In this experiment, we examined whether beginning readers benefit more from grapheme-phoneme decoding (GPD) than from whole-syllable decoding (WSD) instruction in learning to read and write words. Sixty Brazilian Portuguese-speaking first graders (M age = 6 years 1 month) who knew letter names but could not read or write words were randomly…

Application of psycholinguistic insights initiated a long career researching how children learn to read words. A theory was proposed claiming that spellings of individual words are stored in memory when their graphemes become bonded to phonemes in their pronunciations along with meanings, and this enables readers to read stored words automatically…

The author reviews theory and research by Ehri and her colleagues to document how a scientific approach has been applied over the years to conduct controlled studies whose findings reveal how beginners learn to read words in and out of text. Words may be read by decoding letters into blended sounds or by predicting words from context, but the way…

A hallmark of skilled reading is recognizing written words automatically from memory by sight. How beginning readers attain this skill is explained. They must acquire foundational knowledge, including phonemic segmentation, grapheme-phoneme knowledge, decoding, and spelling skills. When these skills are applied, spellings of words become bonded to…

The authors examined whether exposing young students to spellings as they learn proper names would facilitate memory for the spoken names when tested without the spellings present (i.e., orthographic facilitation), whether emergent readers with letter knowledge would show this effect, and whether phonemic segmentation (PS) training would enhance…

The relationship between 2nd and 3rd grade teachers' linguistic knowledge and spelling instructional practices and their students' spelling gains from fall to spring was examined. Second grade (N = 16) and 3rd grade (N = 16) teachers were administered an instructional practices survey and a linguistic knowledge test. Total scores on the two…

Studies have shown that children benefit from a spelling pronunciation strategy in remembering the spellings of words. The current study determined whether this strategy also helps adults learn to spell commonly misspelled words. Participants were native English speaking college students (N = 42), mean age 22.5 years (SD = 7.87). An experimental…

Orthographic mapping (OM) involves the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory. It explains how children learn to read words by sight, to spell words from memory, and to acquire vocabulary words from print. This development is portrayed by Ehri (2005a) as a sequence of…

Orthographic facilitation refers to the boost in vocabulary learning that is provided when spellings are shown during study periods, but not during testing. The current study examined orthographic facilitation in beginning readers and whether directing their attention to print enhances the effect. In an experiment, first graders (N = 45) were…

In 2 experiments, the authors examined whether spellings improve students' memory for pronunciations and meanings of new vocabulary words. Lower socioeconomic status minority 2nd graders (M = 7 years 7 months; n = 20) and 5th graders (M = 10 years 11 months; n = 32) were taught 2 sets of unfamiliar nouns and their meanings over several learning…

Studies elementary students' ability to match up graphemes to phonemes within individual words. Shows that older students exhibited greater graphophonemic awareness and greater digraph knowledge than younger students. Results are interpreted to bear on Ehri's phrase theory of word reading acquisition and on connectionist models of word reading.…

Describes a study designed to determine whether children's conceptualization of the component sounds in words is influenced by knowledge of the words' spelling using real and made-up words. Shows the phonemic segmentation skill may be a consequence of as much as a prerequisite to learning real words. (Author/BK)

Examines whether kindergartners who were taught to segment words into phonemes either by monitoring articulatory gestures or by manipulating blocks would benefit in their ability to read and spell. Suggests that awareness of articulatory gestures facilitates the activation of graphophonemic connections that helps children identify written words…

Describes several studies examining how children become skilled at processing graphic cues. Reports that prereaders do not acquire graphic skills by learning to read signs and labels in their environment. Concludes that mastery of letters is required for processing graphic cues. (MM)

Gives advanced and novice readers in grade one and older disabled readers nonword reading and spelling tasks. Finds that disabled readers read as many nonwords and spelled as many words as beginning readers, indicating equivalent alphabetic knowledge. Finds that disabled readers took significantly more trials to read 16 target words, indicating…