Reviews the conception of early literacy acquisition as a social-cognitive activity, sketches the evolution of phonemic awareness, and discusses how psychological research might contribute to understanding and applying this construct. The paper suggests the importance of synergy between previously warring factions and highlights the need for…

Reinvestigated claim that beginning readers exploit information from orthographic rime of clue words to help them decode unfamiliar words. Among the findings: children were able to use orthographic information from beginning, middle, and end of clue words to identify unfamiliar words, with clue word presentation enhancing the reading of…

Three kindergarten children learned to select printed consonant-vowel-consonant words upon hearing the corresponding spoken words. The words were taught in six sets. Within sets, the four words that were taught had overlapping letters. Two children demonstrated recombinative generalization after one training set and the third demonstrated it after…

Challenges three basic claims about the scientific "database" concerning rhyme and analogy in reading made in another article in this journal: (1) the relationship between rhyme and reading remains controversial; (2) there is doubt about the relevance of children's ability to make orthographic analogies for classroom reading instruction; and (3)…

In state legislatures and school boards around the country, the approach and the quality of reading instruction are under attack because of a decline in reading scores. The best reading instruction draws on the strengths of different philosophies. School boards should encourage schools to teach both phonics and the whole-language approach. (MLF)

Outlines a psycholinguistic framework for reading and spelling methodology at the preliminary stage. Based on the theory of metalinguistic development of A. Karmiloff-Smith and J. Gombert, the framework involves a three-step model for early reading and spelling instruction. The approach balances focus on meaning with focus on skill. (SLD)

Children who are successful readers tend to come from homes with specific factors present, including reading and writing materials, adults who read regularly with children, discussion during book reading, children who see their parents reading and writing daily, and parents actively involving their children in common literacy tasks. Tips for…

This article explores how children with deafness learn to read. It discusses findings that indicate children with deafness read by using a code that is not based on sound, the importance of understanding the language that is mapped by the print system, and what types of interventions are needed. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Investigates the role of different linguistic levels in beginning readers' oral reading as the first step in a longitudinal investigation of Swedish beginning readers' reading behavior. Reveals that the readers are sensitive to all of the linguistic levels analyzed: the majority of reading errors lead to acceptable linguistic consequences,…

In this article, the authors assist teachers who are working with young students at risk for reading disabilities by helping make sense of the large--but unwieldy--scientific knowledge base. They offer a conceptual framework for thinking about beginning reading instruction and intervention across three dimensions: the "content of instruction"…

Well-chosen and wisely shared literature facilitates transitions and builds bridges in the lives of young children. Literature links are discussed and books are reviewed for infant, toddler, preschool, and primary age children and transitional readers.

Previous correlational and experimental research has found a positive association between phonological awareness and reading skills. This paper provides an overview of studies in this area and shows that many studies have neglected to control for extraneous variables such as ability, phonological memory, pre-existing reading skills and letter…

There is a wealth of evidence linking letter knowledge and phoneme awareness, but there is little research examining the nature of this relationship. This article aims to elucidate this relationship by considering the links between letter knowledge and two sub-skills of phoneme awareness: phoneme segmentation and phoneme invariance. Two studies…

The development of phonological awareness (PA) before school age was modeled in association with the development of vocabulary and letter knowledge, home literacy environment (HLE), children's reading interest, and beginning reading skill in children with and without familial risk of dyslexia. A total of 186 children were followed from birth to…

Acquisition of orthographic knowledge and phonemic sensitivity are processes that are central to early reading development in several languages. The language-specific characteristics of the alphasyllabaries ( Bright, 1996), however, challenge the constructs of orthographic knowledge and phonemic sensitivity as discussed in the context of…