Examined the phonological analysis and verbal working memory components of the sound categorization task and their relationships to reading skill differences. Children were tested on sound categorization by having them identify odd words in sequences. Sound categorization performance was sensitive to individual differences in speech perception…

Examines differences between adequate and poor readers in phonemic awareness, rapid continuous and confrontation naming, and visual symbol processing. Investigates which of these skills make independent contributions to word recognition, pseudoword reading, and reading comprehension. Concludes that tasks of naming speed, phonemic awareness, and…

Studies accurate recognition of letters in different types of letter strings when time to inspect the strings is limited in second- or third-grade children. Compares results of children with naming speed deficits and phonological deficits. Provides some support for the hypothesis that failure to automatize letter recognition interferes with letter…

Concurrent and prospective correlations among reading, spelling, phonemic awareness, verbal memory, rapid serial naming, and IQ were examined in 19 students with reading disabilities and 36 controls at grades two and eight. The strongest predictors of reading disabilities were cognitive-linguistic measures, particularly rapid naming. (Author/CR)

In this interview, a neuroscientist explains possible applications of brain-imaging techniques to diagnose children's reading difficulties. When good readers do phonologic processing, they activate areas in the back and front of their brains. The brain systems of poorer readers process incoming print information differently. (MLH)

Investigates the relationship between phonological awareness, short-term memory, grammatical awareness, and reading accuracy in a follow-up study of 34 nine-year-olds originally studied as preschoolers. Finds the best concurrent predictor set for reading accuracy at age nine was grammatic knowledge, phoneme awareness, and speech rate, which…

Compared the effect of two phonological training procedures (segmenting and blending or first sound identification and rhyming) on low-skilled kindergarten students' acquisition of reading and spelling skills. Both groups of students improved significantly in target skills, reading, and spelling. There were no significant differences between…

Forty-eight kindergarten children were assigned to phoneme identity, phoneme manipulation, or language experience programs. Children in the manipulation program made greater gains in blending and segmentation, but children in the phoneme identity condition made greater gains on a test of phonetic cue reading. Implications for reading instruction…

Two experiments used phoneme counting tasks to investigate the foundations of phonemic awareness. Found that first graders and college students had some ability to distinguish between monophthongs (as in "he") and diphthongs (as in "how"), and they tended to count fewer "sounds" for syllables ending with the more…

Calls for review of research on best practices in phonemic awareness training and direct-instruction reading programs. Suggests that a more effective approach to reading instruction is to integrate skills instruction with meaningful literacy experiences and to use writing to help children learn about written language, including phonemic awareness.…

Explores the relation between preschool phoneme awareness and initial reading development. Confirms a significant impact of functional letter knowledge on the length of the foundation period and on later reading development. Argues that phonemic awareness is an indispensable catalyst in the development of initial word processing ability. (SG)

It has been suggested that children need exposure to alphabetic tuition before they can develop phonological awareness, especially phonemic awareness. This paper re-examines an existing data set to see whether two groups of pre-school, pre-literate children who differ in their knowledge of letter names (used here as a measure of alphabetic…

Among developing and poor readers, text comprehension is strongly related to word decoding accuracy and reading fluency. However, among relatively skilled adult readers, these aspects of reading skill are largely independent of one another. The reading of 193 second- and third-year students enrolled in an educational psychology course at a public…

The Curriculum and Instructional Projects Team at the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) developed "Guidelines for Reviewing a Reading Program" ("Guidelines") to assist reviewers in determining if a program is consistent with the scientific research on reading. Based on that work, the Center on Instruction Reading Strand developed this…

The bulk of the existing literature emphasizes the use of phonemic/phonetic based instruction to enhance generalization between reading and written language. However, phonetically irregular words are common in English and may require the use of whole word approaches. This study examined generalization between from reading to spelling and from…