A functional region of left fusiform gyrus termed "the visual word form area" (VWFA) develops during reading acquisition to respond more strongly to printed words than to other visual stimuli. Here, we examined responses to letters among 5- and 6-year-old early kindergarten children (N = 48) with little or no school-based reading…

Some aspects of Chinese literacy development do not conform to patterns of literacy development in alphabetic orthographies. Four are highlighted here. First, semantic radicals are one aspect of Chinese characters that have no analogy to alphabetic orthographies. Second, the unreliability of phonological cues in Chinese along with the fact that…

Describes a modified alphabet for beginning readers based on psychologies of reading and visual perception. The Graphophonic Alphabet (GP) is explained, motivations for modifying the alphabet are discussed, and possibilities for teaching phonics and second languages as well as reading with the GP and microcomputers are considered. (16 references)…