The authors conducted a synthetic review of the research literature on the reading development and reading instruction of deaf students and compared their findings to the review of research literature conducted by the National Reading Panel (NRP) on four topic areas: (a) alphabetics (phonemic awareness instruction and phonics instruction); (b)…

Two experiments sought to extend the demonstration of English-learning infants' abilities to segment nouns from fluent speech to a new lexical class: verbs. Moreover, we explored whether two factors previously shown to influence noun segmentation, stress pattern (strong-weak or weak-strong) and type of initial phoneme (consonant or vowel), also…

Using seven trainable mentally-retarded students, aged 10-19, the study assessed the efficacy of an action mnemonic procedure for teaching letter-sound correspondences. The subjects were successfully trained to emit appropriate action-sounds in the presence of pictures incorporating the target letter, with picture-prompts being gradually faded to…

Investigated the effect of developmentally appropriate literacy interventions integrated into circle time in a Head Start setting on the detection of rhyme by 4-5 year olds. Found that the group receiving phonological-awareness treatment performed better on a rhyme detection test than the semantic intervention group. (JPB)

We examined models of individual change and correlates of change in the growth of reading skills in a sample of 40 children from kindergarten through third grade. A broad range of correlates was examined and included family literacy, oral language, emergent reading, intelligence, spelling, and demographic variables. Individual growth curve…

Educators have continually sought to achieve a balance between a phonics-based, code-emphasis program and a more holistic, meaning-based approach to emergent literacy instruction. This article describes an integrated phonics and literature-based approach to developing children's emergent literacy skills. These skills included alphabet knowledge,…

The results of a newly developed Haitian-Creole oral proficiency test are presented. The test is administered in Haitian-Creole to Creole-speaking and limited-speaking Haitian-origin children at two educational levels: grades kindergarten through 3 and grades 4-6. The test is designed to assess the child's language proficiency in three linguistic…

At an employer's request, a course was developed to improve the speech skills, and remediate fossilized speech, of six Asian engineers and scientists. All had spoken English for many years, and averaged 10 years of residence in the United States. These students were recorded reading a dialogue as well as in free speech. A needs assessment was…

This article describes the usage of linguistic units and instructional strategies that facilitate word recognition for Latino kindergarten students who are beginning to read in Spanish. This case study was based on coding videotaped reading and language arts instruction of two bilingual kindergarten teachers at the beginning, middle, and end of…

The present study examined which measures best identify English-speaking French immersion (FI) students at risk of future reading difficulties in French and English. Using reading scores taken in both languages at the end of Grade 1 and beginning of Grade 2, typical and poor reader groups were identified. Measures taken at the beginning of Grade 1…

Behavioral data establish a dramatic change in infants' phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months of age. Foreign-language phonetic discrimination significantly declines with increasing age. Using a longitudinal design, we examined the electrophysiological responses of 7- and 11-month-old American infants to native and non-native consonant…

An experiment in which teachers attempted to read basal readers encoded in Greek orthography suggests that using such materials helps teachers consider ways of fostering reading strategies, think about the nature of reading as a psycholinguistic process, and remember how it feels to be a beginning reader. (GT)

The effectiveness of the "Laubach Way to Reading" program was examined with four adolescents with learning disabilities who were reading below the fifth-grade level. Students made significant gains on basic reading skills and comprehension. Students' success depended on being provided with supplemental lists of more challenging words…

Auditory event-related potentials (mismatch negativity and P300) and behavioral discrimination were measured to synthetically generated consonant-vowel (CV) speech and nonspeech contrasts in 10 young adults with normal auditory systems. Previous research has demonstrated that behavioral and P300 responses reflect a phonetic, categorical level of…

A discussion of the nasal harmony of Aguaruna, a language of the Jivaroan family in South America, approaches the subject from the viewpoint of generative phonology. This theory of phonology proposes an underlying nasal consonant, later deleted, that accounts for vowel nasalization. Complex rules that suppose a complex system of vowel and…