BOOK REVIEW

UNLOCKING LITERACY: Effective Decoding & Spelling Instruction, by Marcia Henry, Ph.D., Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.: Baltimore, MD, (2003) is a welcome addition to the professional library of any educator or allied professional, and also is valuable as a text for English and education majors. It contains some of the most recent and original information available on decoding and spelling English, and on research and innovative methods of instruction, written in a scholarly yet easy-to-read format filled with worthwhile features and interesting vignettes.

Henry guides readers, instructors and students from beginning to advanced reading, and delineates current research in reading with its implications for instruction. She offers effective suggestions for teaching reading fluency, reading comprehension and spelling to students of all ages and levels of ability. She begins by illuminating the decoding-spelling continuum: phonological awareness, alphabet/sounds, Anglo-Saxon consonants and vowels, compound words, prefixes and suffixes, syllables and syllable division, Latin roots, and Greek combining forms.

Then, her brief history of written English includes historic events that shaped it, e.g., King Alfred conquered the Vikings in 878 A.D., and English became the dominant language of Britain. She also includes such fascinating facts as ³Early Middle English (1150-1307) sounded much like present-day German and was the language of commoners and the uneducatedŠRecuyell of the Historyes of Troye in 1475 was the first book printed in English.² She describes some of the words in English that developed in North America, incorporating such words from Native Americans as chipmunk, from Dutch settlers as Breukelyn (Brooklyn) and from African slaves as goober. She informs the reader that it was Noah Webster who dropped the u from such words as colour, simplified musick as music, and altered theatre to theater. Americans occasionally borrowed words from immigrants, and later coined terms such as proactive.

Next, her chapters on pronunciation of consonants and vowels as well as her instruction in syllable patterns and spelling rules is pared to essentials and exceptionally well organized. Henry also gives useful examples of structuring lessons in language, for instance, she offers a wide range of exercises that strengthen comprehension and memory. Her text includes innovative tests and answers, and resources for teachers, websites, dictionaries, thesauri, and games for students.

This volume features some of the most comprehensive compilations of prefixes and suffixes available. Then, Henry groups words found in textbooks by subject, for example, social studies vocabulary under categories such as weather and geography, government and citizenship, history, and psychology. She divides vocabulary by grade levels, for instance, she lists social studies vocabulary in elementary and in secondary grades. She organizes that vocabulary by text chapters, e.g., Pre-World War I: yellow journalism; World Wars I and II: treaty, Axis and Holocaust.

Henry also lists vocabulary in other subjects such as science, in categories of paleontology, prehistory, geology, meteorology, astronomy, animals and plants, experimentation, chemistry, electricity and magnetism, technology, scientific method, biology, and physics. In math, she lists essential vocabulary in arithmetic, measurement, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics, logic, analysis and sets. Then, Henry provides the reader with a glossary as highly instructive in terms that apply to the elements of language construction as are found in the text. For example: ³Portmanteau words: A word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two separate words, such as brunch (breakfast and lunch).² As knowledge of phonics is the key to decoding, the acquisition of vocabulary facilitates comprehension.

This volume updates readers with recent information on decoding and spelling English, and, for novice and experienced educators, it presents encyclopedic knowledge of those subjects, as well as ways to teach them, while requiring only the width of one book on the shelf.

Marcia K. Henry, Ph.D., has forty years of experience as an educator of mainstream, special education and developmental students, as well as providing teacher training related to the teaching of reading and related language arts. She is the author of teaching materials for integrated decoding and spelling instruction, and was a professor of Special Education at San Jose State University where she directed the Center for Educational Research on Dyslexia. She taught as a Fulbright Lecturer/Research Scholar in Norway, and serves on the editorial board of Dyslexia and Annals of Dyslexia, the journals of The British Dyslexia Association and The International Dyslexia Association, respectively. She is Past President of the International Dyslexia Association, and is a frequent speaker at regional, national and international conferences. Her speeches and writings reflect her interest and experience in the development of intervention strategies for students with learning differences.