Reports that praise and extrinsic reinforcers, such as candy, increased the rate of letter recognition in preschool children and that the increase was partially maintained when the reinforcement was removed. (FL)

Orthographic context and visual letter information were independently varied in a letter recognition task. The results contradicted the qualitative predictions of nonindependence theories of reading and are accurately described by a quantification of independence theory. (Author/CP)

Schuberth and Eimas (EJ 159 939) reported that context and frequency effects added to determine reaction times in a lexical decision (word v nonword) task. The present reexamination shows that context and frequency do interact, with semantic context facilitating the processing of low-frequency words more than high-frequency words. (Author/CP)

A study of acquisition of the alphabetic principle in 64 preliterate children, aged 3 to 5 years, is reported. It appears that phonemic awareness and grapheme-phoneme knowledge are needed in combination for acquisition of the alphabetic principle. Once gained, alphabetic insight proved relatively robust. (TJH)

Finds that six low-income children in two different instructional settings (skills-based and whole language) learned alphabetic concepts and skills necessary for successful reading and writing. Notes that both instructional settings provided explicit phonics instruction (albeit contextualized differently) and time for self-selected reading and for…

Investigated effects of observational learning on preschoolers' attention to print, use of a questioning technique, and knowledge of the alphabet. Found that young children are able to extract a concept or rule through a brief exposure to observational learning. (SD)

One explanation for the relationship between serial rapid naming (SRN) and reading is that SRN affects the temporal proximity of the phonological activation of the letters in a word, which, in turn, influences the acquisition of orthographic knowledge. To test this hypothesis, a group of Dutch first grade children was trained in the rapid serial…

Semitic writing systems such as that used to write Arabic are unique among st alphabetic writing systems in that in Semitic systems short vowels are represented as diacritics on consonant letters, and not represented at Allin text intended for skilled readers. Arabic is unique here in that the letter used to represent a consonant differs in shape…

The vast majority of work on the processing characteristics of poor readers has been conducted with readers of English. In this article we report on results that outline the processing characteristics of poor readers of the Korean alphabetic-syllabic script, "Hangul." Three groups of readers (10 good readers, 10 poor readers and 9 poor readers…

The "newSLATE" environment provides a Web-based infrastructure for language learning. Its design and implementation were driven by the difficulties of non-Roman-script text handling. The software features a cross-platform approach to non-Roman text input and handling and a novel method for automatically generating online quizzes from study…

Seven-year-olds who had difficulty understanding 1st-grade work received one of two forms of small-group instruction. Half of the children were randomly assigned to receive four months of instruction in recognizing, comprehending, and reproducing both logical and arbitrary patterns (sequences) involving numbers, letters, shapes, colors,…

In this article the authors review the reading status of urban learners and examine the role of phonemic awareness in reading acquisition. Their review indicates that phonemic awareness alone is not sufficient for reading acquisition, and that phonemic awareness in combination with alphabetic principle is needed to promote reading competence. The…

This dictionary is designed for use by Peace Corps workers in Mongolia, and reflects daily communication needs in that context. An introductory notation gives the alphabetical order of the Cyrillic alphabet, and subsequent sections list words and stems in Mongol, noting the part of speech, and giving simple (one to several words) English…

A phonemic orthography poses serious problems for students from oral cultures, in part due to the very structure of such orthographies and in part due to negative transference from English spelling habits. A syllabic orthography minimizes the structural problems at the level of decoding, but is an obstacle to morpheme recognition and grammatical…

The writing manual for a course in basic Pashto teaches the Pashto alphabet: the letters, their sounds, their names, and their shapes in various combinations with other letters. Each lesson, designed to take one class hour, consists of a presentation of the material to be learned, exercises using that material, exercises reviewing previously…