Unlocking Literacy: Effective Decoding & Spelling Instruction

Dr. Marcia K. Henry's book, Unlocking Literacy, is a thorough presentation of letter-sound correspondences plus the syllable and morpheme patterns that comprise our language. It expands one's literacy skills and knowledge through increasing the understanding of its origins in English, Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek roots and affixes. Henry's book additionally offered some delightful surprises. Lying at the end of chapters are often found one or more sections entitled, "Word Wisdom." These offer small nuggets of information on specific English words--their origins, meanings, and conversion into present-day forms. Such information facilitates a confidence in the reasonableness of our language as well as developing a fascination with its metamorphosis for teacher and student alike. Reinforcing the reasonableness of our language are organizational devices scattered throughout, such as on page 111. Figure 7.3 shows a morpheme web for the root struct and Figure 7.4 illustrates an affix matrix for the root struct. These demonstrate the regularity of our language structure and serve to organize one's knowledge of its construction. The book's appendix--which comprises almost half of the manuscript--proves to be an invaluable resource in language knowledge, rote memory lists, and compound words. The appendix also sports extensive lists of prefixes and suffixes, grouped by roots, and providing an excellent stockpile for word lists and projects. The most unusual section, Appendix H, catalogs words commonly found in school textbooks and groups them according to the branch of learning covered. Thus Marcia Henry's book succeeds in helping one reorganize their perception of language from that of bewilderment and speculation to one of structure and reliability.

Marcia K. Henry has been a major factor in my success as a reading teacher. I have used her WORDS program for teaching the Anglo-Saxon, Latin and Greek levels of English for many years. Her new book Unlocking Literacy: Effective Decoding and Spelling Instruction is a comprehensive introduction to the letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns and morphemes patterns of English. It is a reference book I wouldn't be without.

This book is a must-read for elementary school teachers and would make good reading for parents of young children and perhpas even teachers across the board. Too many of our reading programs in this country are put together in a rather random and haphazard way, even though NCLB is trying to remedy this situation. Unlocking Literacy explains why and how to put together a "cohesive, systematic, explicit, and direct" reading program. It should be required reading of every elementary teacher in training, parent of a young child, and educator in the country.

Easy to read and understand. Very teacher friendly.