Toward a Usable Psychology of Reading Instruction.

This report offers the premise that a psychology of reading instruction has a set of questions of its own, questions that concern the ways in which the environmental interventions called instruction interact with cognitive processes to modify competence. The report discusses two streams of psychological research as they relate to reading instruction: that of the cognitive psychologists and that of the learning psychologists. Sections of the report include discussions of skilled performance and acquisition, individual differences, and inventions and discovery in learning to read. Suggestions for continued study are also offered, and include contrastive studies of good and poor readers, longitudinal studies of reading development, readiness and aptitude matching, and inquiries into who is likely to invent reading and who seems to need very explict instruction. The report concludes that a great deal more must be learned about the relationship between skilled performance in reading and patterns of acquisition, and that more must be learned about how development is modified by environmental events, particulary instruction. (MKM)