Consonant production following the sensory restoration of audition was investigated in 22 prelinguistically deaf French children who received cochlear implants. Spontaneous speech productions were recorded at 6, 12, and 18 months post-surgery and consonant inventories were derived from both glossable and non-glossable phones using two acquisition…

US government mandates to implement intensive phonics instruction in elementary classrooms invoke an alleged scientific superiority of this approach over more meaning-centered models. But curiously absent from this scientific enterprise is a study of the phonics system itself. Advocates of intensive phonics have not demonstrated that the commonly…

This study examined the efficacy of a paraprofessional-led supplemental early intervention for first-grade students with poor early literacy skills and behavioral concerns. The goal was to determine if (a) the relatively brief intervention was effective in improving phonological skills, and (b) improvements in academic skills would be accompanied…

The influence of orthography on children's on-line auditory word recognition was studied from the end of Grade 2 to the end of Grade 4, by examining the orthographic consistency effect [Ziegler, J. C., & Ferrand, L. (1998). Orthography shapes the perception of speech: The consistency effect in auditory recognition. "Psychonomic Bulletin & Review",…

Two groups of sighted pre-school children were taught to name six braille letters: one group received phoneme instruction and the other grapheme instruction. Ten boys and ten girls (average age 4:5 years) participated. There was a statistically significant advantage for the phoneme group (Experiment 1). In a repeated measures design, 16 sighted…

This action research project was developed in order to increase student literacy, particularly in the area of reading, for students who were considered at-risk. The targeted student population was 2nd grade students who were served within a primary cross-categorical special education program. The classroom was housed in an elementary (K-2) school,…

This study is a summary and simplification of a very large phoneme-grapheme frequency count done by Hanna et al. phoneme-grapheme frequency count done by Hanna et al. T(1966). Although the results and data from the original study have implications for teaching phonics and spelling, they were presented in a complicated and unwieldy manner.…

This article describes an enjoyable, intuitively grasped, learn-by-doing activity that uses general to increasingly specific sentences describing a mystery topic. This technique helps teachers assist students to bridge the gap between foundational skills--such as phonemic awareness, letter patterns, and sight words--and the acquisition of a…

This study examines a salient intrasyllabic phonological unit in Korean, the body-coda unit, its role in literacy skills in Korean, and a possible source of the salience of body-coda units in the spoken language. Data were collected from Korean-speaking, monolingual beginning readers (41 kindergarteners, 40 first graders). The results indicate…

McGee and Richgels have set the standard in this new edition by clearly and simply explaining the issues addressed in Reading First and Early Reading First legislation that affect the reading instruction of young children. Aligned with the findings of the National Reading Panel, this edition focuses on child-centered instruction in phonemic…

The goal of this longitudinal study was to examine which skills in early literacy determine the development of word recognition, reading comprehension, and spelling in the 2nd grade of the elementary school. A cohort of pupils was followed and tested during the 2nd year of kindergarten and the beginning of the 1st and 2nd grade. It appeared that…

This single-subject case study evaluates effects of treatment of a complex onset on the sound system of a monolingual Spanish-speaking child (female, aged 3;9) with phonological delay. Pretreatment, the child excluded all consonant+liquid clusters, as well as [the alveolar tap] and trill /r/. Immediately following training on [using the alveolar…

Reading was, is, and always must come first in the early school years. Without a firm basis in reading, children are going to have a tough time in school and, later, in the world beyond the elementary school doors. Children need math and all the other wonderful things they are exposed to in school, but without some degree of success in reading,…

"Waterford Early Reading Level One"[TM] is an emergent literacy curriculum that uses computer-based technology to prepare children for reading. It begins with a tutorial to familiarize the child with the computer and mouse and a reading placement evaluation to assess and determine whether a child should work on "Level One"…

This qualitative inquiry examined second graders' literacy learning by observing acts of processing on continuous text. Specifically, this study explored the variety, complexity, and change in second graders' "on-the-run" reading behaviors at three points in time across an academic year. Systematic observation and the analysis of more…