Reading comprehension is a complex task which depends on a range of cognitive and linguistic processes. According to the Simple View of Reading, this complexity can be captured as the product of two sets of skills: decoding and linguistic comprehension. The Simple View explains variance in reading comprehension and provides a good framework to…

Babbling between the ages of 8 and 19 months was examined in 19 children, 13 of whom were at high risk for reading disorder (RD) and 6 normally reading children at low familial risk for RD. Development of syllable complexity was examined at five periods across this 11-month window. Results indicated that children who later evidenced RD produced a…

This paper describes the Ball-Stick-Bird reading system, which shows students how all the letters of the alphabet can be built with three basic forms: a circle (ball), a line (stick), and an angle (bird). The method also uses modified phonics and developmental linguistics, aids story reading by using capital letters in the beginning, and enhances…

The development of certain cognitive skills to a certain level may be necessary to acquire beginning reading skills. A review of research on cognitive skill development and beginning reading revealed that only a few studies investigated the need for ascertaining the presence of some cognitive processing abilities before reading instruction is…

Successive studies conducted in Sweden have shown that linguistic awareness is an important prerequisite of learning to read. In one survey that measured the various aspects of the linguistic awareness of 6-year-old children, a very close connection was found between preschool linguistic awareness and reading proficiency in school. Another study…

Intended to discourage classroom reading teachers from relying on "phonics instruction" as a remedy for students' inadequate reading performance, this pamphlet presents reasons why phonics drills should not be taught at all in the classroom and offers a set of practical phonic awareness activities to help poor readers overcome reading…