Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:14:48.323Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Learning correspondences between letters and phonemes without explicit instruction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1999

G. Brian Thompson ,
Claire M. Fletcher-Flinn  and
David S. Cottrell
G. Brian Thompson*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
Claire M. Fletcher-Flinn
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
David S. Cottrell
Affiliation:
James Cook University
*
G. Brian Thompson, School of Education, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Three studies examined the sources of learning by which children, very early in learning to read, formed correspondences between letters and phonemes when these were not explicitly taught in the whole language instruction they received. There were three classes of predicted knowledge sources: (a) induced sublexical relations (i.e., induction of orthographic–phonological relations from the experience of print words), (b) acrophones from letter names, and (c) transfer from spelling experience. The results of Study 1 indicated that children used both sources (a) and (b). Study 2 results showed that source (a) dominated when the letters were initial components of pseudowords rather than isolated items. The transfer from phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences of the children's spelling was examined in Study 3. The results were not consistent with the use of source (c). The findings of these studies have implications for the question of how early in learning to read children are able to use knowledge from their experience of print words as a source for phonological recoding.

Type
Research Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 21 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bauer, L. (1986). Notes on New Zealand English phonetics and phonology. English World-Wide, 7, 225–258.Google Scholar
Bissex, G. L. (1980). Gnys at wrk: A child learns to write and read. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bond, G. L., & Dykstra, R. (1967). The cooperative research programme in first-grade reading instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 2(4), 5–142.Google Scholar
Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. E. (1979). Independence of reading and spelling in backward and normal readers. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 21, 504–514.Google Scholar
Bryant, P. E., & Bradley, L. (1980). Why children sometimes write words which they do not read. In Frith, U. (Ed.), Cognitive processes in spelling (pp. 355–370). London: Academic.Google Scholar
Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1989). Phonemic awareness and letter knowledge in the child's acquisition of the alphabetic principle. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 313–321.Google Scholar
Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1990). Acquiring the alphabetic principle: A case for teaching recognition of phoneme identity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 805–812.Google Scholar
Chall, J. S. (1967). Learning to read: The great debate. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Chomsky, C. (1979). Approaching reading through invented spelling. In Resnick, L. B. & Weaver, P. A. (Eds.), Theory and practice of early reading (Vol. 2, pp. 43–65). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. M., Dunn, L. M., & Whetton, C. (1982). The British Picture Vocabulary Scale. Windsor, Berkshire: NFER-Nelson.Google Scholar
Ehri, L. C. (1992). Reconceptualizing the development of sight word reading and its relationship to recoding. In Gough, P. B., Ehri, L. C., & Treiman, R. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 107–143). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Novy, D. M., & Liberman, D. (1991). How letter–sound instruction mediates progress in first-grade reading and spelling. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 456–469.Google Scholar
Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface of developmental dyslexia. In Patterson, K. E., Marshall, J. C., & Coltheart, M. (Eds.), Surface dyslexia: Neuropsychological and cognitive studies of phonological reading (pp. 301–330). London: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gilmore, A., Croft, C., & Reid, N. (1981). Burt Word Reading Test: New Zealand Revision. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.Google Scholar
Goodman, K. S. (1986). What's whole in whole language? Richmond Hill, Ontario: Scholastic–TAB Publications.Google Scholar
Gordon, M. E., & Deverson, A. J. (1985). New Zealand English: An introduction to New Zealand speech and usage. Auckland: Heinemann Education.Google Scholar
Goswami, U. (1993). Toward an interactive analogy model of reading development: Decoding vowel graphemes in beginning reading. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 56, 443–475.Google Scholar
Goswami, U., & Bryant, P. E. (1990). Phonological skills and learning to read. Hove, East Sussex: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hooper, J. B. (1976). An introduction to natural generative phonology. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Johnston, R. S., & Thompson, G. B. (1989). Is dependence on phonological information in children's reading a product of instructional approach? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 48, 131–145.Google Scholar
Johnston, R. S., Thompson, G. B., Fletcher-Flinn, C. M., & Holligan, C. (1995). The functions of phonology in the acquisition of reading: Lexical and sentence processing. Memory and Cognition, 23, 749–766.Google Scholar
Marsh, G., Friedman, M., Welch, V., & Desberg, P. (1981). A cognitive-developmental theory of reading acquisition. In MacKinnon, G. E. & Waller, T. G. (Eds.), Reading research: Advances in theory and practice (Vol. 3, pp. 199–221). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Mason, J. M. (1984). Early reading from a developmental perspective. In Pearson, P. D. (Ed.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 505–543). New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Read, C. (1975). Children's categorization of speech sounds in English. National Council of Teachers of English Research Report No. 17. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. (1986). Children's creative spelling. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Seymour, P. H. K., & Evans, H. M. (1994). Levels of phonological awareness and learning to read. Reading and Writing, 6, 221–250.Google Scholar
Seymour, P. H. K., & MacGregor, J. C. (1984). Developmental dyslexia: A cognitive experimental analysis of phonological, morphemic, and visual impairments. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 1, 43–82.Google Scholar
Shankweiler, D., & Lundquist, E. (1992). On the relations between learning to spell and learning to read. In Frost, R. & Katz, L. (Eds.), Orthography, phonology, morphology, and meaning (pp. 179–192). Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Slaughter, H. B. (1988). Indirect and direct teaching in a whole language program. Reading Teacher, 42 (October): 30–34.Google Scholar
Stuart, M., & Coltheart, M. (1988). Does reading develop in a sequence of stages? Cognition, 30, 139–181.Google Scholar
Thompson, G. B. (1993). Reading instruction for the initial years in New Zealand schools. In Thompson, G. B., Tunmer, W. E., & Nicholson, T. (Eds.), Reading acquisition processes (pp. 148–154). Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Thompson, G. B. (1997). The, teaching of reading. In Edwards, V. & Corson, D. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education: Vol. 2. Literacy (pp. 9–17). Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Thompson, G. B. (1999). The, processes of learning to identify with words. In Thompson, G. B. & Nicholson, T. (Eds.), Learning to read: Beyond phonics and whole language (pp. 25–54). New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, G. B., Cottrell, D. S., & Fletcher-Flinn, C. M. (1996). Sublexical orthographic-phonological relations early in the acquisition of reading: The knowledge sources account. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 62, 190–222.Google Scholar
Thompson, G. B., & Fletcher-Flinn, C. M. (1993). A theory of knowledge sources and procedures for reading acquisition. In Thompson, G. B., Tunmer, W. E., & Nicholson, T. (Eds.), Reading acquisition processes (pp. 20–73). Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Thompson, G. B., & Johnston, R. S. (1993). The effects of type of instruction on processes of reading acquisition. In Thompson, G. B., Tunmer, W. E., & Nicholson, T. (Eds.), Reading acquisition processes (pp. 74–90). Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Treiman, R. (1992). The role of intrasyllabic units in learning to read and spell. In Gough, P. B., Ehri, L. C., & Treiman, R. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 65–106).Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (1994). Use of consonant letter names in beginning spelling. Developmental Psychology,, 30, 567–580.Google Scholar
Treiman, R., & Baron, J. (1981). Segmental analysis ability: Development and relation to reading ability. In MacKinnon, G. E. & Waller, T. G. (Eds.), Reading research: Advances in theory and practice (Vol. 3, pp. 159–198). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Treiman, R., Tincoff, R., & Richmond-Welty, E. D. (1996). Letter-names help children to connect print and speech. Developmental Psychology, 32, 505–514.Google Scholar
Treiman, R., Weatherston, S., & Berch, D. (1994). The role of letter names in children's learning of phoneme–grapheme relations. Applied Psycholinguistics, 15, 97–122.Google Scholar
Tulving, E. (1983). Elements of episodic memory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Tunmer, W. E., Herriman, M. L., & Nesdale, A. R. (1988). Metalinguistic abilities and beginning reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 134–158.Google Scholar
Tunmer, W. E., & Rohl, M. (1991). Phonological awareness and reading acquisition. In Sawyer, D. J. & Fox, B. J. (Eds.), Phonological awareness in reading: The evolution of current perspectives. (pp. 1–30). New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Venezky, R. L. (1975). The curious role of letter names in reading instruction. Visible Language, 9, 7–23.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English (Vol. 1–3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar