The science of reading has captured the attention of educators, policy makers, and the public. Elfrieda H. Hiebert recounts some of what she's learned from her recent exploration of the topic. She has found that research evidence tends to fall into three categories: research that provides unequivocal conclusions, research that holds promise for…

Purpose: Readers can draw on their knowledge of sound-to-letter mappings to form expectations about the spellings of known spoken words prior to seeing them in written sentences. The current study asked whether such orthographic expectancies are observed in the absence of contextual support at the point of reading. Method: Seventy-eight adults…

This narrative review discusses quantitative indices measuring differences between alphabetic languages that are related to the process of word recognition. The specific orthography that a child is acquiring has been identified as a central element influencing reading acquisition and dyslexia. However, the development of reliable metrics to…

This study examined the relationship among word reading efficiency, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension for adult English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Data from 185 adult Chinese EFL learners preparing to take the Test-of-English-as-a-Foreign-Language[TM] (TOEFL[R]) were analyzed in this study. The participants completed 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)

The purpose of this study was to determine the development of four specific letter-sound patterns from second through sixth grade: invariant consonants, long and short vowels, "c," and"g." A 69-item list was presented to second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade subjects in one of two random orders. Oral responses were tape recorded, transcribed by…

The purpose of this study was to examine a model of early reading acquisition that hinged on a phenomenon seldom explored in beginning reading research: a child's concept of word in text. Previous research in early literacy acquisition has centered on the role phonological awareness--the ability to consciously attend to and manipulate the sound…

The purpose of this paper is to present two studies, one which questions some previously reported data on phonemic recoding and another which suggests an alternative interpretation for the evidence that Rubenstein and Lewis claimed in support of phonemic recoding. In one experiment three subsets of nonsense words were presented to 35 paid graduate…

Two experiments were conducted to ascertain whether the reader uses phonological cues, semantic cues, or both types of cues in identifying letter combinations. Sixty introductory psychology students participated in the first experiment, which tested the differential effects of phonological and semantic cues on the speed with which a verbal unit…

Finds (1) positive phonemic-masking effects occurred for dominant homophones; (2) null phonemic-masking effects occurred for subordinate homophones; and (3) subordinate homophones were much more likely to be falsely identified as their dominant mate. Suggests the source of these null phonemic-masking is itself a phonology effect. Concludes…

This study deals with the ability of the beginning reader to recognize the relationships between isolated letter sounds and the same sounds embedded in a word context. The subjects were 64 prekindergarten children attending six private preschools in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The subjects were all Caucasian and spoke a standard English…

Describes four experiments of conditions under which irregular spelling or pronunciation influence two reading tasks--naming and lexical decision. Concludes that such irregularities only influence the reading of lower frequency words and that recognition of a large class of higher frequency words is insensitive to irregularities of spelling or…

Presents tables of initial and final letter clusters for use in psychological experiments as well as in the teaching of reading. (HOD)