Examines first and second graders' decoding of one-syllable words and nonwords, each comprised of a high- to moderate-utility onset and a high-utility rime. Finds the construct validity of decoding items varied, depending on whether they were words or nonwords. Notes a superior construct validity of words over nonwords as decoding items. (RS)

Evaluates a phonological awareness program by studying 38 kindergarten children: the experimental class received a Danish training program of metalinguistic games and exercises, and two control classes used either a kindergarten reading/writing program or a normal program. Shows that children in the special programs had greater gains in reading…

Presents an account of the literacy activities engaged in by the parents of 29 children around the time that the children were about to start school. Finds a considerable amount of literacy activity evident in the homes, regardless of whether the children were fluent readers or not. Argues that home environment is not enough to account for…

Finds that orthographic information dominated word recognition of both good and poor readers and that both semantic contexts and text difficulty influenced the reading of target words. Shows that good readers used orthographic information more than did poor readers, whereas poor readers used semantic context more than good readers. Finds support…

Investigates differences between two types of reading probe material to monitor students' oral reading fluency over time. Reading sources were the curriculum in which the child was being instructed at school, and a set of generic (curriculum-independent) passages. Results indicated that students read significantly more words correct in the generic…

Concludes that speed in identifying letters and graphonemes correlates highly with reading achievement. (RB)

To test how phonemic awareness influences reading, two experiments were conducted in the northwestern part of England in which twenty pairs of children possessing phonemic awareness (pa+) and lacking phonemic awareness (pa-) and matched for reading and chronological age were compared. In the first experiment, the subjects' ability to detect…

Primary school children performed a discrete-trial Stroop task in which they named the colors of stimuli that either matched or did not match items that were being concurrently held in memory. Results indicated a developmental trend toward the color being named faster when the stimulus matched the item held in memory. (Author/HOD)

Examines the changes in dialect usage and the predictive relationship between dialect usage and reading achievement, controlling for differences in the acquisition of language forms common across dialects. Suggests that dialect usage might be a distinguishing variable between average and poor readers. Finds that correlations do not support the…

SHORT ANSWERS ARE GIVEN TO QUESTIONS ASKED ABOUT GENERAL FINDINGS IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, BASED ON EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE COLLECTED IN RESEARCH THESES AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY. EIGHT QUESTION AREAS DEAL WITH STUDENTS IN GRADES 4-6. READING, BOTH ORAL AND SILENT, WORD ANALYSIS AND SPELLING, CHILDREN'S INTEREST AND PREFERENCES, VOCABULARY, MENTAL IMAGERY,…

Gives children (ages 5+ to 9+) four tests of phonological skill to investigate relationships between these measures and their predictive relationship with reading and spelling ability. Finds performance at phonemic segmentation, rhyme sound categorization, and alliteration sound categorization improved with age, but all groups performed onset-rime…

Investigates the basis of short-term memory deficits for children with reading disability and explores the origin of developmental verbal memory span increases. Finds a strong relationship between efficiency of phonological processes and capacity of verbal memory but no relationship between phonological processing and nonverbal memory. (RS)

Examines specific effects of phonological abilities and linguistic comprehension on the development of word-decoding ability and reading comprehension, respectively, of 141 Dutch children from the end of first grade to the end of third grade. Finds that partly different determinants underlie the development of word-decoding ability and reading…

Investigates the use of orthographic analogies in 6-year-olds. Notes that neither rime nor phoneme awareness measures were correlated with rime inference uses and that vowel, but not rime inference, was correlated with scaffolding errors. Finds that rime detection was the strongest predictor of reading ability, whereas phoneme segmentation was the…