In elementary school, an important goal of reading instruction is to enable children to read most words automatically by sight so that they can focus on learning from and enjoying what they are reading. But becoming a strong reader takes several years. Parents and caregivers need to know if a child is making good progress in learning to read.…

The paper offers a case study of two bilingual girls aged 10, born in London, of Albanian-speaking families who arrived in the UK as refugees. An earlier study, when the girls were aged six, explored the strategies they used as they learned to read with their mothers in Albanian using dual language books. Four years on, supported by a primary…

This study examined the effect of explicit and engaging supplemental early literacy instruction on at-risk kindergarten children's literacy development. Sixty-three kindergarten-aged children who had been ranked in the lowest 20th percentile on basic literacy skills participated in this study (38 treatment). Results reveal that children who…

Several decades of research have established the critical role of phonemic awareness in the development of beginning reading. In particular, phonemic awareness makes early phonics instruction useful for children and facilitates their ability to blend letter sounds while decoding words, to learn sight words reliably, and to spell phonetically. A…

Examines the effects of onset and rime awareness on children's recognition of spelling patterns in written words. Reports that onset-rime awareness was associated with word ending similarities, whereas word beginning analogies appeared to involve higher-level phonological skills. Suggests longitudinal research regarding the issue. (SG)

A 2-year longitudinal study was carried out to test the hypothesis that children's word-specific learning of inflectional spellings is an essential first step in their acquiring an understanding of morphological rules for spelling inflections. Ninety children, who were 6-years-old at the start of the project, were asked to spell pseudowords and…

Assesses the extent to which 30 third graders employ phonetically-based spelling strategies in representing synthetic words with high and mid front vowels. Finds spelling of good readers rule-governed and derived from judgement about language while that of poor readers showed less awareness of written language patterns. (LFL)

Studies elementary students' ability to match up graphemes to phonemes within individual words. Shows that older students exhibited greater graphophonemic awareness and greater digraph knowledge than younger students. Results are interpreted to bear on Ehri's phrase theory of word reading acquisition and on connectionist models of word reading.…

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…

Investigates whether 8- to 9-year-old children are sensitive to rime unit correspondence frequency when spelling words and nonwords. Finds children's spelling cannot be described according to one-to-one phoneme-grapheme mapping. Claims children are sensitive to lexical factors such as rime unit sound-spelling correspondence. (NH)

Uses psuedo-verbs to investigate the relationship between children's awareness of grammatical distinctions and their success in learning about the spelling sequence for morphemes that do not conform to letter-sound correspondence rules. Concludes that the use of "ed" endings for regular verbs reflects a morphological spelling strategy…

Describes a phonetic spelling scheme called "Rational Spelling" that is claimed to be easy to learn and use and that could be used to encourage students to read and write freely at an early age. (SR)

Analyzes written responses of deaf students and groups of hearing children to five tasks in order to study the role phonology plays in spelling English words. Concludes that (1) rote visual memory has a limited role in spelling; (2) phonology is essential for spelling words whose structure is morphophonemically complex; and (3) deaf students did…

Reports a study that traces patterns of constancy and change in spelling errors as children's word knowledge advances during the elementary years. Reveals clear patterns of coherent change and underscores the persistent difficulty of certain features characteristic of English orthography. (MG)