Corley, Brocklehurst, and Moat (2011) recently demonstrated a phonemic similarity effect for phonological errors in inner speech, claiming that it contradicted Oppenheim and Dell's (2008) characterization of inner speech as lacking subphonemic detail (e.g., features). However, finding "an effect" in both inner and overt speech is not the same as…

Four critical responses to an article, "The Role of Phonology and Phonologically Related Skills in Reading Instruction for Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing" (Wang, Trezek, Luckner, & Paul, 2008), are presented. Issue is taken with the conclusions of the article by Wang and colleagues regarding the "necessary" condition of phonological…

Argues that learning how to read in an alphabetic system requires children to understand the complex relationship between print and speech. Suggests that prereading and beginning reading instruction should be designed to facilitate the acquisition of phonemic awareness. Recommends specific practices for reading instruction. (RS)

Argues that the phoneme is a meaning-bearing unit--not a sound--and must be used in conjunction with semantic and syntactic information. (AEW)

Argues that phonemic awareness in young readers may be knowledge that is constructed in the unique situation of trying to match speech to an alphabetic orthography. Stages of learning about print, teaching children about written language, and the roles of alphabet recognition and perceptual-motor skills in learning to read are discussed.…

As a result of the Reading First Program of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the view of reading has narrowed. Individual state's Reading First professional development programs, and hence reading teachers across the United States, have spent the six years since the funding of the program in 2002 focusing beginning and developmental reading on…

Examines the historical changes affecting the Cantonese "finals." These changes fall into four broad categories: (1) vowel shift, (2) the realignment of Middle Chinese "inner" and "outer" rimes, (3) the genesis of the Cantonese syllable structure restraint, and (4) an assortment of fairly low-level allophonic…

For the young child, the onset of speech and language acquisition is a milestone to be expected somewhere between 10-30 months of age. Behaviors exhibited by the people in the child's environment both before and after the onset of speech have infinitely more impact upon language learning--and eventually all learning--than the onset of the event…

The five "phones" of reading--phonics, phonetic spelling, phoneme awareness, phonological awareness, and phonology--all share the same "phon" root, so they are easy to confuse, but they are definitely different, and each very important to reading education. Phonics is an instructional approach that emphasizes the letter-sound…

Notes only a small number of widely-circulated studies are central to the idea that teachers should specifically teach phonemic awareness skills to young children. Shows that they selectively and misleadingly cite other studies out of context to support their argument and that their statistical procedures do not support their propositions. Offers…

Presents case that English is not as unsystematic as it appears nor is it a severe obstacle to learning for both native and nonnative speakers by describing the ideographic, syllabic, and alphabetic writing systems. Suggests teachers need a greater awareness of the nature of the English writing system and how to teach it. (BK)

Critiques Fleming's proposed alternative to Rubenstein's evidence for phonemic encoding. This reanalysis strengthens the evidence for phonemic encoding and suggests that Fleming's "alternative" should be considered as another source of variance affecting recognition, not as a mutually exclusive alternative to phonemic encoding. (HOD)

Arguing that the question of social acceptability of allophonic variations is not a linguistic issue, but rather an issue of social identity, the discussion considers the speech chain, language as a social activity with its "norms" for social acceptability, and the specific context where Singaporean English is a marker of social…

Phonemic phonology became important because it provided a descriptive account of dialects and languages that had never been transcribed before, and it derives its greatest strength from its practical orientation, which has proved beneficial to language teaching and learning. Noam Chomsky's criticisms of it are largely unjust because he has not…

Argues that a fast and effective writing system need not stay close to the phonemic detail of speech, and offers shorthand systems as examples of this. Some proposals for spelling reform are briefly evaluated in the light of this evidence. (HOD)