In conversational speech, it is very common for words' segments to be reduced or deleted. However, previous research has consistently shown that during spoken word recognition, listeners prefer words' canonical pronunciation over their reduced pronunciations (e.g., pretty pronounced [word omitted] vs. [word omitted]), even when the latter are far…

The current study is on second language acquisition (SLA), and the focus is on the process of visual word recognition in English by Arab learners of English as a second language (ESL). Arab ESL learners have poor performance in their visual word recognition in English, which has been explicated in terms of their poor spelling knowledge of English…

Purpose: To evaluate the role of dialect on phonemic awareness and nonword spelling tasks. These tasks were selected for their reliance on phonological and orthographic processing, which may be influenced by dialect use. Method: Eighty typically developing African American children in Grades 1 and 3 were first screened for dialect use and then…

Compared spelling of children who speak General American English and those who speak Southern British English. Found that spelling errors of children with spelling ages of 6 to 7.5 reflected characteristics of their dialect, and that at older spelling ages, British children made overgeneralization errors reflecting their dialect. Concluded that…

Examines specific issues that are related to teaching a standard dialect. Suggests that the most efficient solution to the problem is to alter teacher preparation to allow reading in the learner's dialect. Discusses the difficulties in effecting such a solution. (RL)

This study sought to analyze phoneme/grapheme correspondences in a 17,310-entry word list drawn from the Thorndike-Lorge word list and Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. Phase one of the research, which has also been reported separately, also sought to determine how closely American-English orthography approximates the alphabetic…

This study examines orthography as one source of non-targetlike phonetic output and focuses on the acquisition by speakers of American English vowel reduction in Russian, a salient feature of the Russian phonetic system that is not reflected in the graphics of the Cyrillic script. The researchers conducted a structured interview and administered…

Although spelling instruction has traditionally treated almost every spelling word as requiring a separate learning act, recent research indicates that over 90% of American-English orthography actually is determined by a set of rules for unit phoneme-grapheme relationships, based with decreasing productivity upon three levels of…