Dr. Seuss wrote in "Horton Hears a Who," "Don't give up! I believe in you all! A person's a person no matter how small." What a beautiful, encouraging message this is to his readers. Millions of children can't figure out the words on the pages of their books, because they don't know the speech sounds of the alphabet. This is called the alphabetic…

This primer lists the 44 sounds in the English language and then gives steps for teaching those 44 sounds and their most common spelling patterns. In addition to learning sounds and spellings, each day the student must read lists of phonetically related words and spell these words from dictation. Phonics instruction must be reinforced by having…

Oral proficiency is an important goal in second language learning not only for communication, but also for developing reading and writing skills. Use of cooperative learning (CL) strategies has been shown to successfully improve second language learning in many cases for its focus on individual accountability and positive interdependence (Kagan &…

The present study sought to extend a recent study by Savage, Carless and Stuart, by looking at the pre-test phonological skills that predicted improvements in letter-sound knowledge and nonword reading. Results showed overall that phoneme manipulation predicted improvements in nonword reading and letter-sound knowledge even when pre-test scores on…

Background: Children ordinarily begin their formal education at the age when the great majority of them are capable of understanding the role of addition and subtraction in changing number. In determining critical differences they can apply the oddity principle--the first "pure" abstraction that children ever develop--understanding that…

Although the recent publication of the Rose Report appears to draw a line in the sand that privileges synthetic phonics over other methods in the UK, history indicates a pendulum swing of preference between whole-word and phonics since the advent of mass education. Suggesting that the current "victory" for exponents of synthetic phonics…

Describes the structured internalization spelling method, which uses a series of small, graduated steps to teach students with learning disabilities to transcribe phonological sounds (phonemes) as alphabetic letters (graphemes) onto paper. The implementation of the program and the benefits of structured internalization are presented along with a…

Several research studies linking early phonemic awareness to the prevention of later reading difficulties strongly suggest that phoneme segmentation and blending, rather than rhyming and alliteration abilities, are the key aspects of phonemic awareness that are related to the prevention of difficulties. Yet there is a persistent belief among many…

This article discusses an aspect of the process of learning to read and write which has received little attention, that is, the ability of children to recognize and to distinguish clearly the sounds which correspond to the individual letters within each word. (Text is in Italian.) (CFM)

Phonological awareness (PA) is the ability to analyze spoken language into its component sounds and to manipulate these smaller units. Literature review related to PA shows that a variety of factor groups play a role in PA in Mandarin such as linguistic experience (spoken language, alphabetic literacy, and second language learning), item type,…

English pronunciation is still neglected in EFL/ESL classrooms throughout the world including Asia today. One of the reasons that it is neglected or ignored is because not many English pronunciation teaching strategies or techniques are available to teachers in the classroom. The purpose of this study is to review articles on strategies for…

The order of difficulty of positions and the segmentability of phoneme categories are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that phonemes are functioning units in the perception and production of speech. The final version of the program for teaching phonemic segmentation is described. (Author/LMO)

The purpose of this study was to determine the significance of teaching phonological awareness directly in the classroom. Student samples were conducted of both special education and general education students. Teacher interviews and observations were also used in this process. This research was conducted in an elementary school with approximately…

This investigation examined the effectiveness of teaching letter sounds in a small group arrangement using computer-assisted instruction with SMART Board technology and a 3s constant time delay procedure to three students with learning disabilities. A multiple probe design across letter sound sets and replicated across students evaluate the…

This booklet is designed to provide an understanding of the relation between writing and speech, without which, the author feels, the problem of teaching children to read accurately and effectively will never be solved. Writing is simply a way of representing speech and our conventional systems of orthography are always incomplete and inaccurate…