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P arents eager to break away from the mold of strict phonetic or whole language approaches to reading instruction may find a more appealing and effec- tive approach from a book written by Mary F. Pecci, a Sacramento-based    reading specialist with more than 30 years of experience as a classroom teacher, researcher and consultant. Ambitiously entitled At Last: A Reading Method for Every Child, (Pecci Educational Publishers 1988), the step-by-step guide sets out to eliminate the perceived problems from both whole language and phonics instruction while blending the best aspects of both. Pecci believes that whole language methods cheat students by not provide enough phonetic clues to build a solid reading founda- tion.  And she argues that old-fashioned phonics programs that fail to provide meaningful context (or intro- duce countless exceptions to decoding rules before fledg- ling readers are able to handle them) also prevent beginning readers flour- ishing. “The method works because it takes out the traps in other reading methods,” Pecci says. So her At Last method blends intensive phonics instruction with visual and meaning-based clues from age-appropriate literature- based text. All of these skills are reinforced with games, story discussions, classroom drills and visual charts. The method can be applied to any beginning reading book a parent might choose to use. Students learn best when they can rely on simple, consistent information while learning to read, says Pecci. She, therefore, insists that instructors teach only one sound for any letter combina- tion. Once students master the simple rules for reading text, they can handle the excep- tions to those rules (which make up only 10 percent of words) on their own, she says. Her strictly sequenced approach begins by teaching students pre-requisite phonetic skills before they even begin trying to read a single word. After teaching new readers to recognize and write both the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet, the method introduces consonants in various categories: the “Good Guys” (which sound like their letter names); the “Tough Guys” (those that do not);  the short and long form of vowels; and digraphs (two consonants, like “ch,” which together make one sound.) Once these skills are mastered, (and not before) students begin to start the process of reading using beginning books. In the first step, instructors write lists of new words found in pre-primer or primer books and introduce them through a game of clue. For example, for the word “look,” the teacher would say to the class: “Block your eyes and do not blink.) What’s the clue? What’s the word?” After guessing from context that the work is “look,” the students point to the sounds they have already learned in the word (“l” and “k”) as clues. Then in the next phase, students are introduced to consonant blends and to four groups of sounds, which Pecci says make up most of the English language. Starting readers are then taught to decode the words by recog- nizing clusters of letters by the group of sounds to which they belong. These word groups include “sight fami- lies,” which have to be memorized because they can’t be sounded out; short vowel families and two groups of long vowel families; those that have an “e” on the end and those with two consecu- tive vowels, where only the first vowel is pronounced. Again all of these sounds are reinforced when they are found in the context of stories the teacher reads to the class. Once the students have mastered the sounds through classroom drills, story explo- ration and memorization, Pecci argues they can decode any word they confront by recognizing its family. And, says Pecci, this is the point at which students can figure out exceptions to phonetic rules. When a word doesn’t sound familiar after it has been pronounced phonetically, they are encouraged to consider its context in the sentence and to “twist” the word into its correct pronunciation. Pecci’s reading method presents an intriguing choice for parents and school systems eager to find alternatives to current approaches. For those willing to follow its very proscribed sequence of instruc- tion, it may be a very fun and effective way to teach reading. Copies of At Last are avail- able through for $29.95 at Pecci’s website, www.onlinereadingteacher.com Videotapes and other teaching aides are also available. Parent Power! Helping You Make Sense of Schooling Today Managing Editor Caralee Adams Contributing Editors Anita Seline Andra Armstrong Cecilia Capuzzi Simon 1001 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 204 Washington, DC 20036 202-822-9000 800-521-2118 Fax: 202-822-5077 parentpower@edreform.com www.edreform.com Published eight times a year by The Center for Education Reform Jeanne Allen, President Bring Parent Power! to your home.  To subscribe, send our tax deductible donation of $9.95 to the address above.  Or receive a free e-mail subscription by logging onto www.edreform.com/ parentpower/signup.html A New Approach to Reading