Critical Connections: Research on Early Reading Instruction

Margaret Hill and Leslie Patterson,
Editors


On May 16, 1997, in Houston, Texas, USA, 600 people came together to hear internationally known reading researchers answer this question:

What research about early reading do you see as most useful for policymakers and practitioners?

This conference was called Critical Balances: Early Instruction for Lifelong Reading.

The purpose of the conference was to support the Texas Reading Initiative (explained in the section of this article titled "Background") by bringing researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and business leaders together to look at the range of research on early reading instruction. Here are just a few of the comments made by the reading researchers who spoke at the conference:

"We do not come to this discussion naively. We know that these are emotionally charged issues, and we understand that some of us have a significant stake in the answers...." -- Leslie Patterson

"We are here to share our expertise and our concerns and to begin to plan for the future" -- James Hoffman

"We didn't come here today to fight any wars.... We didn't come because we know truth, and we want to make sure that everybody has our truth." -- Kathleen Stumpf Jongsma



The Houston conference was organized by five literacy leaders in the Houston area:

  • Jackie Gerla, University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, USA
  • Linda Ellis, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, USA
  • Margaret Hill, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, Texas, USA
  • Leslie Patterson, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
  • Sharon Skeans, Spring Independent School District, Houston, Texas, USA

This article contains transcripts of the conference and commentary about the discussions. The frame at the top of this article serves to help readers navigate through the pages. The present page is the article's introduction. The conference organizers have written a background piece entitled "The Texas Reading Initiative: Continuing Conversations About Early Reading Instruction in Texas." And Margaret Hill has written a piece on policy implications of the conference discussions titled "A Discussion of Critical Balances: Early Instruction for Lifelong Reading."

Transcripts from the speakers at the conference are grouped in two different ways. Readers can click on the links in the top frame titled "Special Guests" and "Main Speakers" to read individual speaker's comments. Or, readers can click on "Panel Discussion" to read the full transcript of the speakers on the panel. The link to "Frequently Asked Questions on Beginning Reading" brings readers to a page that lists eight questions; here, readers can link to answers to the questions that were given by some of the speakers.

This article makes much use of hypertext links to enable readers to link from one part of the transcript to another. Please click here to read more about how to navigate through this article.

Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted October 1997
© 1997-2000 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232