To test the effects of teaching inner-city black children to read in kindergarten and first grade through the initial teaching alphabet, i.t.a. and traditional orthography (TO) groups were compared on their comprehension of single words, short sentences, and related skills. At the first grade level, reading, writing, and oral language skills were…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children learning to read in the initial teaching alphabet (i.t.a.) and traditional orthography (TO) differ in general attitudes toward reading, in fluency in written expression, and in reading vocabulary and comprehension at the end of their second-grade school experience. Further, this study…

This paper discusses some psycholinguistic and psychological bases of learning to read in two apparently disparate writing systems, English and Chinese. As an alphabet, English orthography has "more reason than rhyme"; relational units and markers (e.g., "hens" and "hence") are important. The combinatory properties of…

This study sought to analyze phoneme/grapheme correspondences in a 17,310-entry word list drawn from the Thorndike-Lorge word list and Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. Phase one of the research, which has also been reported separately, also sought to determine how closely American-English orthography approximates the alphabetic…

Experiments with 81 college students and 48 fifth graders investigated the role of one form of intra-word orthographic redundancy--the characteristic asymmetric spatial distributions of letters of the alphabet across serial positions within words. Adults were sensitive to letter positional distributions, as were fifth graders who were good…

This research was concerned with the way people identify and categorize letters and digits; the author attempted to answer which of these processes occurs first, with the focus on whether there is a logically determined sequence involved. (Author/RK)

Experiments tested the predictions that words are perceived more accurately in strongly constraining word contexts than in weakly constraining word contexts, and that a strong perceptual advantage would be present for letters in words vs. letters alone or in unrelated-letter strings. Several alternative theories of word perception are discussed.…

Compared was the relative effectiveness of a phonetic approach (Distar) and use of a special alphabet (Johnny Right-to-Read) to reading instruction for 24 second grade children with low levels of reading readiness. (Author/SBH)

Three experiments were performed with young and aged female volunteers (mean ages approximately 25 and 70 years respectively) to evaluate coding ability with ordered and free recall tasks. (BD)

Describes a proposed computer system with voice synthesis for reading Arabic and English textual information for the visually impaired that is an alternative to Braille. The conversion of textual alphabet character information to geometrical shape symbols is explained, and peripheral equipment--including scanners and special keyboards--is…

Reports results of four experiments testing whether syllable structure affects children's performance in phonemic analysis tasks and in other reading related tasks. The experiments were motivated by theories that syllables consist of an onset (initial consonant or consonant cluster) and a rime (vowel and any following consonants). (AS/Author)

Forty kindergarten children were randomly assigned to four conditions to investigate the influence of criterion level on the discrimination of highly confusable letters in beginning reading. Half the subjects were exposed to simultaneous, and half to successive discriminations. The groups were equally divided as to criterion level, i.e., four vs.…

EVA, a text processing tool designed to be self-contained and useful for a variety of languages, is described briefly, and its extensive coded character set is illustrated. Features, specifications, and database functions are noted. Its application in development of a Slovenian literary dictionary is also described. (MSE)

One of the goals of UNESCO is to act as a clearinghouse on information about early childhood education activities in order to promote the development of young children. Noting that many children become frustrated with adults when they try to explain their feelings, this monograph of the UNESCO Education Sector introduces the "Alpha-Soruses"…

This paper considers the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), long out of use in the United States. It was developed by Sir James Pittman in England in 1959 as a plan of reading instruction with a simplified phoneme-grapheme correspondence that stressed consistency between symbol and sound. The paper lists the advantages and disadvantages of the ITA…