Theoretical phonology has at its heart the assumption of two separate levels of speech sound representations: one less abstract, phonetic, 'surface' level, and one more abstract, phonological, 'underlying' level. Descriptions of phonological neutralisation processes such as German final devoicing hinge on the mappings between these two levels, as…

This study aimed to develop a Vietnamese word recognition test for Taiwanese undergraduate students and to investigate students' performances at different learning stages. The formal test consists of 100 words as test items. With each word, test takers were asked to select the correct Vietnamese word form corresponding to the pronunciation they…

In this article, the relationship between alphabet knowledge and reading development will be explored. Key topics will include how alphabet knowledge is not only a predictor for future reading success, but also how letters and their sounds serve as a bridge from a pre-alphabetic phase into a partial alphabetic phase, and beyond. Since each phase…

This study described the growth trajectories of 105 children (n = 55 boys) who had just started primary school in New Zealand (NZ). Children were assessed every fourth school week around 1.5 months after starting school, for five sessions on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills first sound fluency (FSF), AIMSweb letter sound fluency…

Discrimination of reversible mirrored letters (e.g., d and b) poses a challenge when learning to read as it requires overcoming "mirror invariance," an evolutionary-old perceptual tendency of processing mirror images as equivalent. The present study investigated "when," in reading development, mirror-image discrimination…

Metalinguistic Awareness is the ability to consciously reflect on and manipulate language, from the level of the phoneme, to words, to whole phrases. Research has shown that engaging in metalinguistic activities can have a positive impact on reading. This article details some of the component skills of metalinguistic awareness (in this case,…

Early literacy assessment has become commonplace in the preschool years, with phonological awareness constituting one component of emergent literacy targeted by such practices. This within-subjects experimental study examines the role of word familiarity on 93 dual language preschoolers' performance on phoneme-level awareness tasks in…

This study examined the response of two students in the Southwestern United States with autism spectrum disorder and IQ in the intellectual disability range to a comprehensive, text-based reading intervention. The intervention, "Friends on the Block," includes multiple strands of literacy providing explicit instruction in phonics,…

Background and Aims: This longitudinal study investigated the language skills, phonological working memory and lexical-tone perception of Mandarin-speaking late-talkers (LTs) and those with typical language development (TLD) at 27 months, while also examining their connections with novel word-referent mapping (W-R mapping) through eye-tracking at…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of an 18-day summer tutoring program in which graduate student tutors delivered 15 minutes of differentiated reading instruction (DRI) and a 30-minute interactive read-aloud (IRA) lesson each day. Students in grades K-5 (N = 179) attending a summer program at one urban elementary school…

Arabic emphasis refers to the production of consonants resulting from a primary constriction in the dental or alveolar region and a secondary constriction in the back of the vocal tract, recognized as 'Emphatic.' These have contrastive consonants produced in the dental or alveolar region, recognized as 'Plain.' The existing research on emphasis in…

Many studies evidence the flexibility of speech perception in the first language (L1), which allows rapid adaptation to unfamiliar foreign accents. Two influential studies by Bradlow and Bent (2008) and a follow-up study by Baese-Berk et al. (2013) found that increased variability as a function of the number of talkers and accents facilitated the…

The article explores the importance of early reading proficiency and its long-term impact on academic and life outcomes, particularly in Romania. Analyzing PISA data, the article highlights significant literacy gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students, as well as urban and rural learners. These disparities perpetuate intergenerational…

In order to inform English foreign language (EFL) diagnostic assessment of literacy, this study examined the extent to which 175 first-language Hebrew-speaking EFL young learners from fifth to tenth grade exhibited differences in single-letter grapheme recognition, sub-word, and word reading, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) of letters and…