We report two studies examining the relations among three paired-associate learning (PAL) tasks (visual-visual, verbal-verbal, and visual-verbal), phoneme deletion, and single-word and nonword reading ability. Correlations between the PAL tasks and reading were strongest for the visual-verbal task. Path analyses showed that both phoneme deletion…

We conducted a longitudinal study examining the role of phonemic awareness, phonological processing, and grammatical skills in the development of reading and spelling abilities in Greek. A battery of cognitive, linguistic, and literacy tasks was administered to 131 primary school children (65 7-year-olds and 66 9-year-olds) and was repeated in the…

A range of possible predictors of arithmetic and reading were assessed in a large sample (N=162) of children between ages 7 years 5 months and 10 years 4 months. A confirmatory factor analysis of the predictors revealed a good fit to a model consisting of four latent variables (verbal ability, nonverbal ability, search speed, and phonological…

Two studies investigated the importance of phoneme awareness relative to other predictors in the development of reading and spelling among children learning a consistent orthography (Czech) and an inconsistent orthography (English). In Study 1, structural equation models revealed that Czech (n=107) and English (n=71) data were fitted well by the…

This study investigated children's sensitivity to spelling consistency, and lexical and sublexical (rime) frequency, and their use of explicitly learned canonical vowel graphemes in the early stages of learning to spell. Vowel spellings produced by 78 British children at the end of reception year (mean age 5 years, 7 months) and 6 months later in…

This short-term longitudinal study examined performance of 5- and 6-year-olds in early stages of reading on three phonological awareness tasks. Findings indicated that measures of phoneme awareness were the best concurrent and longitudinal predictors of reading skill, with onset-rime skills making no additional predictive contribution once…

Notes that preceding commentaries raise several issues, including which variables need to be controlled to demonstrate a specific relationship between phoneme-level skills and reading ability and whether prereaders can perform phonemic awareness tasks. Maintains that none of the commentaries casts doubt on the basic conclusion that phonemic-level…

Two experiments investigated mechanisms underlying analogical transfer in the clue-reading task. It was concluded that the extent to which beginning readers make orthographic analogies is overestimated and that theories emphasizing orthographic analogy as a mechanism driving early reading development need reexamination. (Author/KB)

An intervention study of 7-year-old, poor readers examined the extent to which factors of phoneme manipulation, rhyme, verbal ability, nonverbal ability, and phonological memory were predictive of responsiveness to teaching interventions. Only phoneme manipulation was a predictor for reading accuracy. However, for reading comprehension, verbal…

Two experiments examined the influence of phonological and semantic processes on 4- to 6-year olds' ability to learn to read words. Results indicated that children learned phonetic cues better than control cues and that learning was influenced by both the phonetic properties of the cue and the imageability of the words used. (Author/KB)

Examined phonological skills of children during their first two years of learning to read. Found that segmentation was strongly correlated with reading and spelling attainment at the end of the first year of school; letter-name knowledge predicted reading and spelling skill and interacted with segmentation skills. Rhyming predicted spelling skills…

Presents data showing that the Rhyming Detection instructions do not have the effect claimed by Bryant (1998). Argues that Bryant's new measure reflects children's global sensitivity to sound similarities between different words and provides no convincing support for his conclusion. Concludes that their evidence supports the view that phonemic…

Two studies examined six-year-olds' use of analogy in spelling: between visible clue words and similar sounding target words and when clue words are not visible. Both studies found that equal numbers of analogies were made between words sharing a rime unit, a consonant-vowel, or a vowel but were not made when only common letters were shared. (KDFB)

Three experiments demonstrate that children four to ten years old, when presented with a series recall task with pictures of common objects having short or long names, showed consistently better recall of pictures with short names. (HOD)

Explored mechanisms responsible for improvements in short-term memory in early to middle childhood. Recall and speech rate for acoustically similar and dissimilar words and words of differing lengths were assessed in three groups of children of 4 to 10 years. (RH)