Two experiments investigated the relationship between Spanish phonology and Spanish second-language (L2) learners' spelling success. Specifically, they examined: (1) differences in proportions of initial, middle, and final consonants spelled correctly by L2 learners; (2) differences in proportions of initial, middle, and final vowels spelled…

Various lines of research demonstrate that children do not need intensive phonics instruction to develop the functional command of letter/sound patterns that they need as readers. The fact that children normally learn highly complex processes and systems by merely interacting with the external world is perhaps the most important reason why…

An interactive/cognitive model can account for the acquisition of a graphophonemic system by young children and be compatible with the cuing explanation, which posits that readers use their graphophonemic knowledge in coordination with their knowledge of language and the world to make sense of print. Explanations in the research literature of how…

To determine the number and types of spelling errors made by college students, a study examined students' spelling errors on four complex word patterns which occur in related words. Fifty students attending a four-year engineering institute were selected and classified as group A (good readers/good spellers) or group B (poor readers/poor spellers)…

In the hope of filling in a missing link for experimental psychologists' research on reading, this paper provides a general review of research on the issue of orthography and its relation to reading. The traditional classification of logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic modes are examined to see how much orthographic variations affect the…

Recognizing that learning to spell is a complex, active process of discovery, this book presents some suggestions for the teaching of spelling that may be incorporated into different types of language programs and adapted to suit the needs of children with a range of spelling abilities. Following the introduction, a section on beginning spelling…

Traditionally, reading instruction has emphasized the visual-sound correspondences in language. The illusion that words can be "sounded-out" letter by letter and word by word to produce meaning needs to be re-evaluated according to the psycholinguistic nature of the reading process. Some nonvisual aspects of reading which are…

A study was designed to investigate the auditory-visual integrative abilities of primary grade children for five long vowels and five short vowels. The Vowel Integration Test (VIT), composed of 35 nonsense words having all the long and short vowel sounds, was administered to students in 64 schools over a period of two years. Students' indications…

This review of the literature on reading theories is built around three components: an explication of each theory, an evaluation of the theory based on an examination of its internal and external coherence and correspondence, and an application of the theory to a child's reading. The literature is organized around discussions of 12 benchmarks…

Sixteen kindergarten children were instructed in grapheme-phoneme correspondences according to two methods that were identical except that in one method the children were instructed individually and in the other the children received group instruction. The number of learning trials given to each child was the same in both situations. However, in…

A probe recall short-term retention task was used to test the applicability of the "phonological recoding" (Conrad, 1972) and "flexible decoding" (Smith, 1972) models to processing tactics used by readers of Chinese. Subjects were 45 adult speakers of Cantonese. Stimuli were lists of Chinese characters which varied in terms of phonological and…

The three articles in this publication discuss the following topics: (1) a psycholinguistic perspective on beginning reading that focuses on the child's linguistic system, rather than on the information processing strategies he or she learns to use in reading, and identifies word recognition as the major hurdle faced by the beginner; (2) the issue…

This paper reviews some recent research on the component skills necessary to learn to read by phonic techniques. The review is divided into four sections, each relating research on one of the skills necessary for novel word decoding. The four skill areas are: (1) learning invariant grapheme-phoneme correspondences; (2) relating the isolated letter…

Concludes that beginning reading instruction organized around a phonic decoding model effectively teaches beginners how to decode novel (untaught) words, and that sound blending is important in this process. (RL)

Describes a method of intensive guided reading instruction in a second language which reduces frustration, ensures success, and implements the processes of reading instruction set forth by Kenneth Goodman and elaborated by others. (SED)