Discusses experiments that provide information about the reading processes involved in mapping phonemes onto alphabetic symbols; suggests several techniques for helping children both to differentiate among the short vowel sounds and to associate sound and symbol. Focuses on the needs of beginning readers who are experiencing reading difficulties.…

This study compared the effectiveness of reading instruction at the onset-rime level, phoneme level, and whole word level with 48 first graders. Both phoneme and onset-rime groups were significantly more accurate than whole word groups, and there was a tendency for the onset-rime group to outperform all other groups. (Author/DB)

Various lines of research demonstrate that children do not need intensive phonics instruction to develop the functional command of letter/sound patterns that they need as readers. The fact that children normally learn highly complex processes and systems by merely interacting with the external world is perhaps the most important reason why…

This literature-based review examines the relationship between the acquisition of segmental awareness and the acquisition of alphabetic literacy. Cited studies show that the segmental analysis ability of most dyslexics is very poor and suggest one factor may be related to the conscious representation of speech on which the analytic capacity…

In the 1920s and 1930s, interpretations of reading readiness held that learning to read occurred at a specific point in cognitive development. Postponement of reading instruction until a child reached this stage of maturity was widely accepted at that time, and throughout the 1940s and 1950s. The 1960s marked a transition period in terms of…

Designed to add to the existing knowledge base concerning the saliency of features used by children to identify isolated words, a study examined whether the method of instruction influences the extent to which various features are used for word identification and recall. Subjects, 117 kindergarten students from a suburban Buffalo, New York, school…

Integrating reading and writing at the primary level is important because writing and then reading back what has been written gives purpose to both, and the sense of overall purpose enhances reading while the sense of audience enhances writing. Another reason for starting this integration with beginning students is that writing creates a purpose…