Analyzes a report by D.D. Steinberg and J. Yamada that investigated which of the different types of scripts used in Japanese writing was the easiest to learn to read. (MKM)

Offers a rebuttal to Tzeng and Singer's criticism of the authors' study of the ease of learning to read the different Japanese scripts. States that the symbols and words were taught in the ordinary situation in which they are learned. (MKM)

Reviews studies that explore the nature of the relationships between reading and writing and that suggest the influence of writing on word recognition, reading comprehension, and reading motivation. Offers six recommendations for classroom instruction based on the available information about the reading/writing relationship. (GT)

The readability levels of ten basal readers commonly used to develop word recognition and comprehension skills in learning disabled children from grades 3 through 6 were compared with the readability levels of their accompanying workbooks. (Author/DLS)

Examines the error patterns of 26 third grade developmental readers who read and reread extended oral passages at instructional and frustration performance levels. Suggests that consistent word recognition strategies are used by these developmental readers. (RL)

Evaluated hypothesis that cognitive antecedents of word recognition are domain-specific and unrelated to higher-order domain-general cognitive abilities in a longitudinal study of Hebrew-speaking children. Found that kindergarten domain-specific measures accounted for 33 percent of variance in Grade 1 word recognition, even after controlling for…

A study investigated whether changing the letter composition of the Denckla and Rudel rapid automatized naming (RAN) task influenced task performance and the RAN word identification skill relationships in 383 first graders. Substituting a letter that was visually similar to other letters had the greatest influence on RAN speed and accuracy…

Evaluates the effect of didactic techniques used during storybook reading on young children's acquisition of new vocabulary introduced in storybooks under three reading conditions: single-reading; repeated-reading and questioning. Findings suggest that didactic techniques used by adults have differential effects on preschoolers' receptive and…

Investigates whether prereaders who knew all their letters are better at forming logographic access routes than letter-sound access routes into memory from words read by sight. Concludes that prereaders become capable of forming letter-sound access routes when they learn letters well enough to take advantage of the phonetic cues the letters…

Reports results of the administration of a battery of tests of oral language skills to blind braille readers (N=15). Three skills were tested: phoneme deletion, sentence completion, and morphological analysis. Participants were congenitally blind high school students. Subjects differed from sighted readers only in the ability to perform…

Analysis of an adult's self-study of Hungarian pinpoints lexis as the major learning priority. Personalized, real-message practice tasks appeared vital for motivation and for input to become automatized. The crossing of two linguistic thresholds appeared crucial--the gaining of a large stock of word-roots and the ability to read authentic texts.…

Develops the idea of a phonetic-access dictionary by which the isolated spoken word is looked up directly in a phonetically transcribed lexicon of either the tradlitional hard-copy or the more flexible magnetic-media form. Typical applications and benefits to the EFL learner are presented. (58 references) (Author/CK)

This follow up of 24 teenagers who had participated in a study of phonological analysis and reading and spelling abilities 11 years earlier found that phonological awareness in kindergarten was a significant predictor of later word identification and spelling skills. In contrast, socioeconomic status, vocabulary development, word recognition, and…

Discusses a study of the relationship of Australian elementary school students' word reading strategies to comprehension level, reading time, and phonemic awareness. Reports that performance in reading both irregular and nonsense words is a reasonably good predictor of subsequent performance. Recommends remedial training for students lacking…

Among six Mexican-American fifth graders who were native Spanish speakers and had varying levels of English proficiency, oral proficiency was related to reading comprehension within each language. Assisted line-by-line reading facilitated comprehension for low proficiency students, deficient in both English vocabulary and syntactic knowledge. (SV)