This review of the historical literature in language development focuses on the characteristics and development of written language, noting that since writing was considered a school function associated with prescribed sequential instruction, few investigations were conducted during the stages of initial growth in writing competency. Also noted is…

In the traditional alphabet, 26 letters represent 40 different and distinct sounds of the spoken English language in transcription. This prevents a one-to-one phoneme-grapheme correspondence since some of the written symbols represent more than one sound. These inconsistencies in the writing system, recognized as the source of difficulty in…