A Brief Overview of the History of Beginning Reading Materials


Cover of A Brief Overview of the History of Beginning Reading Materials whitepaper. 

History shows that for about 300 years, US textbook authors have seen the need to design texts specifically for the needs of beginning readers. Most design features appear to address the beginner’s dilemma by supporting word recognition. Regardless of the era, materials must be developmentally responsive and must build capacity for independent and context-free word recognition.

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About the Author

Dr. Heidi Anne Mesmer

Dr. Heidi Anne Mesmer is a literacy professor at the Virginia Tech School of Education.  A former classroom teacher, Mesmer works extensively with teachers, schools, and young readers, directing numerous school-based initiatives to improve reading instruction. She studies beginning reading instruction and text difficulty, and her work has been published in The Reading Teacher, Reading Research Quarterly, The Educational Researcher, Elementary School Journal, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. She is the author of Tools for Matching Readers to Texts, Reading Interventions in Primary Grades, and Teaching Skills for Complex Texts.