Reviews research bearing on the theoretical foundations of code-oriented vs whole-language approaches to reading instruction, with a focus on the following issues: (a) the role played by word identification in reading, (b) the weight accorded context in word identification, and (c) the respective roles played by alphabetic coding and phoneme awareness in learning to read. These issues are directly or indirectly addressed in studies reported in this issue, and their results extend or qualify previous findings. Evidence, on balance, favors the major theoretical premises on which code-emphasis approaches to reading instruction are based and is at variance with the major theoretical premises on which whole-language approaches are based. Findings do not preclude the compatibility of certain features of both approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)