Considers reading research that establishes phonological awareness as a predictor of reading success. Examines the research that seeks to teach phonological awareness to children who lack linguistic sensitivity. Identifies classroom practices that may have merit in encouraging phonological awareness in children. (RS)

Summarizes linguistic research on the sound, shape, and meaning of phrases, and describes several classroom procedures for helping students become aware of the phonological rules underlying spoken English and incorporate that knowledge in developing a written voice. (MM)

The phonemic inventories of 30 children (aged 3;4-5;7) with phonological delays were examined in terms of featural distinctions to address universal vs. individual accounts of acquisition. Phonetic inventories of the same children were also identified for comparison purposes. (Contains 40 references.) (JL)

Describes an action research project carried out by a kindergarten teacher as she incorporated phonemic awareness activities into the daily classroom routine. Discusses classroom activities, how she developed data collection processes, and how her data analysis showed systematic student growth in literacy and enthusiasm. (SR)

As the phonics/whole-language debate continues, a method called "whole-part-whole" provides a balanced conceptual framework for thinking about and planning skills instruction. It addresses the need for teaching that is grounded in fundamental understandings about whole texts (stories, informational books, and poems), allows for indepth…

Notes that a major issue in literacy instruction today is whether commercial reading programs emphasizing phonemic awareness and phonics are more effective than teacher-designed programs that focus on literature-based reading and process writing with integrated skill instruction. Reviews two books that address this controversy. Presents seven…

Presents case study of 40-month-old girl with word reading age of 8.5 years, focusing on her phoneme awareness, productive spelling, and phonological recoding. Concludes that her phonological recoding was an implicit process based on sublexical relations induced from her lexical representations rather than explicitly taught letter-sound…

Examines the nature of the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading and spelling development. Focuses particularly on the development of early self-directed writing. Investigates the connection between level of invented spelling used in the self-directed writing and later reading and spelling achievement in grades 1 and 2. (SG)

Purpose: This study addressed the effects of 3 different paradigms for scoring orthographic transcriptions of dysarthric speech on intelligibility scores. The study also examined whether there were differences in transcription accuracy among words from different linguistic classes. Method: Speech samples were collected from 12 speakers with…

Two hypotheses have recently been put forward to account for listeners' ability to distinguish and learn contrasts between speech sounds in foreign languages. First, Best's Perceptual Assimilation Model and Flege's Speech Learning Model both predict that the ease with which a listener can tell one non-native phoneme from another varies directly…

This study provides detailed descriptions of the reading impairments in four 10-year-old Norwegian children with dyslexia. In all four cases reading comprehension was well in advance of the children's slow and inaccurate word-recognition skills. Phonological decoding (as assessed by pseudohomophone and nonword reading) appeared relatively…

In speech perception, children give particular patterns of weight to different acoustic cues (their cue weighting). These patterns appear to change with increased linguistic experience. Previous speech perception research has found a positive correlation between more analytical cue weighting strategies and the ability to consciously think about…

Learners' consciousness of mismatch of the phonemic inventory of their mother tongue with the language being learned may prompt them to activate their conscious grammar knowledge to monitor their oral production. This happens only when they become conscious of the nature of the task in advance. Otherwise the mismatch is believed to challenge their…

Previous research has suggested that children with specific language impairments (SLI) have deficits in basic speech perception abilities, and this may be an underlying source of their linguistic deficits. These findings have come from studies in which perception of synthetic versions of meaningless syllables was typically examined in tasks with…

The 2008-2009 Annual Reading First Progress Report reflects on the final year of implementation for Round I schools and the third full year of implementation for Round II schools. This report focuses on the effect that Reading First implementation has had on selected schools across Nebraska with a special focus on vulnerable populations: English…