Although English lacks 1-to-1 relationships between sounds and spellings, considering the context in which a phoneme occurs can often aid in selecting a spelling. For example, /a/ is typically spelled as a when it follows /w/, as in wand, but as o when it follows other consonants, as in pond. In 2 experiments, the authors asked whether children's…

The research addresses the role of lexical analogies in early reading by examining variation in children's self-reported strategy choices in the context of a traditional clue-word reading task. Sixty 5- to 6-year-old beginning readers were given a nonword version of a traditional clue-word reading analogy task, and changes in strategies 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…

Positive long-term effects of phoneme awareness training in kindergarten were found in this study with children of dyslexic parents. Thirty-five at-risk children (attending 26 different classes) participated in an intensive 17-week program in their regular kindergarten classes designed to help them improve in phoneme awareness. Follow-up measures…

A study of acquisition of the alphabetic principle in 64 preliterate children, aged 3 to 5 years, is reported. It appears that phonemic awareness and grapheme-phoneme knowledge are needed in combination for acquisition of the alphabetic principle. Once gained, alphabetic insight proved relatively robust. (TJH)

Relationships among articulation, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and word reading were examined in 45 children who spoke either Hmong or Spanish as their primary language. A theoretical perspective suggesting that English articulation and vocabulary would influence children's English phonemic awareness and English word reading was developed.…

French-speaking hearing and deaf children, ranging in age from 6-14 years were required to spell words including phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences that were either statistically dominant or nondominant. Of interest was whether the nature of linguistic and the precocity of such experience determines accuracy in the use of phoneme-to-grapheme…

The course of language acquisition from infancy to public primary school was followed in a sample of 56 Finnish children to examine precursors to reading at first grade. Structural equation modeling of continuity suggested effects from growth in early vocabulary to mastery of inflectional forms at preschool age. The early language directly…

The current study involved 281 early-school-age twin pairs (118 monozygotic, 163 same-sex dizygotic) participating in the ongoing Western Reserve Reading Project (S. A. Petrill, K. Deater-Deckard, L. A. Thompson, & C. Schatschneider, 2006). Twins were tested in their homes by separate examiners on a battery of reading-related skills including…

Research with 32 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old British children demonstrated that children at different reading levels relied on different types of cues in recognizing words. Older children used grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules in recognizing words and were much more flexible than were beginning readers in their response patterns. (SLD)

This work examines the association between symbols and their representation in adult developmental dyscalculia and dyslexia. Experiment 1 used comparative judgment of numerals, and it was found that in physical comparisons (e.g., 3-5 vs. 3-5) the dyscalculia group showed a significantly smaller congruity effect than did the dyslexia and the…

Three models were constructed to predict pronunciation responses: final consonant, type-token, and invariant principal response. Six synthetic words were constructed according to contextual and word-position constraints. The final consonant model was superior. (Author/CP)

Few children could segment both speech and print conventionally but more could identify the number of letter groups corresponding to their own unconventional segmentation of speech. (Authors)

Preschool children at familial risk for reading disability were assessed on cognitive and linguistic variables and compared with preschoolers without familial risk. Risk children displayed performance profiles resembling those of older children with reading disability. Each group received intensive instruction in phonemic awareness and structured…