title: Reading

text: The National Reading Panel (U.S. 2000) is clear that "systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a balanced reading program". It suggests that phonics be taught together with phonemic awareness, oral fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Timothy Shanahan (educator), a member of that panel, recommends that primary students receive 60–90 minutes per day of explicit, systematic, literacy instruction time; and that it be divided equally between a) words and word parts (e.g. letters, sounds, decoding and phonemic awareness), b) oral reading fluency, c) reading comprehension, and d) writing. Furthermore, he states that "the phonemic awareness skills found to give the greatest reading advantage to kindergarten and first-grade children are "segmenting and blending"".


title: Reading

text: The Ontario Association of Deans of Education (Canada) published research Monograph # 37 entitled "Supporting early language and literacy" with suggestions for parents and teachers in helping children prior to grade one. It covers the areas of letter names and letter-sound correspondence (phonics), as well as conversation, play-based learning, print, phonological awareness, shared reading, and vocabulary.


title: Reading

text: Some researchers report that teaching reading without teaching phonics is harmful to large numbers of students; yet not all phonics teaching programs produce effective results. The reason is that the effectiveness of a program depends on using the right curriculum together with the appropriate approach to instruction techniques, classroom management, grouping, and other factors. Louisa Moats, a teacher, psychologist and researcher, has long advocated for reading instruction that is direct, explicit and systematic, covering phoneme awareness, decoding, comprehension, literature appreciation, and daily exposure to a variety of texts. She maintains that "reading failure can be prevented in all but a small percentage of children with serious learning disorders. It is possible to teach most students how to read if we start early and follow the significant body of research showing which practices are most effective".


title: Reading

text: Interest in evidence-based education appears to be growing. In 2021, Best evidence encyclopedia (BEE) released a review of research on 51 different programs for struggling readers in elementary schools. Many of the programs used phonics-based teaching and/or one or more of the following: cooperative learning, technology-supported adaptive instruction (see Educational technology), metacognitive skills, phonemic awareness, word reading, fluency, vocabulary, multisensory learning, spelling, guided reading, reading comprehension, word analysis, structured curriculum, and balanced literacy (non-phonetic approach).


title: Reading

text: The BEE review concludes that a) outcomes were positive for one-to-one tutoring, b) outcomes were positive, but not as large, for one-to-small group tutoring, c) there were no differences in outcomes between teachers and teaching assistants as tutors, d) technology-supported adaptive instruction did not have positive outcomes, e) whole-class approaches (mostly cooperative learning) and whole-school approaches incorporating tutoring obtained outcomes for struggling readers as large as those found for one- to-one tutoring, and benefitted many more students, and f) approaches mixing classroom and school improvements, with tutoring for the most at-risk students, have the greatest potential for the largest numbers of struggling readers.


title: Reading

text: Robert Slavin, of BEE, goes so far as to suggest that states should "hire thousands of tutors" to support students scoring far below grade level – particularly in elementary school reading. Research, he says, shows "only tutoring, both one-to-one and one-to-small group, in reading and mathematics, had an effect size larger than +0.10 ... averages are around +0.30", and "well-trained teaching assistants using structured tutoring materials or software can obtain outcomes as good as those obtained by certified teachers as tutors".


title: Reading

text: What works clearinghouse allows you to see the effectiveness of specific programs. For example, as of 2020 they have data on 231 literacy programs. If you filter them by grade 1 only, all class types, all school types, all delivery methods, all program types, and all outcomes you receive 22 programs. You can then view the program details and, if you wish, compare one with another.


title: Reading

text: Evidence for ESSA (Center for Research and Reform in Education) offers free up-to-date information on current PK–12 programs in reading, writing, math, science, and others that meet the standards of the Every Student Succeeds Act (U.S.).


title: Reading

text: "ProvenTutoring.org" a non-profit organization, is a resource for educators interested in research-proven tutoring programs. The programs it lists are proven effective in rigorous research as defined in the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act. The Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University provides the technical support to inform program selection.


title: Reading

text: "Systematic phonics" is not one specific method of teaching phonics; it is a term used to describe phonics approaches that are taught "explicitly" and in a structured, systematic manner. They are "systematic" because the letters and the sounds they relate to are taught in a specific sequence, as opposed to incidentally or on a "when needed" basis.


title: Reading

text: The National Reading Panel (NRP) concluded that systematic phonics instruction is more effective than unsystematic phonics or non-phonics instruction. The NRP also found that systematic phonics instruction is effective (with varying degrees) when delivered through one-to-one tutoring, small groups, and teaching classes of students; and is effective from kindergarten onward, the earlier the better. It helps significantly with word-reading skills and reading comprehension for kindergartners and 1st graders as well as for older struggling readers and reading disabled students. Benefits to spelling were positive for kindergartners and 1st graders but not for older students.


title: Reading

text: Systematic phonics is sometimes mischaracterized as "skill and drill" with little attention to meaning. However, researchers point out that this impression is false. Teachers can use engaging games or materials to teach letter-sound connections, and it can also be incorporated with the reading of meaningful text.


title: Reading

text: Phonics can be taught systematically in a variety of ways, such as: analogy phonics, analytic phonics, phonics through spelling, and synthetic phonics. However, their effectiveness vary considerably because the methods differ in such areas as the range of letter-sound coverage, the structure of the lesson plans, and the time devoted to specific instructions.


title: Reading

text: Systematic phonics has gained increased acceptance in different parts of the world since the completion of three major studies into teaching reading; one in the US in 2000, another in Australia in 2005, and the other in the UK in 2006.


title: Reading

text: In 2009, the UK Department of Education published a curriculum review that added support for systematic phonics. In fact, systematic phonics in the UK is known as Synthetic phonics.


title: Reading

text: Beginning as early as 2014, several states in the United States have changed their curriculum to include systematic phonics instruction in elementary school.


title: Reading

text: In 2018, the State Government of Victoria, Australia, published a website containing a comprehensive Literacy Teaching Toolkit including Effective Reading Instruction, Phonics, and Sample Phonics Lessons.


title: Reading

text: "Analytic phonics" does not involve pronouncing individual sounds (phonemes) in isolation and blending the sounds, as is done in synthetic phonics. Rather, it is taught at the word level and students learn to analyze letter-sound relationships once the word is identified. For example, students analyze letter-sound correspondences such as the "ou" spelling of in shr"ou"ds. Also, students might be asked to practice saying words with similar sounds such as "b"all, "b"at and "b"ite. Furthermore, students are taught consonant blends (separate, adjacent consonants) as units, such as "br"eak or "shr"ouds.


title: Reading

text: "Analogy phonics" is a particular type of "analytic phonics" in which the teacher has students analyze phonic elements according to the speech sounds (phonograms) in the word. For example, a type of phonogram (known in linguistics as a rime) is composed of the vowel and the consonant sounds that follow it (e.g. in the words "cat, mat and sat," the rime is ""at"".) Teachers using the analogy method may have students memorize a bank of phonograms, such as "-at" or "-am", or use "word families" (e.g. c"an", r"an", m"an", or m"ay", pl"ay", s"ay").


title: Reading

text: There have been studies on the effectiveness of instruction using analytic phonics vs. synthetic phonics. Johnston et al. (2012) conducted experimental research studies that tested the effectiveness of phonics learning instruction among 10-year-old boys and girls. They used comparative data from the Clackmannanshire Report and chose 393 participants to compare synthetic phonics instruction and analytic phonics instruction. The boys taught by the synthetic phonics method had better word reading than the girls in their classes, and their spelling and reading comprehension was as good. On the other hand, with analytic phonics teaching, although the boys performed as well as the girls in word reading, they had inferior spelling and reading comprehension. Overall, the group taught by synthetic phonics had better word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension. And, synthetic phonics did not lead to any impairment in the reading of irregular words.


title: Reading

text: "Embedded phonics", also known as "incidental phonics", is the type of phonics instruction used in whole language programs. It is not "systematic phonics". Although phonics skills are de-emphasised in whole language programs, some teachers include phonics "mini-lessons" when students struggle with words while reading from a book. Short lessons are included based on phonics elements the students are having trouble with, or on a new or difficult phonics pattern that appears in a class reading assignment. The focus on meaning is generally maintained, but the mini-lesson provides some time for focus on individual sounds and the letters that represent them. Embedded phonics is different from other methods because instruction is always in the context of literature rather than in separate lessons about distinct sounds and letters; and skills are taught when an opportunity arises, not systematically.


title: Reading

text: For some teachers this is a method of teaching spelling by using the sounds (phonemes). However, it can also be a method of teaching reading by focusing on the sounds and their spelling (i.e. phonemes and syllables). It is taught systematically with guided lessons conducted in a direct and explicit manner including appropriate feedback. Sometimes mnemonic cards containing individual sounds are used to allow the student to practice saying the sounds that are related to a letter or letters (e.g. "a", "e", "i", "o", "u"). Accuracy comes first, followed by speed. The sounds may be grouped by categories such as vowels that sound short (e.g. c-"a"-t and s-"i"-t). When the student is comfortable recognizing and saying the sounds, the following steps might be followed: a) the tutor says a target word and the student repeats it out loud, b) the student writes down each individual sound (letter) until the word is completely spelled, saying each sound as it is written, and c) the student says the entire word out loud. An alternate method would be to have the student use mnemonic cards to sound-out (spell) the target word.


title: Reading

text: Typically, the instruction starts with sounds that have only one letter and simple CVC words such as "sat" and "pin". Then it progresses to longer words, and sounds with more than one letter (e.g. h"ea"r and d"ay"), and perhaps even syllables (e.g. wa-ter). Sometimes the student practices by saying (or sounding-out) cards that contain entire words.


title: Reading

text: "Synthetic phonics", also known as blended phonics, is a systematic phonics method employed to teach students to read by "sounding out" the letters then "blending" the sounds to form the word. This method involves learning how letters or letter groups represent individual sounds, and that those sounds are blended to form a word. For example, "shrouds" would be read by pronouncing the sounds for each spelling, "sh, r, ou, d, s" (IPA ), then blending those sounds orally to produce a spoken word, "sh – r – ou – d – s = shrouds" (IPA ). The goal of a synthetic phonics instructional program is that students identify the sound-symbol correspondences and blend their phonemes automatically. Since 2005, synthetic phonics has become the accepted method of teaching reading (by phonics instruction) in England, Scotland and Australia.


title: Reading

text: The 2005 Rose Report from the UK concluded that systematic synthetic phonics was the most effective method for teaching reading. It also suggests the "best teaching" included a brisk pace, engaging children's interest with multi-sensory activities and stimulating resources, praise for effort and achievement; and above all, the full backing of the headteacher.


title: Reading

text: It also has considerable support in some States in the U.S. and some support from expert panels in Canada.


title: Reading

text: In the US, a pilot program using the Core Knowledge Early Literacy program that used this type of phonics approach showed significantly higher results in K–3 reading compared with comparison schools. In addition, several States such as California, Ohio, New York and Arkansas, are promoting the principles of synthetic phonics (see synthetic phonics in the United States).


title: Reading

text: Phonemic awareness is the process by which the phonemes (sounds of oral language) are heard, interpreted, understood and manipulated – unrelated to their grapheme (written language). It is a sub-set of Phonological awareness that includes the manipulation of rhymes, syllables, and onsets and rimes, and is most prevalent in alphabetic systems. The specific part of speech depends on the writing system employed. The National Reading Panel (NPR) concluded that phonemic awareness improves a learner's ability to learn to read. When teaching phonemic awareness, the NRP found that better results were obtained with focused and explicit instruction of one or two elements, over five or more hours, in small groups, and using the corresponding graphemes (letters). See also Speech perception. As mentioned earlier, some researchers feel that the most effective way of teaching phonemic awareness is through segmenting and blending, a key part of synthetic phonics.


title: Reading

text: A critical aspect of reading comprehension is vocabulary development. When a reader encounters an unfamiliar word in print and decodes it to derive its spoken pronunciation, the reader understands the word if it is in the reader's spoken vocabulary. Otherwise, the reader must derive the meaning of the word using another strategy, such as context. If the development of the child's vocabulary is impeded by things such as ear infections that inhibit the child from hearing new words consistently then the development of reading will also be impaired.


title: Reading

text: Sight words (i.e. high-frequency or common words), sometimes called the "look-say" method or whole-word method, are "not" a part of the phonics method. They are usually associated with whole language and balanced literacy where students are expected to memorize common words such as those on the Dolch word list and the Fry word list (e.g. a, be, call, do, eat, fall, gave, etc.). The supposition (in whole language and balanced literacy) is that students will learn to read more easily if they memorize the most common words they will encounter, especially words that are not easily decoded (i.e. exceptions).


title: Reading

text: On the other hand, using sight words as a method of teaching reading in English is seen as being at odds with the alphabetic principle and treating English as though it was a logographic language (e.g. Chinese or Japanese).


title: Reading

text: In addition, according to research, whole-word memorisation is "labor-intensive", requiring on average about 35 trials per word. Also, phonics advocates say that most words are decodable, so comparatively few words have to be memorized. And because a child will over time encounter many low-frequency words, "the phonological recoding mechanism is a very powerful, indeed essential, mechanism throughout reading development". Furthermore, researchers suggest that teachers who withhold phonics instruction to make it easier on children "are having the opposite effect" by making it harder for children to gain basic word-recognition skills. They suggest that learners should focus on understanding the principles of phonics so they can recognize the phonemic overlaps among words (e.g. have, had, has, having, haven't, etc.), making it easier to decode them all.


title: Reading

text: "Sight vocabulary" is a part of the phonics method. It describes words that are stored in long-term memory and read automatically. Skilled fully-alphabetic readers learn to store words in long-term memory without memorization (i.e. a mental dictionary), making reading and comprehension easier. "Once you know the sound-based way to decode, your mind learns what words look like, even if you're not especially trying to do so". The process, called "orthographic mapping", involves "decoding, crosschecking, mental marking and rereading". It takes significantly less time than memorization. This process works for fully-alphabetic readers when reading simple decodable words from left to right through the word. "Irregular words" pose more of a challenge, yet research in 2018 concluded that "fully-alphabetic students" learn irregular words more easily when they use a process called "hierarchical decoding". In this process, students, rather than decode from left to right, are taught to focus attention on the irregular elements such as a vowel-digraph and a silent-e; for example, break (b – r – "ea" – k), height (h – "eigh" – t), touch (t – "ou – ch"), and make (m – "a" – k"e"). Consequentially, they suggest that teachers and tutors should focus on "teaching decoding with more advanced vowel patterns before expecting young readers to tackle irregular words".


title: Reading

text: Fluency is ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and vocal expression. The ability to read fluently is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. If a reader is not fluent, it may be difficult to remember what has been read and to relate the ideas expressed in the text to their background knowledge. This accuracy and automaticity of reading serves as a bridge between decoding and comprehension.


title: Reading

text: The NRP describes reading comprehension as a complex cognitive process in which a reader intentionally and interactively engages with the text. The science of reading says that reading comprehension is heavily dependent on word recognition (i.e., phonological awareness, decoding, etc.) and oral language comprehension (i.e., background knowledge, vocabulary, etc.). Phonological awareness and rapid naming predict reading comprehension in second grade but oral language skills account for an additional 13.8% of the variance. It has also been found that sustained content literacy intervention instruction that gradually build thematic connections may help young children transfer their knowledge to related topics, leading to improved comprehension.


title: Reading

text: Evidence supports the strong synergy between reading (decoding) and spelling (encoding), especially for children in kindergarten or grade one and elementary school students at risk for literacy difficulties.


title: Reading

text: Research supports the use of embedded, picture mnemonic (memory support) alphabet cards when teaching letters and sounds, but not words.


title: Reading

text: Whole language has the reputation of being a meaning-based method of teaching reading that emphasizes literature and text comprehension. It discourages any significant use of phonics, if at all. Instead, it trains students to focus on words, sentences and paragraphs as a whole rather than letters and sounds. Students are taught to use context and pictures to "guess" words they do not recognize, or even just skip them and read on. It aims to make reading fun, yet many students struggle to figure out the specific rules of the language on their own, which causes the student's decoding and spelling to suffer.


title: Reading

text: As of 2020, whole language is widely used in the US and Canada (often as "balanced literacy"), however, in some US States and many other countries, such as Australia and the United Kingdom, it has lost favor or been abandoned because it is not supported by evidence. Some notable researchers have clearly stated their disapproval of "whole language" and "whole-word" teaching. In his 2009 book, "Reading in the brain", cognitive neuroscientist, Stanislas Dehaene, said "cognitive psychology directly refutes any notion of teaching via a 'global' or 'whole language' method". He goes on to talk about "the myth of whole-word reading", saying it has been refuted by recent experiments. "We do not recognize a printed word through a holistic grasping of its contours, because our brain breaks it down into letters and graphemes". In addition, cognitive neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, in his 2017 book "Language at the speed of light", refers to whole language as a "theoretical zombie" because it persists in spite of a lack of supporting evidence.


title: Reading

text: Balanced literacy is not well defined, however it is intended as a method that combines elements of both phonics and whole language. According to a survey in 2010, 68% of elementary school teachers in the United States profess to use balanced literacy. However, only 52% of teachers in the United States include "phonics" in their definition of "balanced literacy".


title: Reading

text: The National Reading Panel concluded that phonics must be integrated with instruction in phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. And, some studies indicate that "the addition of language activities and tutoring to phonics produced larger effects than any of these components in isolation". They suggest that this may be a constructive way to view balanced reading instruction.


title: Reading

text: However, balanced literacy has received criticism from researchers and others suggesting that, in many instances, it is merely "whole language" by another name.


title: Reading

text: According to phonics advocate and cognitive neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, balanced literacy allows educators to diffuse the reading wars while not making specific recommendations for change. He goes on to say that, in his opinion, the high number of struggling readers in the United States is the result of the manner in which teachers are taught to teach reading. He also says that struggling readers should not be encouraged to skip a challenging word, nor rely on pictures or semantic and syntactic cues to "guess at" a challenging word. Instead, they should use evidence-based decoding methods such as systematic phonics.


title: Reading

text: Structured literacy has many of the elements of systematic phonics and few of the elements of balanced literacy. It is defined as explicit, systematic teaching that focuses on phonological awareness, word recognition, phonics and decoding, spelling, and syntax at the sentence and paragraph levels. It is considered to be beneficial for all early literacy learners, especially those with dyslexia.


title: Reading

text: According to the International Dyslexia Association, structured literacy contains the elements of phonology and phonemic awareness, sound-symbol association (the alphabetic principle and phonics), syllables, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The elements are taught using methods that are systematic, cumulative, explicit, multisensory, and use diagnostic assessment.


title: Reading

text: The three-cueing system (the searchlights model in England) is a theory that has been circulating since the 1980s. Its roots are in the theories proposed in 1960s by Ken Goodman and Marie Clay that eventually became whole language, reading recovery and guided reading (e.g., Fountas and Pinnell early reading programs). As of 2010, 75% of teachers in the United States teach the three-cueing system. It proposes that children who are stuck on a word should use various "cues" to figure it out and determine (guess) its meaning. The "meaning cues" are semantic ("does it make sense in the context?"), syntactic (is it a noun, verb, etc.?) and graphophonic (what are the letter-sound relationships?). It is also known as MSV ("M"eaning, "S"entence structure/syntax and "V"isual information such as the letters in the words).


title: Reading

text: According to some, three-cueing is not the most effective way for beginning readers to learn how to decode printed text. While a cueing system does help students to "make better guesses", it does not help when the words become more sophisticated; and it reduces the amount of practice time available to learn essential decoding skills. They also say that students should first decode the word, "then they can use context to figure out the meaning of any word they don't understand".


title: Reading

text: Consequently, researchers such as cognitive neuroscientists Mark Seidenberg and professor Timothy Shanahan do not support the theory. They say the three-cueing system's value in reading instruction "is a magnificent work of the imagination", and it developed not because teachers lack integrity, commitment, motivation, sincerity, or intelligence, but because they "were poorly trained and advised" about the science of reading. In England, the simple view of reading and synthetic phonics are intended to replace "the searchlights multi-cueing model". On the other hand, some researchers suggest that "context" can be useful, not to guess a word, but to confirm a word after it has been phonetically decoded.


title: Reading

text: The three Ps approach is used by teachers, tutors and parents to guide oral reading practice with a struggling reader. For some, it is merely a variation of the above-mentioned "three-cueing system".


title: Reading

text: However, for others it is very different. For example: when a student encounters a word they do not know or get it wrong, the three steps are: 1) pause to see if they can fix it themselves, even letting them read on a little, 2) prompt them with strategies to find the correct pronunciation, and 3) praise them directly and genuinely. In the "prompt" step, the tutor does not suggest the student skip the word or guess the word based on the pictures or the first sound. Instead, they encourage student to use their decoding training to sound out the word, and use the context (meaning) to confirm they have found the correct word.


title: Reading

text: Guided reading is small group reading instruction that is intended to allow for the differences in students' reading abilities. While they are reading, students are encouraged to use strategies from the three-cueing system, the searchlights model, or MSV.


title: Reading

text: It is no longer supported by the Primary National Strategy in England as Synthetic phonics is the officially recognized method for teaching reading.


title: Reading

text: The reading workshop model provides students with a collection of books, allows them the choice of what to read, limits students' reading to texts that can be easily read by them, provides teaching through mini-lessons, and monitors and supports reading comprehension development through one-on-one teacher-student conferences. Some reports state that it is 'unlikely to lead to literacy success' for all students, particularly those lacking foundational skills.


title: Reading

text: Shared (oral) reading is an activity whereby the teacher and students read from a shared text that is determined to be at the students' reading level.


title: Reading

text: Leveled reading involves students reading from "leveled books" at an appropriate reading level. A student that struggles with a word is encouraged to use a cueing system (e.g. three-cueing, searchlights model or MSV) to guess its meaning. There are many systems that purport to gauge the students' reading levels using scales incorporating numbers, letters, colors and lexile readability scores.


title: Reading

text: Silent reading (and self-teaching) is a common practice in elementary schools. A 2007 study in the United States found that, on average only 37% of class time was spent on active reading instruction or practice, and the most frequent activity was students reading silently. Based on the limited available studies on silent reading, the NRP concluded that independent silent reading did not prove an effective practice when used as the only type of reading instruction to develop fluency and other reading skills – particularly with students who have not yet developed critical alphabetic and word reading skills.


title: Reading

text: According to some, the classroom method called DEAR (Drop everything and read) is not the best use of classroom time for students who are not yet fluent. However, according to the "self-teaching hypothesis", when fluent readers practice decoding words while reading silently, they learn what whole words look like (spelling), leading to improved fluency and comprehension.


title: Reading

text: The suggestion is: "if some students are fluent readers, they could read silently while the teacher works with the struggling readers".


title: Reading

text: Languages such as Chinese and Japanese are normally written (fully or partly) in logograms (hanzi and kanji, respectively), which represent a whole word or morpheme with a single character. There are a large number of characters, and the sound that each makes must be learned directly or from other characters which contain "hints" in them. For example, in Japanese, the On-reading of the kanji 民 is "min" and the related kanji 眠 shares the same On-reading, "min": the right-hand part shows the character's pronunciation. However this is not true for all characters. Kun readings, on the other hand, have to be learned and memorized as there is no way to tell from each character.


title: Reading

text: Ruby characters are used in textbooks to help children learn the sounds that each logogram makes. These are written in a smaller size, using an alphabetic or syllabic script. For example, hiragana is typically used in Japanese, and the pinyin romanization into Latin alphabet characters is used in Chinese.


title: Reading

text: The examples above each spell the word "kanji", which is made up of two kanji characters: 漢 ("kan", written in hiragana as かん), and 字 ("ji", written in hiragana as じ).


title: Reading

text: Textbooks are sometimes edited as a cohesive set across grades so that children will not encounter characters they are not yet expected to have learned.


title: Reading

text: A debate has been going on for decades about the merits of phonics vs. whole language. It is sometimes referred to as the "Reading Wars".


title: Reading

text: Phonics was a popular way to learn reading in the 19th century. William Holmes McGuffey (1800–1873), an American educator, author, and Presbyterian minister who had a lifelong interest in teaching children, compiled the first four of the McGuffey Readers in 1836.


title: Reading

text: Then, in 1841 Horace Mann, the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, advocated for a whole-word method of teaching reading to replace phonics. Others, such as Rudolf Flesch, advocated for a return to phonics in his book "Why Johnny Can't Read" (1955). The whole-word method received support from Kenneth J. Goodman who wrote an article in 1967 entitled "Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game". Although not supported by scientific studies, the theory became very influential as the whole language method. Since the 1970s some whole language supporters such as Frank Smith (psycholinguist), are unyielding in arguing that phonics should be taught little, if at all.


title: Reading

text: Yet, other researchers say instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness are "critically important" and "essential" to develop early reading skills. In 2000, the National Reading Panel (U.S.) identified five ingredients of effective reading instruction, of which phonics is one; the other four are phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Reports from other countries, such as the Australian report on "Teaching reading" (2005) and the U.K. Independent review of the teaching of early reading (Rose Report 2006) have also supported the use of phonics.


title: Reading

text: Some notable researchers such as Stanislas Dehaene and Mark Seidenberg have clearly stated their disapproval of "whole language".


title: Reading

text: Furthermore, a 2017 study in the UK that compared teaching with phonics vs. teaching whole written words concluded that phonics is more effective, saying "our findings suggest that interventions aiming to improve the accuracy of reading aloud and/or comprehension in the early stages of learning should focus on the systematicities present in print-to-sound relationships, rather than attempting to teach direct access to the meanings of whole written words".


title: Reading

text: More recently, some educators have advocated for the theory of balanced literacy purported to combine phonics and whole language yet not necessarily in a consistent or systematic manner. It may include elements such as word study and phonics mini-lessons, differentiated learning, cueing, leveled reading, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading and sight words. According to a survey in 2010, 68% of K–2 teachers in the United States practice balanced literacy; however, only 52% of teachers included "phonics" in their definition of "balanced literacy". In addition, 75% of teachers teach the three-cueing system (i.e., meaning/structure/visual or semantic/syntactic/graphophonic) that has its roots in whole language.


title: Reading

text: In addition, some phonics supporters assert that "balanced literacy" is merely "whole language" by another name. And critics of whole language and sceptics of balanced literacy, such as neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, state that struggling readers should "not" be encouraged to skip words they find puzzling or rely on semantic and syntactic cues to guess words.


title: Reading

text: Over time a growing number of countries and states have put greater emphasis on phonics and other evidence-based practices (see Phonics practices by country or region).


title: Reading

text: According to the report by the US National Reading Panel (NRP) in 2000, the elements required for proficient reading of alphabetic languages are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. In non-Latin languages, proficient reading does not necessarily require phonemic awareness, but rather an awareness of the individual parts of speech, which may also include the whole word (as in Chinese characters) or syllables (as in Japanese) as well as others depending on the writing system being employed.


title: Reading

text: The Rose Report, from the Department for Education in England makes it clear that, in their view, systematic phonics, specifically synthetic phonics, is the best way to ensure that children learn to read; such that it is now the law. In 2005 the government of Australia published a report stating "The evidence is clear ... that direct systematic instruction in phonics during the early years of schooling is an essential foundation for teaching children to read". Phonics has been gaining acceptance in many other countries as can be seen from this page Practices by country or region.


title: Reading

text: Other important elements are: rapid automatized naming (RAN), a general understanding of the orthography of the language, and practice.


title: Reading

text: Difficulties in reading typically involve difficulty with one or more of the following: decoding, reading rate, reading fluency, or reading comprehension.


title: Reading

text: Brain activity in young and older children can be used to predict future reading skill. Cross model mapping between the orthographic and phonologic areas in the brain are critical in reading. Thus, the amount of activation in the left dorsal inferior frontal gyrus while performing reading tasks can be used to predict later reading ability and advancement. Young children with higher phonological word characteristic processing have significantly better reading skills later on than older children who focus on whole-word orthographic representation.


title: Reading

text: Difficulty with decoding is marked by having not acquired the phoneme-grapheme mapping concept. One specific disability characterized by poor decoding is dyslexia, defined as brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read. These individuals typically read at levels significantly lower than expected despite having normal intelligence. It can also be inherited in some families, and recent studies have identified a number of genes that may predispose an individual to developing dyslexia. Although the symptoms vary from person to person, common characteristics among people with dyslexia are difficulty with spelling, phonological processing (the manipulation of sounds), and/or rapid visual-verbal responding. Adults can have either developmental dyslexia or acquired dyslexia which occurs after a brain injury, stroke or dementia.


title: Reading

text: Individuals with reading rate difficulties tend to have accurate word recognition and normal comprehension abilities, but their reading speed is below grade level. Strategies such as guided reading (guided, repeated oral-reading instruction), may help improve a reader's reading rate.


title: Reading

text: Many studies show that increasing reading speed improves comprehension. Reading speed requires a long time to reach adult levels. According to Carver (1990), children's reading speed increases throughout the school years. On average, from grade 2 to college, reading rate increases 14 standard-length words per minute each year (where one standard-length word is defined as six characters in text, including punctuation and spaces).


title: Reading

text: Scientific studies have demonstrated that speed reading – defined here as capturing and decoding words faster than 900 wpm – is not feasible given the limits set by the anatomy of the eye.


title: Reading

text: Individuals with reading fluency difficulties fail to maintain a fluid, smooth pace when reading. Strategies used for overcoming reading rate difficulties are also useful in addressing reading fluency issues.


title: Reading

text: Individuals with reading comprehension difficulties are commonly described as poor comprehenders. They have normal decoding skills as well as a fluid rate of reading, but have difficulty comprehending text when reading. The simple view of reading holds that reading comprehension requires both "decoding skills" and "oral language comprehension" ability.


title: Reading

text: Increasing vocabulary knowledge, listening skills and teaching basic comprehension techniques may help facilitate better reading comprehension. It is suggested that students receive brief, explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies in the areas of vocabulary, noticing understanding, and connecting ideas.


title: Reading

text: In some countries, a radio reading service provides a service for blind people and others who chose to hear newspapers, books, and other printed material read aloud, typically by volunteers. An example is Australia's Radio Print Handicapped Network with stations in capital cities and some other areas.


title: Reading

text: The following organizations measure and report on reading achievement in the United States and internationally:


title: Reading

text: In the United States, the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP ("The Nation's Report Card") is the national assessment of what students know and can do in various subjects. Four of these subjects – reading, writing, mathematics and science – are assessed most frequently and reported at the state and district level, usually for grades 4 and 8.


title: Reading

text: In 2019, with respect to the reading skills of the nation's grade-four public school students, 35% performed at or above the NAEP "Proficient level" (solid academic performance) and 65% performed at or above the NAEP "Basic level" (partial mastery of the proficient level skills). It is believed that students who read below the basic level do not have sufficient support to complete their schoolwork.


title: Reading

text: Reading scores for the individual States and Districts are available on the NAEP site. Between 2017 and 2019 Mississippi was the only State that had a grade-four reading score increase and 17 States had a score decrease.


title: Reading

text: The covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on reading results in the USA. In 2022 the average basic-level reading score was 3 points lower compared to 2019 (the previous assessment year) and roughly equivalent to the first reading assessment in 1992, 30 years previously. Students who are black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander were disproportionately affected. (This was substantiated by other sources). In 2022, no states had a reading score increase and 30 states had a score decrease. The results by race / ethnicity were as follows:


title: Reading

text: NAEP reading assessment results are reported as average scores on a 0–500 scale. The Basic Level is 208 and the Proficient Level is 238. The average reading score for grade-four public school students was 219. Female students had an average score that was 7 points higher than male students. Students who were eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) had an average score that was 28 points lower than that for students who were not eligible.


title: Reading

text: The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is an international study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of cognitive and workplace skills in 39 countries between 2011 and 2018. The Survey measures adults' proficiency in key information-processing skills – literacy, numeracy and problem solving. The focus is on the working-age population between the ages of 16 and 65. For example, the study shows the ranking of 38 countries as to the "literacy proficiency among adults". According to the 2019 OECD report, the five countries with the highest ranking are Japan, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Australia; whereas Canada is 12th, England (UK) is 16th, and the United States is 19th. It is also worth noting that the PIAAC table A2.1 (2013) shows the percentage of adults reading "at-or-below level one" (out of five levels). Some examples are Japan 4.9%, Finland 10.6%, Netherlands 11.7%, Australia 12.6%, Sweden 13.3%, Canada 16.4%, England 16.4%, and the United States 16.9%.


title: Reading

text: The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an international study of reading (comprehension) achievement in fourth graders. It is designed to measure children's reading literacy achievement, to provide a baseline for future studies of trends in achievement, and to gather information about children's home and school experiences in learning to read. The 2016 PIRLS report shows the 4th grade reading achievement by country in two categories (literary and informational). The ten countries with the highest overall reading average are the Russian Federation, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Ireland, Finland, Poland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Chinese Taipei and England (UK). Some others are: the United States 15th, Australia 21st, Canada 23rd, and New Zealand 33rd.


title: Reading

text: The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) measures 15-year-old school pupils scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading. In 2018, of the 79 participating countries/economies, on average, students in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (China) and Singapore outperformed students from all other countries in reading, mathematics and science. 21 countries have reading scores above the OECD average scores and many of the scores are not statistically different.


title: Reading

text: Critics, however, say PISA is fundamentally flawed in its underlying view of education, its implementation, and its interpretation and impact on education globally. In 2014, more than 100 academics from around the world called for a moratorium on PISA.


title: Reading

text: The Education Quality and Accountability Office, EQAO, is an agency of the government of Ontario, Canada that reports on the publicly funded school system. In 2022, it reported that 77% of grade three students in Ontario met the provincial standard in reading in 2018-2019. This decreased to 73% in 2021-2022.


title: Reading

text: 53% of Grade three students with special needs met the standard in 2018-2019, and this reduced to 48% in 2021-2022. 72% of grade three students who are English language learners met the standard in 2018-2019, and this reduced to 67% in 2021-2022.


title: Reading

text: The history of reading dates back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC. Although reading print text is now an important way for the general population to access information, this has not always been the case. With some exceptions, only a small percentage of the population in many countries was considered literate before the Industrial Revolution. Some of the pre-modern societies with generally high literacy rates included classical Athens and the Islamic Caliphate.


title: Reading

text: Scholars assume that reading aloud (Latin "clare legere") was the more common practice in antiquity, and that reading silently ("legere tacite" or "legere sibi") was unusual. In his "Confessions", Saint Augustine remarks on Saint Ambrose's unusual habit of reading silently in the 4th century AD.


title: Reading

text: During the Age of Enlightenment, elite individuals promoted passive reading, rather than creative interpretation. Some thinkers of that era believed that construction, or the creation of writing and producing a product, was a sign of initiative and active participation in society – and viewed consumption (reading) as simply taking in what constructors made. Also during this era, writing was considered superior to reading in society. They considered readers of that time passive citizens, because they did not produce a product. Michel de Certeau argued that the elites of the Age of Enlightenment were responsible for this general belief. Michel de Certeau believed that reading required venturing into an author's land, but taking away what the reader wanted specifically. This view held that writing was a superior art to reading within the hierarchical constraints of the era.


title: Reading

text: Before the mid 18th century, children's books in England usually had religious or instructional (school books, conduct books) themes, but by the mid to late 18th century books were designed to delight and novels would come into popularity. By the end of the 18th century literature made for children were flourishing, with perhaps as many as 50 books being printed every year in major cities.


title: Reading

text: In 18th-century Europe, the then new practice of reading alone in bed was, for a time, considered dangerous and immoral. As reading became less a communal, oral practice, and more a private, silent one – and as sleeping increasingly moved from communal sleeping areas to individual bedrooms, some raised concern that reading in bed presented various dangers, such as fires caused by bedside candles. Some modern critics, however, speculate that these concerns were based on the fear that readers – especially women – could escape familial and communal obligations and transgress moral boundaries through the private fantasy worlds in books. Also during the 18th century in England, reading novels was often criticized as a time-wasting pastime, when contrasted with the cultural seriousness carried by reading history, classical literature or poetry.


title: Reading

text: Chapbooks were small, cheap forms of literature for children and adults that were sold on the streets, and covered a range of subjects such as ghost stories, crime, fantasy, politics and disaster updates. They provided simple reading matter and were commonplace across England from the 17th to the 19th century. They are known to have been passed down the generations. Their readership would have been largely among the poor, and among children of the middle class.


title: Reading

text: Reading became even more pronounced in the 19th century with public notes, broadsides, catchpennies and printed songs becoming common street literature, it informed and entertained the public before newspapers became readily available. Advertisements and local news, such as offers of rewards for catching criminals or for the return of stolen goods, appeared on public notices and handbills, while cheaply printed sheets – broadsheets and ballads – covered political or criminal news such murders, trials, executions, disasters and rescues.


title: Reading

text: Technological improvements during the industrial revolution in printing and paper production; and new distribution networks enabled by improved roads and rail helped push an increased demand for printed (reading) matter. Besides this, social and educational changes (such as wider schooling rates) along with increasing literacy rates, particularly among the middle and working classes, helped boost a new mass market for printed material. The arrival of gas and electric lighting in private homes meant that reading after dark no longer had to take place by oil lamp or candlelight.


title: Reading

text: In 19th century Russia, reading practices were highly varied, as people from a wide range of social statuses read Russian and foreign-language texts ranging from high literature to the peasant lubok. Provincial readers such as Andrei Chikhachev give evidence of the omnivorous appetite for fiction and non-fiction alike among middling landowners.


title: Reading

text: With respect to the English language in the United States, the phonics principle of teaching reading was first presented by John Hart in 1570, who suggested the teaching of reading should focus on the relationship between what is now referred to as graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds).


title: Reading

text: In the colonial times of the United States, reading material was not written specifically for children, so instruction material consisted primarily of the Bible and some patriotic essays. The most influential early textbook was The New England Primer, published in 1687. There was little consideration given to the best ways to teach reading or assess reading comprehension.


title: Reading

text: Phonics was a popular way to learn reading in the 1800s. William Holmes McGuffey (1800–1873), an American educator, author, and Presbyterian minister who had a lifelong interest in teaching children, compiled the first four of the McGuffey Readers in 1836.


title: Reading

text: The whole-word method was introduced into the English-speaking world by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the director of the American School for the Deaf. It was designed to educate deaf people by placing a word alongside a picture. In 1830, Gallaudet described his method of teaching children to recognize a total of 50 sight words written on cards. Horace Mann, the Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, U.S., favored the method for everyone, and by 1837 the method was adopted by the Boston Primary School Committee.


title: Reading

text: By 1844 the defects of the whole-word method became so apparent to Boston schoolmasters that they urged the Board to return to phonics. In 1929, Samuel Orton, a neuropathologist in Iowa, concluded that the cause of children's reading problems was the new sight method of reading. His findings were published in the February 1929 issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology in the article "The Sight Reading Method of Teaching Reading as a Source of Reading Disability".


title: Reading

text: The meaning-based curriculum came to dominate reading instruction by the second quarter of the 20th century. In the 1930s and 1940s, reading programs became very focused on comprehension and taught children to read whole words by sight. Phonics was taught as a last resort.


title: Reading

text: Edward William Dolch developed his list of sight words in 1936 by studying the most frequently occurring words in children's books of that era. Children are encouraged to memorize the words with the idea that it will help them read more fluently. Many teachers continue to use this list, although some researchers consider the theory of sight word reading to be a "myth". Researchers and literacy organizations suggest it would be more effective if students learned the words using a phonics approach.


title: Reading

text: In 1955, Rudolf Flesch published a book entitled "Why Johnny Can't Read", a passionate argument in favor of teaching children to read using phonics, adding to the reading debate among educators, researchers, and parents.


title: Reading

text: Government-funded research on reading instruction in the United States and elsewhere began in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers began publishing studies with evidence on the effectiveness of different instructional approaches. During this time, researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted studies that showed early reading acquisition depends on the understanding of the connection between sounds and letters (i.e. phonics). However, this appears to have had little effect on educational practices in public schools.


title: Reading

text: In the 1970s, the whole language method was introduced. This method de-emphasizes the teaching of phonics out of context (e.g. reading books), and is intended to help readers "guess" the right word. It teaches that guessing individual words should involve three systems (letter clues, meaning clues from context, and the syntactical structure of the sentence). It became the primary method of reading instruction in the 1980s and 1990s. However, it is falling out of favor. The neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg refers to it as a "theoretical zombie" because it persists in spite of a lack of supporting evidence. It is still widely practiced in related methods such as sight words, the three-cueing system and balanced literacy.


title: Reading

text: In the 1980s the three-cueing system (the searchlights model in England) emerged. According to a 2010 survey 75% of teachers in the United States teach the three-cueing system. It teaches children to guess a word by using "meaning cues" (semantic, syntactic and graphophonic). While the system does help students to "make better guesses", it does not help when the words become more sophisticated; and it reduces the amount of practice time available to learn essential decoding skills. Consequently, present-day researchers such as cognitive neuroscientists Mark Seidenberg and professor Timothy Shanahan do not support the theory. In England, synthetic phonics is intended to replace "the searchlights multi-cueing model".


title: Reading

text: In the 1990s Balanced literacy arose. It is a theory of teaching reading and writing that is not clearly defined. It may include elements such as word study and phonics mini-lessons, differentiated learning, cueing, leveled reading, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading and sight words. For some, balanced literacy strikes a balance between whole language and phonics. Others say balanced literacy in practice usually means the "whole language" approach to reading. According to a survey in 2010, 68% of K–2 teachers in the United States practice balanced literacy. Furthermore, only 52% of teachers included "phonics" in their definition of "balanced literacy".


title: Reading

text: In 1996 the California Department of Education took an increased interest in using phonics in schools. And in 1997 the department called for grade one teaching in concepts about print, phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition, and vocabulary and concept development.


title: Reading

text: By 1998 in the U.K. whole language instruction and the searchlights-model were still the norm, however there was some attention to teaching phonics in the early grades, as seen in the National Literacy Strategies.


title: Reading

text: In Australia the 2005 report, "Teaching Reading", recommends teaching reading based on evidence and teaching systematic, explicit phonics within an integrated approach. The executive summary says "systematic phonics instruction is critical if children are to be taught to read well, whether or not they experience reading difficulties". , The State Government of Victoria, Australia, publishes a website containing a comprehensive Literacy Teaching Toolkit including effective reading instruction, phonics, and sample phonics lessons.


title: Reading

text: In Scotland a seven-year study (the Clackmannanshire Report) was published in 2005. It compared analytic phonics with synthetic phonics and advantaged students with disadvantaged students. The report found that, using synthetic phonics children from lower socio-economic backgrounds performed at the same level as children from advantaged backgrounds in primary school (whereas with analytic phonics teaching, they did significantly less well.); and boys performed better than or as well as girls. A five-year follow-up of the study concluded that the beneficial effects were long-lasting, in fact the reading gains increased. Subsequently, Education Scotland concluded that explicit, systematic phonics programs, usually embedded in a rich literacy environment, give an additional four months progress over other programs such as whole language, and are particularly beneficial for young learners (aged 4–7). There is evidence, though less secure, that synthetic phonics programs may be more beneficial than analytic phonics programs; however it is most important to teach systematically.


title: Reading

text: Until 2006, the English language syllabus of Singapore advocated "a balance between decoding and meaning-based instruction … phonics and whole language". However, a review in 2006 advocated for a "systematic" approach. Subsequently, the syllabus in 2010 had no mention of whole language and advocated for a balance between "systematic and explicit instruction" and "a rich language environment". It called for increased instruction in oral language skills together with phonemic awareness and the key decoding elements of synthetic phonics, analytic phonics and analogy phonics.


title: Reading

text: In 2007 the Department of Education (DE) in Northern Ireland was required by law to teach children foundational skills in phonological awareness and the understanding that "words are made up of sounds and syllables and that sounds are represented by letters (phoneme/grapheme awareness)". In 2010 the DE required that teachers receive support in using evidence-based practices to teach literacy and numeracy, including: a "systematic programme of high-quality phonics" that is explicit, structured, well-paced, interactive, engaging, and applied in a meaningful context.


title: Reading

text: In 2008, the National Center for Family Literacy, with the "National Institute for Literacy", published a report entitled "Developing Early Literacy". It is a synthesis of the scientific research on the development of early literacy skills in children ages zero to five as determined by the "National Early Literacy Panel" that was convened in 2002. Amongst other things, the report concluded that code-focused interventions on the early literacy and conventional literacy skills of young children yield a moderate to large effect on the predictors of later reading and writing, irrespective of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or population density.


title: Reading

text: In 2010 the Common Core State Standards Initiative was introduced in the United States. The "English Language Arts Standards for Reading: Foundational Skills in Grades 1–5" include recommendations to teach print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and fluency.


title: Reading

text: In the United Kingdom a 2010 government white paper contained plans to train all primary school teachers in phonics. The 2013 curriculum has "statutory requirements" that, amongst other things, students in years one and two be capable in using systematic synthetic phonics in regards to word reading, reading comprehension, fluency, and writing. This includes having skills in "sound to graphemes", "decoding", and "blending".


title: Reading

text: In 2013, the National Commission for UNESCO launched the "Leading for Literacy" project to develop the literacy skills of grades 1 and 2 students. The project facilitates the training of primary school teachers in the use of a "synthetic phonics" program. From 2013 to 2015, the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Education appointed seven reading specialist to help primary and secondary school teachers improve their literacy instruction. From February 2014 to January 2016, literacy coaches were hired in selected primary schools to assist teachers of kindergarten, grades 1 and 2 with pedagogy and content of early literacy instruction. Primary schools have been provided with literacy resources for instruction, including phonemic awareness, word recognition, vocabulary manipulatives, phonics and comprehension.


title: Reading

text: In 2013 the State of Mississippi passed the Literacy-Based Promotion Act. The Mississippi Department of Education provided resources for teachers in the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and reading strategies.


title: Reading

text: The school curriculum in Ireland focuses on ensuring children are literate in both the English language and the Irish language. The 2014 teachers' Professional Development guide covers the seven areas of attitude and motivation, fluency, comprehension, word identification, vocabulary, phonological awareness, phonics, and assessment. It recommends that phonics be taught in a systematic and structured way and is preceded by training in phonological awareness.


title: Reading

text: In 2014 the California Department of Education said children should know how to decode regularly spelled one-syllable words by mid-first grade, and be phonemically aware (especially able to segment and blend phonemes)". In grades two and three children receive explicit instruction in advanced phonic-analysis and reading multi-syllabic and more complex words.


title: Reading

text: In 2015 the New York State Public School system revised its English Language Arts learning standards, calling for teaching involving "reading or literacy experiences" as well as phonemic awareness from prekindergarten to grade 1 and phonics and word recognition for grades 1–4. That same year, the Ohio Legislature set minimum standards requiring the use of phonics including guidelines for teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.


title: Reading

text: In 2016 the What Works Clearinghouse and the Institute of Education Sciences published an Educator's Practice Guide on Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade. It contains four recommendations to support reading: 1) teach students academic language skills, including the use of inferential and narrative language, and vocabulary knowledge, 2) develop awareness of the segments of sounds in speech and how they link to letters (phonemic awareness and phonics), 3) teach students to decode words, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words (phonics and synthetic phonics), and 4) ensure that each student reads connected text every day to support reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.


title: Reading

text: In 2016 the Colorado Department of Education updated their "Elementary Teacher Literacy Standards" with standards for development in the areas of phonology, phonics and word recognition, fluent automatic reading, vocabulary, text comprehension, handwriting, spelling, and written expression. At the same time, the Department of Education in Delaware, U.S., produced a plan to improve education results. It states that "students who aren't reading at grade level aren't able to comprehend up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum". Furthermore, it says a gap exists between what is known about how to teach reading and how teachers are able to teach reading. It goes on to say that teachers' preparation programs must include evidence-based practices, including the five essential components of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension).


title: Reading

text: The European Literacy Policy Network (ELINET) 2016 reports that Hungarian children in grades one and two receive explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics "as the route to decode words". In grades three and four they continue to apply their knowledge of phonics, however the emphasis shifts to the more meaning-focused technical aspects of reading and writing (i.e., vocabulary, types of texts, reading strategies, spelling, punctuation and grammar).


title: Reading

text: In 2017 the Ohio Department of Education adopted "Reading Standards for Foundational Skills K–12" laying out a systematic approach to teaching "phonological awareness" in kindergarten and grade one, and "grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words" (including fluency and comprehension) in grades 1–5.


title: Reading

text: In 2018 the Arkansas Department of Education published a report about their new initiative known as R.I.S.E., Reading Initiative for Student Excellence, that was the result of The Right to Read Act, passed in 2017. The first goal of this initiative is to provide educators with the in-depth knowledge and skills of "the science of reading" and evidence-based instructional strategies. This included a focus on research-based instruction on phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension; specifically systematic and explicit instruction.


title: Reading

text: , the Ministry of Education in New Zealand has online information to help teachers to support their students in years 1–3 in relation to sounds, letters, and words. It states that phonics instruction "is not an end in itself" and it is "not" necessary to teach students "every combination of letters and sounds".


title: Reading

text: In 2018, ScienceDirect published the results of a study of early literacy and numeracy outcomes in developing countries entitled "Identifying the essential ingredients to literacy and numeracy improvement: Teacher professional development and coaching, student textbooks, and structured teachers' guides". It concluded that "Including teachers' guides was by far the most cost-effective intervention".


title: Reading

text: There has been a strong debate in France on the teaching of phonics ("méthode syllabique") versus whole language ("méthode globale"). After the 1990s, supporters of the later started defending a so-called "mixed method" (also known as Balanced literacy) in which approaches from both methods are used. Influential researchers in psycho-pedagogy, cognitive sciences and neurosciences, such as Stanislas Dehaene and have put their heavy scientific weight on the side of phonics. In 2018 the ministry created a science educational council that openly supported phonics. In April 2018, the minister issued a set of four guiding documents for early teaching of reading and mathematics and a booklet detailing phonics recommendations. Some have described his stance as "traditionalist", but he openly declared that the so-called mixed approach is no serious choice.


title: Reading

text: In 2019 the Minnesota Department of Education introduced standards requiring school districts to "develop a local literacy plan to ensure that all students have achieved early reading proficiency by no later than the end of third grade" in accordance with a Statute of the Minnesota Legislature requiring elementary teachers to be able to implement comprehensive, scientifically based reading and oral language instruction in the five reading areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.


title: Reading

text: Also in 2019, 26% of grade 4 students in Louisiana were reading at the "proficiency level" according to the Nation's Report Card, as compared to the National Average of 34%. In March 2019 the Louisiana Department of Education revised their curriculum for K–12 English Language Arts including requirements for instruction in the alphabetic principle, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, fluency and comprehension.


title: Reading

text: And again in 2019, 30% of grade 4 students in Texas were reading at the "proficiency level" according to the Nation's Report Card. In June of that year the Texas Legislature passed a Bill requiring all kindergarten through grade-three teachers and principals to ""begin" a teacher literacy achievement academy before the 2022–2023 school year". The required content of the academies' training includes the areas of "The Science of Teaching Reading, Oral Language, Phonological Awareness, Decoding (i.e. Phonics), Fluency and Comprehension." The goal is to "increase teacher knowledge and implementation of evidence-based practices to positively impact student literacy achievement".


title: Reading

text: In 2021, the State of Connecticut passed an act concerning the "right to read" that will take effect in 2023. It requires education standards that are evidenced-based and scientifically based and focused on competency in the five areas of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary development, and reading fluency, including oral skills and reading comprehension. In the same year, the state of North Carolina passed a bill requiring that the teaching of reading be based on the science of reading.


title: Reading

text: In Canada, on January 27, 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) released a report on its public inquiry into the right to read. It followed the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, on November 9, 2012, recognizing that learning to read is not a privilege, but a basic and essential human right.


title: Reading

text: The OHRC's report deals with all students, not just those with learning disabilities. The inquiry found that Ontario is not fulfilling its obligations to meet students' right to read. Specifically, foundational word-reading skills are not effectively targeted in Ontario's education system. With science-based approaches to reading instruction, early screening and intervention, we should see only about 5% of students reading below grade level. However, in 2018–2019, 26% of all Ontario Grade 3 students and 53% of Grade 3 students with special education needs (students who have an Individual Education Plan), were not meeting the provincial EQAO standard. The results improved only slightly for Grade 6 students, where 19% of all students and 47% of students with special education needs did not meet the provincial standard.


title: Reading

text: The Ontario curriculum encourages the use of the three-cueing system and balanced literacy, which are ineffective because they teach children to "guess" the meaning of a word rather than sound it out. What is required is a) evidence-based curriculum and instruction (including explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics), b) evidence-based screening assessments, c) evidence-based reading interventions, d) accommodations that are not used as a substitute for teaching students to read, and e) professional assessments (yet, not required for interventions or accommodations).


title: Reading

text: The Minister of Education for Ontario responded to this report by saying the government is taking immediate action to improve student literacy and making longer-term reforms to modernize the way reading is taught and assessed in schools, with a focus on phonics. Their plan includes "revising the elementary Language curriculum and the Grade 9 English course with scientific, evidence-based approaches that emphasize direct, explicit and systematic instruction, and removing references to unscientific discovery and inquiry-based learning, including the three-cueing system, by 2023."


title: Reading

text: On April 23, 2022, the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy at the University of Delaware presented the results of a study of the long-term effects of Reading Recovery. The conclusion was that the "long-term impact estimates were significant and negative". The study found that children who received Reading Recovery had scores on state reading tests in third and fourth grade that were below the test scores of similar children who did not receive Reading Recovery. It suggests three possible hypotheses for this outcome: 1) while Reading Recovery produces large impacts on early literacy measures, it does not give students the required skills for success in later grades; or, 2) the gains are lost because students do not receive sufficient intervention in later grades; or, 3) the impacts of the early intervention was washed out by subsequent experiences.


title: Reading

text: Between 2013 and 2022, 30 States have passed laws or implemented new policies related to evidence-based reading instruction.


title: Reading

text: For more information on reading educational developments, see Phonics practices by country or region.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The Padma Multipurpose Bridge (), commonly known as the Padma Bridge (), is a two-level road-rail bridge across the Padma River, the main distributary of the Ganges in Bangladesh.


title: Padma Bridge

text: It connects Louhajang Upazila of Munshiganj and Zazira Upazila of Shariatpur and a small part of Shibchar Upazila of Madaripur, linking the less developed southwest of the country to the northern and eastern regions. The bridge was inaugurated on 25 June 2022 by the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The bridge is considered to be the most challenging construction project in the history of Bangladesh, the steel truss bridge carries a four-lane highway on the upper level and a single track railway on the lower level. The bridge consists of 41 sections, each long and wide, with a total length of . It is the longest bridge in Bangladesh, the longest bridge over the river Ganges (Gaṅgā) by both span and total length, and features the highest pile depth of any bridge in the world at . It is the deepest bridge in the world, with piles installed as deep as 127 metres. The construction of the bridge was considered to be especially challenging as the Padma River is among the most ferocious rivers in the world.


title: Padma Bridge

text: It was reported by "Daily Purbadesh" in 1971 that a team of survey experts from Japan submitted a feasibility report for the construction of the Dhaka–Faridpur road to the East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). As part of the construction of the road, they suggested building a bridge over the Padma river. After the liberation of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh, announced the construction of a bridge over the river Padma, but due to his death, the project was not implemented.


title: Padma Bridge

text: On 18 September 1998, a project worth Tk. 3,843.50 crore was proposed for the construction of a bridge over the Padma River on the Dhaka-Mawa-Bhanga-Khulna Highway with the aim of establishing direct communication between the capital and the south and southwest of the country. At 5 km long and 18.10 m wide, this bridge is considered to be the longest possible bridge in the country. Construction was proposed to begin in July 1999 and be completed in June 2004. The proposed amount of Taka 2,893.50 crore was from foreign sources and Taka 750 crore from local sources.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The foundation stone for Padma Bridge was laid by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on 4 July 2001. However, the BNP under the leadership of Khaleda Zia returned to power following the 2001 general election and decided to discontinue the project.


title: Padma Bridge

text: In the 2006-2007 Annual Development Program, the then Government of Bangladesh adopted a plan to build the Padma Multipurpose Bridge.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) invited the pre-qualification tender for the project in April 2010. Construction of the bridge was expected to commence by early 2011 and be ready for major completion in 2013 (and complete all sections by late 2015).


title: Padma Bridge

text: After allegations of corruption by some people associated with the project's preparation, the World Bank withdrew its commitment and other donors followed. The Government of Bangladesh then decided to fund the project itself.


title: Padma Bridge

text: China proposed building the bridge on the build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis by investing $2 billion or 70 percent of the project cost. Four companies—China Major Bridge Engineering Company, Daelim-L&T JV and Samsung C&T Corporation—purchased the tender papers. However, only the Chinese company submitted their financial proposal on 24 April 2014.


title: Padma Bridge

text: On 17 June 2014, important progress had been made in the construction of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge. A construction firm, China Major Bridge Engineering Company Ltd, was selected to construct the long aspired bridge on the river Padma. The 6.15 km bridge cost an estimated .


title: Padma Bridge

text: The project was ultimately funded directly by the Bangladesh government, with expenditures coming primarily from the central government budget.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The detailed design of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge is being delivered by a team of international and national consultants headed by AECOM. The team comprises AECOM, SMEC International, Northwest Hydraulic Consultants and ACE Consultants, with additional assistance from Aas-Jakobsen and HR Wallingford.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The project comprises two phases. Phase 1 includes the Design Phase leading through procurement action to the award of construction contracts. Phase 2 is the Construction Phase. Phase 1 commenced on 29 January 2009. A dedicated project office was set up in Dhaka in March 2009. The detailed design of the main bridge was carried out in AECOM's Hong Kong office. All work carried out by the design team was carried out within the framework of AECOM's Quality Management System (QMS) which is independently accredited to AS/NZS ISO 9001. The QMS is designed to control all project work undertaken by the team. A project-specific design management plan was established at the outset of the project. In March 2009, the Government of Bangladesh requested AECOM to accelerate the design to complete construction by the end of 2013. This necessitated the mobilization of additional personnel within the design team. Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) established an internationally recognized panel of experts comprising five national and five international experts to review the design at regular intervals. In addition, an independent checking engineer, Flint & Neill, was engaged to review the design criteria, specification and drawings produced by the design team to ensure the design meets the project requirements and to undertake an independent check of the detailed design of the main bridge and river training works.


title: Padma Bridge

text: A key feature of the detailed design was the integration of Bangladesh counterparts into the design team, which allowed the successful training of a significant number of Bangladesh personnel in all aspects of the project and the subsequent transfer of the high level of technology involved in this large, complex project.


title: Padma Bridge

text: As of May 2021, more than 95% of the construction (all the main steel frame spans were set on the piers) of the 6.15-kilometre-long two-tier Padma Multipurpose Bridge had been completed. The China Major Bridge Engineering Corporation (MBEC), which was appointed for the main bridge, is carrying out the work. The bridge have a total of 42 pillars. Each have six piles beneath. Steel spans was placed on the pillars. The bridge have a total of 41 spans.


title: Padma Bridge

text: Work on the Padma Multipurpose Bridge is broadly divided into five parts—the main bridge, river training, two link roads and infrastructure (service area) construction. China's Sinohydro Corporation was appointed for the river training works while Bangladesh's Abdul Monem Limited was given the contract for the two link roads and infrastructure construction.


title: Padma Bridge

text: In October 2017, more than one and a half years after the main construction work began, the first span was installed between pillars 37 and 38, indicating timely progress on the project.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The last road slab was installed on the span that linked pillars 12 and 13 of the Padma bridge on 24 August 2021 at 10:12 AM.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The bridge was officially inaugurated by the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, on 25 June 2022.


title: Padma Bridge

text: An elaborate ceremony was conducted for the opening of Padma Bridge, signifying the national significance of the bridge. The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina unveiled a plaque at the Mawa point commemorating the construction of the bridge followed by special prayers. After the inauguration, Hasina paid the first toll of the bridge, ৳750 and ৳16,400 for the rest of her fleet. The motorcade stopped while on the bridge and watched an aerobatics display conducted by the Bangladesh Air Force. Upon concluding the journey across the bridge, a programme which included a keynote speech from the Prime Minister was overseen. A commemorative ৳100 note was released featuring an image of the Bridge. Celebrations were held concurrently in the diplomatic missions of Bangladesh located around the world.


title: Padma Bridge

text: From the beginning, the Padma Multipurpose Bridge negotiation was involved in controversy and conspiracy. The World Bank stated that they found "credible evidence corroborated by a variety of sources which points to a high-level corruption conspiracy among Bangladeshi government officials, SNC-Lavalin executives, and private individuals in connection with the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project." As a result of the alleged corruption, the World Bank initially refused to sanction the proposed loan for constructing the bridge and imposed conditions for the continuation of loan talks with the government. In accordance with one of these conditions Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain had to resign, as he was alleged to have been involved in the corruption. SNC-Lavalin accepted a negotiated resolution agreement where the company and its affiliates were barred from taking part in bidding for World Bank contracts for 10 years. This is particularly significant as one of the four criteria required before the international donor agrees to a negotiated settlement is "Whether an accused party has admitted culpability". Some assumed that SNC Lavalin had done so.


title: Padma Bridge

text: However, the corruption allegations were thrown out in a Canadian Court on a technicality as initial cause shown before wire tapping suspects was not deemed good enough. Hence, all evidence gathered from the wire tap was discarded. As the case heavily relied on the wire tap evidences, the prosecution decided not to pursuit the case further.


title: Padma Bridge

text: In 2017, former ICC prosecutor Luis Gabriel Moreno Ocampo came to Dhaka to monitor the progress of the alleged Padma Multipurpose Bridge corruption investigation. The World Bank sent a panel of three, headed by Ocampo, to review the steps taken by the ACC in the investigation. As recommended by the panel, the ACC filed a case implicating former Bridges Division secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and six other high-ranking government officials. However, the same Canadian court acquitted three executives of charges that SNC-Lavalin Group Inc staff had planned to bribe Bangladesh officials in the bridge project, on the same technicality mentioned earlier.


title: Padma Bridge

text: Rumours spread on social media platforms like Facebook that human heads would be required in the construction of the Padma Bridge in July 2019. This led to the beating of many people in different parts of Bangladesh and the handing over of them to the police. Later on 9 July 2019, the bridge construction authority sent a notification to the media stating that the incident was rumoured and baseless. Researchers advised the bridge authorities to spread all the details of the construction of the bridge among the people.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The bridge will connect Dhaka with Kolkata in a faster way. At least 2 hours journey time will be saved. Southern part of Bangladesh will be connected with Dhaka in a shorter time. Once the bridge is operational, another Kolkata-Dhaka International train via Mawa, Goalando, Faridpur, Kushthia, Poradaho, Darshana & Gede may be introduced.


title: Padma Bridge

text: Tourist spots of Southwestern Bangladesh like Kuakata, Sundarbans and major destinations like Barisal, Faridpur, Gopalganj, Patuakhali, Khulna etc are now easily reachable from capital city of Dhaka.


title: Padma Bridge

text: On 28 April 2022, the Bridges Division proposed a toll rate for the Padma Bridge and sent it to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for approval. On 17 May, the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges issued a notification fixing different toll rates for different transports.


title: Padma Bridge

text: The construction cost of the Padma bridge is Tk. 30,193.39 crore. It is estimated that by 2022, the bridge will carry 21,300 vehicles per day in 23 districts of Bangladesh, which will increase to 41,600 by 2025. It will take years to recover the toll from all of them. According to Jugantar, citing the World Bank, the revenue from the Padma Bridge in the next 31 years will be 18.5 billion dollars, which is 5.5 times the construction cost. In addition, social progress will add 25 billion dollars to the economy. The land that has been protected through river governance on both sides is worth about Tk. 1,400 crore. The bridge will save Tk. 2,400 crore on electricity, gas and internet lines. The non-operation of the ferry will save Tk. 3,600 crore. According to the agreement, the bridge authority will have to pay Tk. 36,000 crore in the next 35 years. According to the Bangladesh Bridge Authority, most of the money collected from the toll will be used to repay the loan and the rest will be used to maintain the bridge.


title: Padma Bridge

text: On 26 June 2022, a total of about 15,200 vehicles crossed the bridge in the first eight hours after the authorities opened it to the public at 6 am. According to an official from the Bangladesh Bridge Authority, Tk. 82,19,000 toll was collected between 6 am to 2 pm. On 1 July 2022, the government earned record Tk 3,16,00,000 in revenue through toll from 26,394 vehicles that crossed the Padma Bridge, the sixth day after opening of the bridge to traffic.


title: Malachite

text: Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula CuCO(OH). This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fractures and deep, underground spaces, where the water table and hydrothermal fluids provide the means for chemical precipitation. Individual crystals are rare, but occur as slender to acicular prisms. Pseudomorphs after more tabular or blocky azurite crystals also occur.


title: Malachite

text: The stone's name derives (via , , and Middle English "melochites") from Greek Μολοχίτης λίθος "molochites lithos", "mallow-green stone", from μολόχη "molochē", variant of μαλάχη "malāchē", "mallow". The mineral was given this name due to its resemblance to the leaves of the mallow plant.


title: Malachite

text: It was extensively mined at the Great Orme Mines in Britain 3,800 years ago, using stone and bone tools. Archaeological evidence indicates that mining activity ended , with up to 1,760 tonnes of copper being produced from the mined malachite.


title: Malachite

text: Archaeological evidence indicates that the mineral has been mined and smelted to obtain copper at Timna Valley in Israel for more than 3,000 years. Since then, malachite has been used as both an ornamental stone and as a gemstone.


title: Malachite

text: Malachite often results from the supergene weathering and oxidation of primary sulfidic copper ores, and is often found with azurite (Cu(CO)(OH)), goethite, and calcite. Except for its vibrant green color, the properties of malachite are similar to those of azurite and aggregates of the two minerals occur frequently. Malachite is more common than azurite and is typically associated with copper deposits around limestones, the source of the carbonate.


title: Malachite

text: Large quantities of malachite have been mined in the Urals, Russia. Ural malachite is not being mined at present, but G.N Vertushkova reports the possible discovery of new deposits of malachite in the Urals. It is found worldwide including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Gabon; Zambia; Tsumeb, Namibia; Mexico; Broken Hill, New South Wales; Burra, South Australia; Lyon, France; Timna Valley, Israel; and the Southwestern United States, most notably in Arizona.


title: Malachite

text: Malachite crystallizes in the monoclinic system. The structure consists of chains of alternating Cu ions and OH ions, with a net positive charge, woven between isolated triangular CO ions. Thus each copper ion is conjugated to two hydroxyl ions and two carbonate ions; each hydroxyl ion is conjugated with two copper ions; and each carbonate ion is conjugated with six copper ions.


title: Malachite

text: Malachite was used as a mineral pigment in green paints from antiquity until 1800. The pigment is moderately lightfast, sensitive to acids, and varying in color. This natural form of green pigment has been replaced by its synthetic form, verditer, among other synthetic greens.


title: Malachite

text: Malachite is also used for decorative purposes, such as in the Malachite Room in the Hermitage Museum, which features a huge malachite vase, and the Malachite Room in Castillo de Chapultepec in Mexico City. Another example is the Demidov Vase, part of the former Demidov family collection, and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Tazza", a large malachite vase, one of the largest pieces of malachite in North America and a gift from Tsar Nicholas II, stands as the focal point in the centre of the room of Linda Hall Library. In the time of Tsar Nicolas I decorative pieces with malachite were among the most popular diplomatic gifts. It was used in China as far back as the Eastern Zhou period. The base of FIFA World Cup Trophy has two layers of malachite.


title: Malachite

text: A 17th-century Spanish superstition held that having a child wear a lozenge of malachite would help them sleep, and keep evil spirits at bay. Marbodus recommended malachite as a talisman for young people because of its protective qualities and its ability to help with sleep. It has also historically been worn for protection from lightning and contagious diseases and for health, success, and constancy in the affections. During the Middle Ages it was customary to wear it engraved with a figure or symbol of the Sun to maintain health and to avert depression to which Capricorns were considered vulnerable.


title: Malachite

text: In ancient Egypt the colour green (wadj) was associated with death and the power of resurrection as well as new life and fertility. Ancient Egyptians believed that the afterlife contained an eternal paradise, referred to as the "Field of Malachite", which resembled their lives but with no pain or suffering.


title: Malachite

text: Simple methods of copper ore extraction from malachite involved thermodynamic processes such as smelting. This reaction involves the addition of heat and a carbon, causing the carbonate to decompose leaving copper oxide and an additional carbon source such as coal converts the copper oxide into copper metal.


title: Malachite

text: Malachite is a low grade copper ore, however, due to increase demand for metals, more economic processing such as hydrometallurgical methods (using aqueous solutions such as sulfuric acid) are being used as malachite is readily soluble in dilute acids. Sulfuric acid is the most common leaching agent for copper oxide ores like malachite and eliminates the need for smelting processes.


title: Malachite

text: Mining for malachite for ornamental or copper ore purposes involves open-pit mining or underground mining depending on the grade of the ore deposits. Open-pit and underground mining practices can cause environmental degradation through habitat and biodiversity loss. Acid mine drainage can contaminate water and food sources to negatively impact human health if improperly managed or if leaks from tailing ponds occur. The risk of health and environmental impacts of both traditional metallurgy and newer methods of hydrometallurgy are both significant, however, water conservation and waste management practices for hydrometallurgy processes for ore extraction, such as for malachite, are stricter and relatively more sustainable. New research is also being conducted on better alternatives to methods such as sulfuric acid leaching which has high environmental impacts, even under hydrometallurgy regulation standards and innovation.


title: Gluten-free diet

text: A gluten-free diet (GFD) is a nutritional plan that strictly excludes gluten, which is a mixture of proteins found in wheat (and all of its species and hybrids, such as spelt, kamut, and triticale), as well as barley, rye, and oats. The inclusion of oats in a gluten-free diet remains controversial, and may depend on the oat cultivar and the frequent cross-contamination with other gluten-containing cereals.


title: Gluten-free diet

text: Gluten may cause both gastrointestinal and systemic symptoms for those with gluten-related disorders, including coeliac disease (CD), non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), gluten ataxia, dermatitis herpetiformis (DH), and wheat allergy. In these people, the gluten-free diet is demonstrated as an effective treatment, but several studies show that about 79% of the people with coeliac disease have an incomplete recovery of the small bowel, despite a strict gluten-free diet. This is mainly caused by inadvertent ingestion of gluten. People with a poor understanding of a gluten-free diet often believe that they are strictly following the diet, but are making regular errors.


title: Gluten-free diet

text: In addition, a gluten-free diet may, in at least some cases, improve gastrointestinal or systemic symptoms in diseases like irritable bowel syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, or HIV enteropathy, among others. There is no good evidence that gluten-free diets are an alternative medical treatment for people with autism.


title: Gluten-free diet

text: Gluten proteins have low nutritional and biological value and the grains that contain gluten are not essential in the human diet. However, an unbalanced selection of food and an incorrect choice of gluten-free replacement products may lead to nutritional deficiencies. Replacing flour from wheat or other gluten-containing cereals with gluten-free flours in commercial products may lead to a lower intake of important nutrients, such as iron and B vitamins. Some gluten-free commercial replacement products are not enriched or fortified as their gluten-containing counterparts, and often have greater lipid/carbohydrate content. Children especially often over-consume these products, such as snacks and biscuits. Nutritional complications can be prevented by a correct dietary education.


title: Gluten-free diet

text: A gluten-free diet may be based on gluten-free foods, such as meat, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products, legumes, nuts, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, rice, and corn. Gluten-free processed foods may be used. Pseudocereals (quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat) and some minor cereals are alternative choices.


title: Gluten-free diet

text: Coeliac disease (American English: celiac) (CD) is a chronic, immune-mediated, and mainly intestinal process, caused by the ingestion of wheat, barley, rye and derivatives, that appears in genetically predisposed people of all ages. Coeliac disease is not only a gastrointestinal disease, because it may affect several organs and cause an extensive variety of non-gastrointestinal symptoms, and most importantly, it may often be completely asymptomatic. Added difficulties for diagnosis are the fact that serological markers (anti-tissue transglutaminase [TG2]) are not always present, and many people with coeliac may have minor mucosal lesions, without atrophy of the intestinal villi.