The generality of the orthographic consistency effect in speech recognition tasks previously reported for Portuguese beginning readers was assessed in French-speaking children, as the French orthographic code presents a higher degree of inconsistency than the Portuguese one. Although the findings obtained with the French second graders replicated…

Examined the relationship between oral language and literacy in a two-year, multivariate design. Through empirical cluster analysis of a sample of 88 kindergarten children, four oral language subtypes were identified based on measures of semantics, syntax, metalinguistics, and oral narration. (Author/VWL)

Reports on a study of the development of literacy, bilingualism, and metalinguistic awareness. Subjects were speakers of Spanish and Nahuatl from Central Mexico. Assessments of metalinguistic awareness related to different aspects of the children's consciousness of the languages they spoke or understood were compared to a series of assessments of…