Beginning Literacy: The Small-Unit Versus Large-Unit Debate Continues

Abstract

This article presents a review of the literature on the small- versus large-unit debate, followed by an analysis of the Ready to Read Teacher Support Material in order to determine where it stands in relation to the issue over whether only grapheme-phoneme correspondences should be taught to beginning readers, or whether they should also be taught rime-analogy strategies. The literature review shows the small-units-first argument as the more robust, and the analysis of the Ready to Read support material shows the small-units-first argument has been relatively more influential in the development of teaching suggestions for readers at the beginning of instruction.