, What Is phonics?)
31
Chapter 4
Research on Prereaders
55
PART III
What Needs to Be Taught? Hints from Skilled Readers 93
Chapter 5 Outside-In Models of Reading: What Skilled Readers Look Like They Do
95
Chapter 6 Analyzing the Reading Process: Orthographic Processing 107
Chapter 7
Analyzing the Reading Process: Use and Uses of Meaning 137
Chapter 8 Adding the Phonological Processor: How the Whole System Works Together 157
PART IV
Thinking, Learning, and Reading 193
Chapter 9
The Nature of Learning (Words or Otherwise)
195
Chapter 10
On the Goals of Print Instruction: What Do We Want Students to Learn? 215
PART V Learning How to Read 235
Chapter 11
On Teaching Phonics First 237
Chapter 12 Phonological Prerequisites: Becoming Aware of Spoken Words, Syllables, and
Phonemes
293
Chapter 13
Learning about Print: The First Steps
333
Chapter 14
To Reading from Writing
375
PART VI
Summary and Conclusion 407
Chapter 15
The Proper Place of Phonics 409
Afterword by Dorothy Strickland and Bernice Cullinan 425
References 435
Name Index 475
Subject Index 485

Foreword: How I Came to Know About Beginning

to Read
P. David Pearson
Center for the Study of Reading
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Everyone involved in early reading instruction and research is well
aware of the strong emotional reactions incited by the mere mention of
phonics. And so, in 1986, when those of us at the Center for the Study
of Reading were competing for the U.S. Department of Education's
Reading Research and Education Center, we could not help but notice
the prominence of phonics and other issues in early reading in the
Request for Proposals distributed by the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement (OERI). We knew that we could not ignore
these issues in our proposal. We also knew that in addressing them we
would focus the phonics furor on the Center. Our solution, which
became part of our proposal to OERI, was to agree to take on a major
report that would thoroughly review all aspects of phonics and early
reading instruction in a straightforward, evenhanded way.
In one sense, we were surprised that OERI would ask its center for
reading research to undertake such a review. In two previous funding
cycles, the focus of the federal government's funding for reading had a
deliberate bias toward comprehension research. It was the Center for
the Study of Reading, with offices at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and at Bolt Beranek and Newman in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, that brought to the field Schooling and the Acquisition
of Knowledge, Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension, and
Becoming a Nation of Readers, in addition to more than 500 reports
focused on issues of basic processes and instructional practices in
reading comprehension. Ironically, in the end, it was Becoming a
Nation of Readers, with its clear support of "phonics first and fast,"
that spawned the legislation (authored by the late Senator Zerensky of
Nebraska) commissioning this report on phonics.
Finding someone to prepare such an important report became the next
problem for the directors of the Center. Clearly, we wanted someone

with the expertise and interest to produce a report we could support

even be proud of. Just as clearly, that someone was Marilyn Jager
Adams, a cognitive and developmental psychologist in the Center's
branch at Bolt Beranek and Newman. Adams, we knew, had a long
history of involvement in translating cognitive and developmental
research into classroom procedures. She had designed and written a
thinking skills curriculum for children. She had a strong background
in basic reading processes and an equally strong interest in applied
issues in word recognition. She had, for example, developed and
evaluated a set of diagnostic measures for decoding skills. She also
had a good working knowledge of a host of basic and applied issues
and research related to language and literacy. To make a long story
short, we received the award, we asked Adams to complete the
phonics report, and she accepted. And now, after many months of
arduous work by Adams, the report is complete.
What we had originally conceptualized as a kind of updated version of
Jeanne Chall's Learning to Read: The Great Debate became, as
Adams immersed herself in the topic, more of a "What we know about
basic processes and instructional practices in word and letter
identification and early reading." And that is exactly how I view the
book you are reading as the most complete review, within a single
cover, of our expanding knowledge of
the history of the English alphabet,
the controversies surrounding phonics instruction,
issues and research in early reading instruction,
basic perceptual and reading processes,
the processes involved in identifying sounds, letters, words, and
meaning, and
the processes involved in learning to read.
Several features of Adams's book distinguish it from earlier treatises
on the issue of phonics and its role in reading and learning to read.
First, because it was written in 1989 rather than 1967 or 1983, it has
the benefit of the rapidly growing bodies of research on phonemic
awareness and invented spelling (which Chall, or for that matter Bond

and Dykstra, the directors of the First Grade Studies, did not have).
Second, the book also has a tremendous theoretical advantage over the
earlier works: It can place all the current and prior research on visual
and auditory perception and basic reading processes within the context
of Rumelhart and McClelland's work on parallel distributed
processing. Such an integrated theory did not exist twenty years ago.
Readers who, like me, have puzzled over how to reconcile data we
considered irreconcilable (for example, data showing that every letter
must be processed with data showing that there is a direct, unmediated
spelling-to-meaning linkage in skilled reading) will find PDP (I like the
initials) theory fascinating and illuminating.
Readers will find that the book is well written. Adams has a special
talent for explaining complex theoretical concepts. She uses examples,
analogies, and allusions generously. Everyone will find some
comfortable ideas, some hooks to use to get a handle on what might
otherwise be very abstract concepts. Furthermore, she is not afraid to
use personal experience and anecdotes to drive home a point that, with
only theory and data to support it, might well remain lifeless.
The book is comprehensive. Adams covers the past twenty years of
basic and applied research thoroughly; her search through educational
and psychological books and journals was exhaustive. She
acknowledges historical predecessors (and precedents) graciously; it is
clear that she has read Chall, Flesch, Bond and Dykstra, Aukerman,
Balmuth, N.B. Smith, and Mathews very carefully. She even
undertakes a reconciliation of some of the data coming from research
on spelling and writing (invented-spelling work, for example) and
sociolinguistic perspectives (Heath in the South, Teale in the
Southwest) with theory and research more commonly associated with
psychology.
I suspect that the book will attract some of the strong negative
reactions we had originally worried about. Dyed-in-the-wool phonics
advocates will be disappointed by its conciliatory tone, which they
will see as too compatible with meaning-based approaches to teaching
reading. They will be alarmed that Adams admits to a direct spelling-

meaning connection, or that lots of students infer the entire symbolsound system from vast exposure to print. Likewise, whole language
advocates will be disappointed at Adams's insistence that the symbolsound system be taught explicitly and early. They will be alarmed at
her suggestion that phonemic awareness training ought to be one of
the earliest items on the instructional agenda.
I suspect the positive reactions will be just as strong. Phonics
advocates will applaud Adams's uncompromising emphasis on
spelling patterns and their relation to speech patterns. At the same
time, whole language advocates will appreciate her insistence that
orthographic knowledge cannot simply be taught; it must be
understood, and it can only be understood when it is used in
meaningful engagements with print.
Especially strong reactions should come from instructional
"moderates" who believe, along with the late John Downing, that the
goal of all instruction, be it phonics, vocabulary, comprehension,
studying, thinking, or mathematical problem solving, ought to be to
promote cognitive clarity for students. That is the message I take from
the book; I hope others can find it here too.
I have read the book from start to finish in a single (admittedly long)
reading. But I have used it more often as a reference work, revisiting
the elaborate sections on phonemic awareness because I find the
concept and the research so fascinating, or poring over the sections on
parallel distributed processing in yet another attempt to see how it all
fits together. I think most readers will use it as a reference work, but I
invite everyone to read it initially as an enlightening and enjoyable
(you will like the way Adams writes) experience.
You will recall that when we at the Center undertook this (ad) venture,
we had many concerns, but we hoped that Adams might be able to
produce a report that we could support and even take pride in. She
did! We can! We do!

Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to a number of people for their comments and
suggestions during the preparation of this book. First among these are
the members of the advisory panel: Ira Aaron, Alumni Foundation
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Reading Education, University of
Georgia-Athens; Jeanne S. Chall, Professor of Education and Director
of the Reading Laboratory at the Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University; Bernice E. Cullinan, Professor, Department of
Early Childhood and Elementary Education, New York University;
Linnea C. Ehri, Professor of Education in the Division of Education,
University of California-Davis; Philip Gough, Professor of Psychology
and Education, University of Texas-Austin; Dorothy Strickland,
Professor of Education and Deputy Director of the Institute for Urban
and Minority Education, Teachers College, Columbia University; and
Robert Ruddell, Professor of Education and Chair of the Division of
Language and Literacy, Graduate School of Education, University of
California-Berkeley. Each panel member read and commented on
interim drafts of the manuscript. In addition, the entire panel convened
on July 30, 1988, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss its progress
and direction.
I am also indebted to the following members of the review board for
their critical readings of those sections most relevant to their own
expertise: Richard Allington, Department of Reading, State University
of New York-Albany; Jonathan Baron, Department of Psychology,
University of Pennsylvania; Roderick Barron, Department of
Psychology, University of Guelph, Ontario; Isabel Beck, Learning
Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh; Robert
Calfee, School of Education, Stanford University; Doug Carnine,
College of Education, University of Oregon; Anne Cunningham,
Graduate School of Education, University of California-Berkeley;
Mary Beth Curtis, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University;

Dolores Durkin, Department of Elementary and Early Childhood

Education, University of Illinois; Usha Goswami, Merton College,
Oxford, England; Connie Juel, Department of Cognition and
Instruction, University of Texas-Austin; Isabelle Liberman,
Department of Education, University of Connecticut; James L.
McClelland, Department of Psychology, Carnegie-Mellon University;
Jana Mason, Department of Educational Psychology, University of
Illinois; Mark Seidenberg, Department of Psychology, McGill
University; Harry Singer, School of Education, University of
California-Riverside; Steven Stahl, College of Education, Western
Illinois University, Macomb; Keith Stanovich, Department of
Psychology, Oakland University; Rebecca Treiman, Psychology
Department, Wayne State University; and Joanna Williams, Teachers
College, Columbia University.
I wish also to express my appreciation for the support given by our
Center liaison at the U.S. Department of Education, Anne P. Sweet,
Senior Research Associate, Office of Research.
Finally, the continuing support of the following people has been
invaluable: Bertram Bruce, Wayne Mesard, Yvette Tenney and
especially Carl E. Feehrer at Bolt Beranek and Newman, and Richard
C. Anderson, William E. Nagy, and P. David Pearson at the University
of Illinois. Most of all, I thank Jean Osborn of the University of
Illinois for her unfailing support in every phase of this effort.
While the guidance provided by my colleagues and each of the
members of the advisory panel and the review board has factored
enormously into the strengths of this manuscript, I alone am
responsible for its shortcomings. With profound thanks for all the help
I have received, I hope its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.
The work on which this publication was based was supported in part
by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement under
cooperative agreement No. G 0087-C1001. The publication does not
necessarily reflect the views of the agency supporting the research.