The authors suggest that children's knowledge that the words they use are made of discrete sounds may be as important as understanding grapheme-phoneme correspondences for the beginning reader. Evidence is cited to show that children who demonstrate this insight perform better in learning to read and that metalinguistic insight can be taught.…

Reports on a longitudinal study which found that letter-naming speed was strongly associated with subsequent progress in reading for kindergarten children but not for second grade children. Suggests that code emphasis should not be overlooked in beginning reading. (ARH)

Discusses the difficulties children have in learning traditional orthography in reading instruction and presents the English-Unifon Alphabet as a solution, citing five advantages of using this single sound-symbol system. (RB)

Describes the concept of phonemic awareness and offers suggestions to classroom teachers on how to enhance phonemic awareness in their students. (PRA)

The purpose of this applied dissertation was to examine the effects of a preschool emergent literacy program on young African American children from a low socioeconomic background. The preschool is located in an urban setting in North Carolina. All students participating in this study were identified as at-risk for school failure. The behavior and…

Effects of instruction in phonemic awareness during preschool and/or kindergarten on the metalinguistic development and subsequent reading achievement of young children with disabilities were investigated in this project. The main focus of study combined a longitudinal and experimental design in which 79 preschool children with disabilities…

"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"…

A Russian method of teaching beginning reading using auditory discrimination of phonemes training was shown to be superior to two American methods. (JH)

Eleven preschoolers and 19 kindergartners were tested for alphabet knowledge, metalinguistic awareness, ability to spell 10 words, and ability to read either their own or the conventional spellings of those 10 words. Findings are presented. (Author/MT)

Reports the findings of a study that sought (1) to confirm for Australian children the pattern of print concept acquisition noted in North America and New Zealand and (2) to determine whether children of varying reading proficiency can be differentiated in terms of their print concepts. (FL)

Instruction for beginning readers is thought to be needed on several fronts, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. The National Reading Panel reviewed the findings of many experiments to determine whether there was sufficient scientific evidence to indicate the effectiveness of these forms of…

Results of this study suggest that, for primary level children, the natural'' perceptual unit of spoken language is the syllable, not the phoneme. (Authors)

Shows two major handicaps in the anti-phonics movement which suggest that the future of the movement is doubtful: (1) the demonstrable weakness in both the theory and method of anti-phonics; (2) the increasing confidence that publishes and editors of widely used basal readers are placing in phonics. (BF/JH)