Bestselling Practitioner Guide and Text
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Making Sense of Phonics

Second Edition
The Hows and Whys

Isabel L. Beck and Mark E. Beck

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July 29, 2013
ISBN 9781462512058
Price: $53.00
238 Pages
Size: 7" x 10"
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Paperback
July 30, 2013
ISBN 9781462511990
Price: $35.00
238 Pages
Size: 7" x 10"
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July 30, 2013
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238 Pages
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This bestselling book provides indispensable tools and strategies for explicit, systematic phonics instruction in K-3. Teachers learn effective ways to build students' decoding skills by teaching letter-sound relationships, blending, word building, multisyllabic decoding, fluency, and more. The volume is packed with engaging classroom activities, many specific examples, and research-based explanations. It offers a complete phonics assessment and clear guidelines for sequencing instruction to give every student a strong foundation for reading. More than 30 reproducible forms and word lists are included in the appendices. Purchasers get access to a webpage where they can download and print the reproducible materials in a convenient 8½“ x 11” size and find a wealth of supplemental teaching resources.

New to This Edition See also Bringing Words to Life, Second Edition: Robust Vocabulary Instruction and Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions and Extended Examples, by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan, which provide essential tools for K-12 vocabulary instruction.

“Like the prior edition, this is a much-needed 'how-to' for classroom teachers that also warrants close attention from education professors and literacy coaches. No other book so thoroughly (but succinctly) summarizes the history of phonics instruction, explicates its role in reading development, and offers such a wealth of ideas for assessment, curriculum, and instruction. Call it 'one-stop shopping' for this pivotal issue in reading instruction! This is a book that preservice and inservice teachers will turn to repeatedly, long after purchase. It is a great text for undergraduate methods classes and reading endorsement master's classes, as well as a resource for professional learning communities.”

—Kathleen J. Brown, PhD, Director, University of Utah Reading Clinic


“I recommend this second edition as a text for preservice and inservice teacher education courses. The book not only demonstrates how to teach a variety of phonics strategies, but also explains why the strategies need to be taught this way. Teachers will appreciate the examples of students' misconceptions, as well as the word lists and assessment tools in the appendices.”

—Barbara R. Foorman, PhD, Professor Emerita, College of Education, Florida State University


“I am certain that teachers—and all professionals interested in making sure children learn to read well—will find this book thought provoking and invaluable. The seminal research presented is rigorous yet highly accessible, and is illustrated with instructive, entertaining anecdotes. The new and expanded chapters in the second edition provide an eloquent picture of the challenging tasks that young children face as they learn to read, and show how to help them surmount these challenges.”

—Carol McDonald Connor, PhD, Learning Sciences Institute and Department of Psychology, Arizona State University

Table of Contents

1. Situating Phonics Instruction

2. The Alphabetic Principle and Phonics sample

3. Phonemic Awareness: A Bit of a Different Take

4. The Phonics Landscape

5. Teaching Children the Sounds That Letters Represent

6. Blending

7. Word Building

8. Assessment

9. Multisyllabic Words

10. Syllasearch

11. Orthography: A "Sticking Point" in Word Recognition

12. Automaticity

Appendix 1. Word Building Lists

Appendix 2. Specific Phonics Assessments

Appendix 3. Word and Syllable Matrices for Syllasearch

Appendix 4. The Word Pocket

Appendix 5. List of Online Materials

Glossary


About the Authors

Isabel L. Beck, PhD, is Professor Emerita in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. Before starting her career at the university, she was a public school teacher, and has taught most elementary grades. Dr. Beck's work has been acknowledged by awards from the International Reading Association, the National Reading Conference, and the American Federation of Teachers, among others. Most recently she was elected to the National Academy of Education.

Mark E. Beck, MEd, is a reading specialist at Manchester Academic Charter School in Pittsburgh, where he works with children in grades K-5. After practicing law for 14 years, Mr. Beck changed careers, obtaining his Pennsylvania elementary teaching certification and working as a classroom teacher. Subsequently he obtained his reading specialist certification. He has also been a part-time instructor in the Reading Department in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh.

Audience

K–3 classroom teachers, preservice teachers, staff developers, and teacher educators.

Course Use

Serves as a supplemental text in undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in elementary reading methods and early literacy.
Previous editions published by Guilford:

First Edition, © 2006
ISBN: 9781593852573
New to this edition: