Offers an introduction to this themed journal issue dealing with the cognitive processing of the Chinese and the Japanese languages. Discusses processing Chinese, processing Japanese, and research needs. (SR)

Introduces the articles in the special issue as sharing a concern with the role of morphological skills in the learning of alphabetic orthographies. Discusses how the articles offer a cross-section of different perspectives, techniques and populations. Notes several pieces of evidence that morphological awareness, while related to phoneme…

Because the spelling of many words in the English language (and in many other languages as well) depends on their morphemic structure, children have to have some knowledge about morphemes in order to learn to read and write. This raises the possibility that children gain much of their explicit knowledge about morphemes as a direct result of…

Discusses the role of decoding in the framework of reading research and current instructional issues. Emphasizes the importance of decoding as part of the reading and language arts curriculum. Provides instructional implications. Suggests that, although many children learn to read without difficulty using literature-based approaches, many children…