Trains 94 first graders using a structured phonological reading method emphasizing English phonology and phoneme/grapheme correspondence. Compares to a control group who received a whole-language-plus-phonics approach. Notes that children in all groups improved their phonological awareness by the same amount. Concludes that phonological awareness…

Dictated words and pictures by 48 young French children, aged 3 to 6 years, demonstrated that young children have the capacity to produce graphics that exhibit some of the characteristics of writing. Developmental stages in children's recognition that their own efforts were not true writing were identified. (SLD)

A study compared child and adult dyslexic readers to normal readers. Results indicated that dyslexics do not acquire appropriate levels of phoneme awareness, regardless of their age or reading levels. However, their awareness of onsets and rimes developed as their reading skills developed. (BG)

Presents a pair of innovations, originally developed and used for teaching Mandarin, that are now being applied to the teaching of Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Thai, involving a double system of representation to encourage easier pronunciation and long-term learning; and a special sequencing for presenting the tones. (36 references) (CB)

Examines the responses of preschoolers to a number of print design features in various genres of alphabet picture books. Discusses the authors' personal stance on the language learning and language teaching that occurs during these encounters with alphabet books. Ponders the published criteria presented by children's literature experts for…

The claim that multiple-birth children use "twin language" was investigated by describing and comparing the phonological characteristics of the speech of 19 sets of multiple birth children (aged 2-4) and by measuring multiple-birth children's understanding of their twins' or triplets' context-free speech. Results indicated that multiple…

Four experiments with familial and clinical dyslexics aimed at defining primary processing deficits in adult dyslexia. Processes studied included phoneme perception and awareness, lexical retrieval, articulatory speed, and short-term memory. Only phoneme awareness met the criteria for primary deficit. Clinical dyslexics exhibited short-term memory…

This study assessed whether ability to use phoneme-grapheme correspondence in spelling is affected by positions of the phoneme and stress on the syllable in 3 experiments involving 24 kindergartners and 56 first graders. Results suggest that the context in which a phoneme occurs influences children's spelling ability. (SLD)

Examined the relationship between phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge in 4- and 5-year-olds in a one-year longitudinal study. Found that phonological sensitivity predicted letter knowledge growth, and letter knowledge predicted phonological sensitivity growth, when controlling for age and oral language abilities. Also found that the…

Evaluates the methodological quality of 39 studies of phonological-awareness interventions in children. Finds only seven studies met two-thirds or more of all the evaluative criteria (internal and external validity), although all of these investigations demonstrated at least one fatal flaw. Suggests improvements for future intervention research.…

Thirty children with mild mental retardation were compared with 30 children of the same age and 26 children matched for verbal age without mental retardation on a forward digit span task. The highly significant group difference was reduced to nonsignificance when a measure of central executive functioning was covaried out. (Author/CR)

Describes how one kindergarten teacher developed self-monitoring and searching behaviors in her class of beginning readers. Describes an array of reading and writing activities that advanced students' phonemic awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and facility with reading and writing--learning that was proudly constructed with ownership shared…

Study examines first-grade students' growth in oral reading fluency as predicted by their kindergarten letter-naming and letter-sound fluency using growth curve analysis. Results reveal that kindergarten letter-naming fluency uniquely contributed to the prediction of first-grade reading growth. Findings also reveal that Native American and…

A 13-year-old student with spelling difficulties was involved in an intensive group intervention program that focused on increasing foundational skills for spelling and on oral word-level reading. Assessment results led to a successful intervention program targeting phonemic and morphological awareness skills and orthographic knowledge. (Contains…

Argues that most pronunciation problems encountered by Cantonese learners of English may be adequately accounted for by contrastive differences. The phonological differences between the two languages are examined, ranging from their phoneme inventories, the characteristics of the phonemes, the distributions of the phoneme syllable structure, to…