Understanding Reading

Understanding Reading revolutionized reading research and theory when the first edition appeared in 1971 and continues to be a leader in the field. In the sixth edition of this classic text Smith's purpose remains the same: to shed light on fundamental aspects of the complex human act of reading-linguistic, physiological, psychological, and social-and on what is involved in learning to read. The text critically examines current theories, instructional practices, and controversies, covering a wide range of disciplines but always remaining accessible to students and classroom teachers. Over half the book is devoted to such topics as language, memory, learning, the development of spoken language ability, and the physiology of the eye and brain-only to the extent that they are relevant to reading, and with the intent of making these topics comprehensible to readers who have neither the time nor the experience to undertake deep or specialized study in these areas. Careful attention is given to the ideological clash that continues between whole language and direct instruction and currently permeates every aspect of theory and research into reading and reading instruction. The first editi