Investigates the effect of teaching kindergarten children orthographic analogies based on onset and rime units. Finds that analogy training specifically based on onset-rime units is an effective method to assist children as they move into reading, benefiting children differently depending on their prior segmentation level. (SR)

Twenty-eight first grade children were taught letter-sound correspondences according to massed and spaced formats. Used a paired associated format that required the children to produce the appropriate sounds in response to visually presented letters. (HOD)

Examines the importance of consistency of letter-sound patterns in beginning reading instruction. (HOD)

Examined the hypothesis by Chomsky and Halle that English spelling corresponds to an underlying lexical level of representation rather than to a surface phonetic level, i.e., pronunciation. (RB)

Presents tables of initial and final letter clusters for use in psychological experiments as well as in the teaching of reading. (HOD)

The intent of this study was to rank order various types of simple regular words according to decoding difficulty. (HOD)

Reviews the evidence for alternative explanations of the underlying system of English orthography and discusses their feasibility as a basis for teaching young beginners. (HOD)

Examines whether the conscious use of phonological knowledge is associated with invented spelling and whether a relation exists between invented spelling and reading. Finds a relation between spelling ability and conscious use of phonological knowledge; however, word reading appears to be a related (but separate) ability from word writing. (RS)

Reports on a study that examined the abilities of first and second grade pupils to read true and altered spellings of words they had either previously read correctly or had misnamed. (HOD)

Studies the graphemic-phonemic associations that are formed during the acquisition and subsequent retention of beginning reading responses and evaluates the heuristic value of viewing the formation of these associations as a classical conditioning response. (HOD)

Reports a study testing the effect of minimal contrast among word forms commonly found in beginning reading instruction. (TO)

Finds that kindergarten children trained in phonemic awareness significantly outperformed control children in phoneme segmentation, letter name and sound knowledge, and reading phonetically regular words and nonwords. Notes that they produced invented spellings rated developmentally superior to those of the control children. (SR)

Presents a sequence for teaching letters based on graphic features; initial and final frequency; the order children learn pronunciation; the ease they can learn to copy, write, and name letters; and phonological differences among sounds letters represent. (TO)

Finds that low-income, inner-city children who had a phoneme awareness intervention program in kindergarten, followed by a first-grade reading program emphasizing phoneme awareness and the alphabetic code, remained significantly ahead of control children at the end of first grade in terms of both invented spelling and standard spelling. (SR)