Richard L. Venezky

"Can ghoti really be pronounced fish? Why is short in glove and love, but long in rove and cove? Why do English words carry such extra baggage as the silent in doubt and the silent in knee? Addressing these and many other questions about letters and the sounds they make, this volume provides a comprehensive analysis of American English spelling and pronunciation. Venezky illuminates the fully functional system underlying what can at times be a bewildering array of exceptions, focusing on the basic units that serve to signal word form or pronunciation, where these units can occur within words, and how they relate to sound. This authoritative book affords new insight into the teaching of reading and the acquisition and processing of spelling-sound relationships."--BOOK JACKET.

"Introductory reading materials including primers, readers, spelling books, alphabet books, teaching manuals, and non-instructional juvenile texts in book format. With the exception of three readers for adult instruction, and two readers used with illiterate soldiers during World War II, all materials in the collection are for children. Only books or book-like imprints are included--hornbooks, broadsides, charts, reading cards, and the like are excluded from the set. Most of the books in the collection are American imprints, except for a few English imprints imported for the colonies which served as models for American texts. The evolution of the modern reading textbook can be traced using the materials that comprise the American Primers collection. The contrast between early and late texts included in the collection imparts a valuable record of both American education and American culture"--The Library of Congress Guide to the Microform Collections in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division, online version.