Finds that children's ability to identify and label the letters of the alphabet and to write their own name at school entry were the most powerful predictors of successful reading by the end of the year. Finds a weaker, but still positive, relationship between understanding the conventions of print and reading achievement. (RS)

Concludes that speed in identifying letters and graphonemes correlates highly with reading achievement. (RB)

A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE CONCERNING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEASURE OF PREREADING VISUAL DISCRIMINATION AND FIRST-GRADE READING ACHIEVEMENT IS GIVEN. THE RELATIVE PREDICTIVE POWER OF VISUAL DISCRIMINATION OF LETTERS, WORDS, GEOMETRIC DESIGNS, AND PICTURES WHEN THESE ABILITIES ARE STUDIED INDIVIDUALLY AND IN COMBINATION IS INDICATED. STUDIES…

Examination of reversal errors made by 203 Black and 198 White normal first graders indicated that reversals on items with semantic content correlated very highly with reversals on items with figural content. Each type of reversal item was equally effective as a predictor of end-of-first-grade reading achievement. (Author/SJL)

Followed beginning readers to examine phonological skill influences. Found segmentation strongly correlated with attainment in reading and spelling at end of first year. Also found that letter name knowledge predicted both reading and spelling skill and showed interactive effect with segmentation. Finally, found that by end of second year, rhyming…

Discusses an experiment that links phonological awareness and reading performance in children with Down syndrome. Examines the results within the framework of the author's metalinguistic development theory in which alphabet reading is a pacemaker for the development of explicit phonological awareness. (PM)

Language analysis tasks (segmentation and rhyming) and rapid automatized naming tasks (objects, colors, and letters) were found to tap different linguistics-processing components in both kindergarteners and first graders. Children who could analyze letter names were more likely to be among the better readers at the end of first grade. (Author/BS)

Oral reading speeds for letters, words out of context, and simple text and reading achievement were measured in samples of children and adults. Results are used to discuss the nature and development of a general identification speed variable and an orthographic structure variable. (AA)

Article considers the motivation for perceptual recognition and cognition in evaluating the reasons for reading difficulties of children. (RK)

Two experiments using varying duration exposures related reading skill in adults to initial encoding of location information. Results suggest that the role of perception in reading has been underestimated because emphasis has been on item perception, not perception of spatial location. (Author/CP)

A study investigated whether predictions of reading achievement could be improved by studying the relative contributions of alphabetic knowledge and invented spelling over time. Subjects, 38 upper middle-class children enrolled at an elementary school in the Midwest, were administered an alphabetic knowledge task (measuring letter names and letter…

Suggests that preinstructional evaluation in the areas of mental age, auditory memory, letter names, and the use of context-auditory clues would aid in making predictive, diagnostic judgments as to later reading achievement. (VJ)

After a brief historical (Orton) and theoretical (Gibson) look at the phenomenon of reversals, two groups of studies are reviewed and evaluated. The first group involves neurological and psychological factors associated with reversals such as age and training. The second relates reversals to reading disabilities and to future reading achievement.…

The assumption that the learning of letter names in their proper sequence is a prerequisite for literacy can be questioned. There is disagreement over the value of early letter-name training. It is variously said to aid in letter or word discrimination, to aid in attaching sounds to letters, and to interfere with both of these tasks. An analysis…

Two experimental studies failed to support the assumption that letter-name knowledge facilitates reading. (CK)