The traditional focus of English phonetic teaching in China has consistently been on the segmental acquisition, which is mainly highlighting the pronunciation of vowels and consonants, while its suprasegmental knowledge in speech naturalness, coherence and understanding is relatively insufficient. In addition, Chinese students have a serious…

Learning is not limited to a certain age group or a formal study environment. However, the first eight years, and particularly the first three years, are the most important because the effects of the care and attention provided to the child during this period will continue throughout his/her life. A child's early learning processes develop his/her…

We examined the effects of an adaptive phonological training program on the enhancement of 3 processing abilities--namely, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and phonological short-term memory--as well as word and pseudoword reading in Arabic-speaking children with dyslexia. We compared an experimental group (n = 20; mean age =…

The voiceless allophones of (alveolo) palatal stop consonant [c] and velar stop consonant [k] of the phoneme /k/ represented by the letter "K" exists in almost all languages of the world. Which of these will be sounded in speech is determined by the type of the vowel that are adjacent to them. In Turkish, the dark variant [k] occurs…

Infants are thought to be sensitive to frequency in the input as a cue for phonological development. However, linguistic biases such as phonological markedness have been argued to play a role too. Since frequency and markedness are correlated, the two assertions could be different interpretations of data that confound frequency and markedness. In…

Although many young children become literate within an environment in which different writing systems exist, there is little research on what children know about different writing systems and how they understand and develop them when they are learning more than one simultaneously. This qualitative study discusses how Korean EFL (English as a…

This review highlights some areas of current interest in teaching students to spell and how spelling skills develop. The topics covered in the paper include: theories of spelling acquisition, theories guiding effective teaching, the importance of word study approaches across the age range, the influence of technology on learning to spell, spelling…

Early intervention programs are generally considered the most efficient and beneficial approach to providing support to struggling beginning readers. This paper discusses the theoretical background, development, and design of, as well as the first results obtained with, GraphoGame for Standard Indonesian, a technology-enhanced learning environment…

Learners with reading and/or spelling difficulties (RSD) generally also show severe problems in learning EFL. Taking into consideration several observational and interventional studies, this article illustrates some practical and pragmatic means of identifying RSD, and provides possible solutions when addressing these difficulties in ELT…

The present study investigated the potential benefits of extended exposure to captioned videos for second language pronunciation. We tested 90 L2 adult learners of English on speech processing skills (segmentation, speed of lexical access, and sentence processing) and phonological accuracy in perception (ABX discrimination) and production…

English language learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing population of students in U.S. schools, and, unfortunately often experience lower levels of reading and spelling achievement than native English-speaking students. There is growing evidence showing that early reading interventions, which have been effective with native English-speakers, can…

When young children struggle with phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge, how can you intervene early and prevent later reading difficulties? Get kids on the "PAth to Literacy" with this highly effective Tier 2 intervention. Developed for children ages 4 to 6 who need help with key early literacy skills, this supplemental…

Word boxes (also referred to as Elkonin or sound boxes) are used to teach basic literacy skills to children. However, there has not been a review of studies reporting on the effects of word boxes on students' reading achievement. The purpose of this review was to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the effects of word boxes on students' reading…

In English as a Foreign Language (EFL) situations, it is important for educators to improve learners' sound recognition skill due to the variation of English found in the world. Furthermore, perceptual skill is a foundation leading to intelligibility in production. This study examined the effects of using High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT)…

Purpose: Research has shown that observing hand gestures mimicking pitch movements or rhythmic patterns can improve the learning of second language (L2) suprasegmental features. However, less is known about the effects of hand gestures on the learning of novel phonemic contrasts. This study examines (a) whether hand gestures mimicking phonetic…