Research

For many children, alphabetic insight poses a formidable difficulty (Wallach & Wallach, 1979). Without awareness of the phonemic structure of words, spellings remain odd shapes or arbitrary symbol strings and are extraordinarily difficult to remember (Ehri, 1991). Children with little phoneme awareness usually struggle in learning to read and spell words, developing a wide achievement gulf between themselves and peers who are phonemically aware (Juel, 1988). Explicit instruction in phoneme awareness may help these children avoid reading delay by gaining an early insight into the workings of our alphabetic writing system (Stanovich, 1986).

Children who are behind in their literacy experiences (storybook reading, daily living routines, listening comprehension, vocabulary, language facility) upon entering school become "at risk" in subsequent years (Copeland & Edwards, 1990; Mason & Allen, 1986; Smith, 1989).

Attention-deficit-disorder and reading disability often coexist, but the two disorders appear distinct and separable with respect to the effects of ADD on cognitive tasks. For example, it has been found that ADD children perform poorly on rote verbal learning and memory tasks, but relatively well on naming and phonemic awareness tasks.  The converse appears to be the case for children with reading disabilities.

Despite the widely held belief that boys are more likely to have reading difficulties than girls, research has shown that as many girls as boys have difficulty learning to read.  More identified by teachers in school because of their tendency to be more rowdy and active than girls.

Many children acquire phoneme awareness in the course of naturalistic encounters with alphabet books (Murray, Stahl, & Ivey, 1996), rhyming and alliterative texts (Maclean, Bryant & Bradley, 1987), and by devising invented spellings (Clarke, 1989). These children tend to learn phoneme identities informally with minimal explanation and practice, and their reading ability thus seems to emerge naturally. Other children come to school with impoverished literacy backgrounds. Many of these children come from economically marginal homes where preschool literacy activities give way before the pressures of survival. If schools don't provide explicit instruction in phoneme awareness to help these children gain a foothold in decoding, they may never discover the pleasure and utility of reading.

Without early identification and intervention, reading difficulties typically persist into adulthood at least to the extent of hindering the enjoyment and productivity of reading.

The logic of all alphabetic languages, including English, is built on the understanding that every word is made up of a sequence of elementary speech or phonemes, for it is the phonemes that are represented by the letters. A failure to notice that spoken words can be broken into phonemes is a major cause of profound reading disability.

Almost all of the children who have serious trouble learning to read (about 20%, according to the International Reading Association's estimates) are in one or more of these three groups - children from low-income, low-literacy homes; children from homes in which English is not the language spoken; and children who have learning/neurological/emotional disabilities. (Greenberg, 1998)

Classroom Implications

Teachers and parents must work collaboratively early in the child's schooling to ensure the child's success. 

Reading Recovery is one program that has been highly successful in early intervention.

Teachers must be diligent with assessment to recognize needs and intervene as early as possible.