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Paper Abstract: Examines acquisition of the sound structure of language. General trends. Individual variability in children's phonological development. PA as a precursor to literacy, both reading and writing. The Reading Recovery Program. Need for early assessment of children with PA deficits. Linkage of reading ability to instructional practices and learning styles. Paper Introduction: Phonological Awareness: A Precursor to Literacy Phonological awareness (PA) is defined by Cupples and Iacono (2000) as the ability to focus consciously on the sound structure of language. It is assessed in tasks that involve the manipulation of the phonological segments of language, such as breaking down words into their constituent syllables or phonemes (segmentation) or blending together sequences of individually uttered phonemes or syllables to form words (blending). According to Cupples and Iacono (2000), PA has long been associated by researchers with the acquisition of alphabetic reading skills in children who are following a normal developmental pattern. Most significantly, early PA has been shown to predict later reading success (Cupples & Iacono, 2000). This brief research report will explore the literature on PA to identify Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Francis, etal (1996), contend that deficits or lags in PA, and not IQ per se, shouldbe understood as critically influencing later development or acquisition ofliteracy skills. The goal of the program is to substantially reduce the incidenceand individual likelihood of reading failure by accelerating to averagelevels of performance the progress of 6-year-old children who present withsigns of reading difficulty. Children who entered firstgrade with poor PA were more likely than children with average or high PAto become poor readers and, more significantly, to remain poor readers ifintervention was not offered. Many school programs attempt to use phonics instruction toassist children in making these correspondences explicit. W., Tunmer. Ifphonemes cannot be isolated in the speech stream, children will not be ableto access the basis for representing words in an alphabetic orthography(Cupples & Iacono, 2 ). The deficit model assumes that children fail to read proficientlydue to the absence of a skill that does not develop sufficiently; the lagmodel is based on the hypothesis that children who differ in readingability vary in terms of the rate at which cognitive skills develop, withskills emerging or being acquired over time. PA facilitatesthe transition from spoken to read language, and later from read to writtentext. As Chapman, et al (2 1), pointed out, children who come to readingwith PA and related skills at a developmentally appropriate level tend tobe less frustrated in learning to read, less prone to behavioral problemsin the classroom, and more likely to exhibit high reading and spelling self-concept than children without appropriate PA and skills. As Baydar, Brooks-Gunn, and Furstenberg (1993)commented, a number of variables impact upon the emergence of PA and laterliteracy skills in children, including family constellation, socioeconomicstatus, parental education and employment, welfare dependency, and teenageparenting. While the literaturesupports the belief that PA is a predictor of reading skill development, italso illustrates the importance of instruction - in terms of both form ofpresentation and content. E. Similar comments were advancedby Baydar, et al (1993), who agree that PA can be a predictor of laterreading success. Learning to read and write: A longitudinal study of 54 children from first through fourth grade. While many preschool and first-grade students may present withdeficits or lags due to external or familial variables, the early childhoodeducational arena is an ideal locus for the enhancement of PA. (2 ). However, mere recognition of a student's deficits orlags is not enough. Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, and Fletcher (1996) exploredthe causal antecedents of reading disability, noting that the literaturetends to posit models of disability linked to developmental lags ordeficits. In other words, wholelanguage and other reading programs that focus on a "naturalistic" approachto reading tend to ignore decoding exercises, which are essential to makingthe transition from spoken language to read text. For teachers atthe early childhood level, this suggests that early assessment is necessaryto identify children with PA deficits or lags and that early interventionwith a strong PA component is vitally important to the further mastery ofdecoding abilities associated with reading. The research indicated that there was a probability of .88 thata child who was identified as a poor reader at the end of first grade wouldbe a poor reader by the end of fourth grade. The Elementary School Journal, 83 (5), 548 - 557.Baydar, N., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Furstenberg, F. J., Shaywitz, S. Theirsix-month study found that developing phonological maturity often tends tobe revealed in an increase in the range and diversity of consonant clustersrather than correct pronunciation of such clusters. Juel (1988) conceptualized reading and writing from the Simple View,in which reading ability is composed of two factors: decoding andcomprehension. Phonological awareness and oral reading skill in children with Down Syndrome. This study underscores the importance of PAas a precursor to reading and writing. K., Shaywitz, B. Child Development, 64, 815 - 829.Cupples, L., & Iacono, T. W. A. Examination of participants in a New Zealand ReadingRecovery Program indicated that children selected for program participationwere particularly deficient in terms of phonological-processing skills,while children who benefited most from such a program entered with moreadvanced phonological-processing skills. Many studies of phonological development have attempted to describegeneral trends for phonological acq1uisition. (1999). Development lag versus deficit models of reading disability: A longitudinal, individual growth curves analysis. One of the deficits of the program, accordingto Chapman, et al (2 1), is that it tends to underemphasize phonological-processing skills. Most significantly, earlyPA has been shown to predict later reading success (Cupples & Iacono,2 ). E., Stuebing, K. Itis assessed in tasks that involve the manipulation of the phonologicalsegments of language, such as breaking down words into their constituentsyllables or phonemes (segmentation) or blending together sequences ofindividually uttered phonemes or syllables to form words (blending).According to Cupples and Iacono (2 ), PA has long been associated byresearchers with the acquisition of alphabetic reading skills in childrenwho are following a normal developmental pattern. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3, 363-379. The reading instruction provided readers of differing reading abilities. However, McLeod, van Doornand Reed (2 1) state that there is a growing recognition that asubstantial amount of individual variability in children's phonologicaldevelopment and products exists. However, Baydar, et al (1993), in a longitudinal study of blackteenage mothers and their firstborn children, found that while thesefactors do impact upon children's literacy skills, early intervention andassessment (focusing in part on preschool level PA) can ameliorate anycognitive or behavioral deficits. The Reading Recovery Program was described by Chapman, Tunmer, andProchnow (2 1) as a preventive early intervention program for youngchildren who fail to benefit from reading instruction after 12 months inschool. The movement toward the "whole language" approachhas led to a de-emphasis on the elements of PA. What the research described herein suggests is thateducators would be well-advised to reconsider the importance of PA as aprecursor to the development of reading and writing skills. Allington (1983) recommended that teachers confronted with "poorreaders" should recognize the impact of their own behaviors and attitudeson those students. A., & Fletcher, J. (1988). M., & Steffler, D. (1983). Phonological Awareness: A Precursor to Literacy Phonological awareness (PA) is defined by Cupples and Iacono (2 )as the ability to focus consciously on the sound structure of language. However, PA is not required for understandingor producing speech, but is essential in learning to read or to decode analphabetic language, given that print decoding depends on mapping phonemesto graphemes. Juel (1988) conducted a longitudinal study of literacy development inchildren through fourth grade with a focus on the ways in which PAinteracts with the ability to succeed in learning to read alphabeticlanguages. Phonological and orthographic influences on children's vowel spelling. PA is important in that the beginning reader has a need to understandthe logic underlying letter-sound (or grapheme-phoneme) relationships. Testing preschool and earlychildhood education program children for PA would, by extension, be anexcellent strategy for early identification of such a lag or,alternatively, an actual deficit. L. Decoding is the process that leads to work recognition, andlearning to break the code of written text is partially dependent uponbeing aware that words are composes of sequences of meaningless anddistinct sounds or phonemes. ReferencesAllington, R. Elements of PA have received substantial attention in theliterature, but McLeod, et al (2 1), chose to explore the relationshipbetween consonant cluster production as an indicator of advancing PA. Such skills are often omitted from or at least de-emphasized in so-called "whole language" reading and literacy programming. While many (indeed, most) preschool-agechildren have advanced PA, others exhibit delays or lags that negativelyimpact upon their ability to move from spoken speech to reading alphabeticlanguages. Typically, as children develop bothcognitively and linguistically, they progress from reliance on phonologicalto orthographic (i.e., the written as opposed to spoken or sounded out formof words) information when learning to spell. J. However, children do notbegin to use orthographic information until they have a sufficientunderstanding of phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Early warning signs of functional illiteracy: Predictors in childhood and adolescence. For young children, Chapman, et al (2 1), stated, PA is an essentialpre-reading skill. PA is seen as a precursorskill that must be acquired before the child can move on to more complexliteracy functions. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 43 (3), 595 - 616.Chapman, J. The processinvolves several discrete but related skills: a) the ability to recognizedistinct and separate sounds in words; b) the ability to assign a letter orcombination of letters to represent that sound; and c) the ability tomanipulate individual sounds. M. This brief research report will explore the literature on PA toidentify its significance and its role in later literacy development. (2 1) Consonant cluster development in two-year-olds: General trends and individual difference. (2 1). Francis, et al (1996), argue that early assessment of such skills asphonemic segmentation can not only identify differential skill acquisitionrates, but also point the way to early intervention. What this study suggests is thatattention to PA and related processing skills may be the most appropriateform of early intervention when children are assessed as at-risk for thedevelopment of reading disabilities of deficits. F. Allington (1983) early on linked reading ability to both instructionalpractices and to learning styles or aptitudes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88 (1-3), 3 - 17.Juel, C. K., Boechler, P. (1993). E., & Prochnow, J. It is the belief ofthese researchers that a lag model of development, in which it isunderstood that children acquire literacy and pre-literacy skills atdifferent rates, is more appropriate than a deficits-based model. Varnhagen, Boechler and Steffler (1999) commented that phonologicalinformation is used to map sounds to letter representations. Changesin reading ability are seen as nonlinear. Does success in the Reading Recovery Program depend on developing proficiency in phonological-processing skills? In some school systems, areturn to the more traditional pedagogical method of introducing readingafter immersion in phonics instruction has been observed. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5 (2), 141 - 176.Francis, D. (1996). A longitudinal study in a whole language instructional context. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 44 (5), 1144 - 1172.Varnhagen, C. Journal of Educational Psychology, 8 (4), 437 - 447.McLeod, S., van Doorn, J., & Reed, V. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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