Language
Development and Learning to Read.
Diane McGuinness. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005.
Pp. 494. $45.00, cloth. ISBN: 0-262-13452-7. TEL: 800-405-1619
Research
on reading has tried, and failed, to account for wide disparities in reading
skills, even among children who have been taught using the same method. Why
is it that some children learn to read easily and quickly while others, who
are in the same classroom and are being taught by the same teacher, don’t
learn to read at all? McGuinness examines scientific research that might explain
these disparities for educators.
She focuses on reading predictors, analyzing the effect which individual differences
in specific perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive skills may have on a child’s
ability to read. Because of the serious methodological problems which she
finds in the existing research on reading, many of the studies which she cites
in this book come from other fields—developmental psychology, psycholinguistics,
and the speech and hearing sciences—and provide a new perspective on
which language functions are the ones which matter most for reading and academic
success.
McGuinness first examines the phonological development theory—the theory
that phonological awareness follows a developmental path from words to syllables
to phonemes—which has dominated reading research for 30 years, and finds
that research evidence from other disciplines does not support the theory.
She then looks at longitudinal studies on the development of general language
function and finds a “tantalizing connection” between core language
functions and reading success.
Finally, she analyzes mainstream reading research, which links reading ability
to specific language skills, and the often-flawed methodology which has been
used in these studies. McGuinness reaches the conclusion that we urgently
need a shift in our thinking about how to achieve reading success.
Click below to buy this book
