ABSTRACT
In this chapter I will relate research about spoken and written language to the teaching of reading and writing. My intention is to provide a background for and a prelude to the particular studies and essays that will comprise the successive chapters in this volume. To accomplish this aim it will be necessary to sketch in a wonderfully broad and complex terrain of scholarship, a playing field upon which some of the finest scholars of our century have labored. As for the whole of this work let it be said at the outset that I agree with Huey (1908/1968) on two points. We still may hope at best for penultimate knowledge of our topic (p. 6). Nonetheless, we are “working toward daylight” (p. 102).
