REPORTS ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET (I.T.A.) FOR INSTRUCTION IN BEGINNING READING SHOULD BE CONSIDERED WITH CAUTION. SINCE NO DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS USED IS AVAILABLE, EDUCATORS FAIL TO ASSESS RESULTS OBJECTIVELY AND ARE MISLED BY DRAMATIC GAINS WHICH REFER TO SPECIAL CONDITIONS. HAWTHORNE…

AN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP OF 461 CHILDREN WAS TAUGHT TO READ WITH THE INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET (I/T/A) BEGINNING IN KINDERGARTEN AND WAS READING TRADITIONAL ORTHOGRAPHY (T/O) MATERIALS BY THE END OF THE SECOND GRADE. THE CONTROL GROUP INCLUDED 462 CHILDREN WHO WERE TAUGHT TRADITIONAL ORTHOGRAPHY IN A PROGRAM CENTERED AROUND CONVENTIONAL BASAL READING…

One of the most widely respected features of English orthography is its sequential redundancy. Its psychological reality is evidenced by the relative ease with which good readers can encode sequentially redundant nonwords as compared to arbitrary strings of letters. Its psychological importance is implicated by evidence that this advantage is…

A study of the constraints on word recognition errors (miscues) readers make when reading a passage printed conventionally and one printed in a regularized orthography such as the initial teaching alphabet (i.t.a.) was undertaken with 50 second-grade students divided equally between children taught according to the orthographies being studied. The…

The teacher-made materials in this booklet evolved from the needs and experiences of migrant children at the Children's Demonstration School at New York State University College of Arts and Science (Geneseo, New York). The games and visual aids assist students in the skill areas of alphabetic letters, spelling, phonics, punctuation, and word…

The present study attempts to systematically examine the effects of lag on memory for both repeated and nonrepeated letter pairs. (Author)

Investigations of the short-term memory task performance of retarded individuals have indicated that these individuals demonstrate a deficit in the mechanisms necessary for the acquisition, storage and/or retrieval of information. This research examined the tachistoscopic letter recognition task performance of retarded and non-retarded individuals…

This study chronicles the process in which a young child teaches herself to write the letters of the alphabet. (HOD)

A short-term recall task in which letters were spaced in different ways by distractor digits was used to separate aspects of primary and secondary memory processes and to permit examination of primary memory for position, order and item independently. Memory for order appeared derivative to memory for temporal position. (CHK)

Describes how alphabet books may be used to develop children's visual and verbal literacy. (DD)

Reports a study intended to examine whether there is a relationship between reading ability and the size of the visual units attended to during visual word processing. Concludes that both good and poor readers read holistically but that poor readers are deficient in analyzing a word's components. (JAD)

Precommunicative, semiphonetic, phonetic, transitional, and correct spelling are the developmental stages in the acquisition of spelling competency. Samples of children's early spelling patterns are presented. A system for classifying early spelling strategy is outlined. (DF)

Attempts to settle the question of whether reading units are ever larger than letters and considers the variables expected to influence the size of the reading unit. (Author/RK)

Concludes that there is a marked dimensional preference shown in most children by kindergarten, that there are relationships between dimensional dominance and letter matching, and that children program from color dominance to form dominance and then to mixed responding. (Author/RB)

This textbook is a first reader that includes exercises on phonetics and word-building, word grouping, introduction of phonic elements, the grouping or indentation of sentences, nursery rhymes, and the letters of the alphabet. Footnotes and references are provided for teacher's guidance.