DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz

On the Road to Reading Fluently: Where Is Science in Helping Us Balance Meaning-Oriented and Skill-Oriented Approaches?

Reading the Naked Truth: Literacy, Legislation, and Lies
By Gerald Coles. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003. 184 pp. Paper, $17.10.

If you believe that the "reading wars" are over, the vitriolic tone of this book will surely convince you that strong passions are still fueling this debate. The core of this longstanding but evolving controversy centers on the fact that language in any modality, including the written modality, conveys meaning but does so via form. In oral English, the form consists of approximately 45 individually meaningless sounds that combine in systematic sequences to form words, which in turn combine in systematic ways to form sentences. In written English, the form consists of 26 individually meaningless letters or graphemes that (singly or in twoletter combinations) generally correspond to individual sounds within spoken words.