Linnea C. Ehri

Learning to Read Words: Theory, Findings, and Issues

Reading words may take several forms. Readers may utilize decoding, analogizing, or predicting to read unfamiliar words. Readers read familiar words by accessing them in memory, called sight word reading. With practice, all words come to be read automatically by sight, which is the most efficient, unobtrusive way to read words in text. The process of learning sight words involves forming connections between graphemes and phonemes to bond spellings of the words to their pronunciations and meanings in memory. The process is enabled by phonemic awareness and by knowledge of the alphabetic system, which functions as a powerful mnemonic to secure spellings in memory. Recent studies show that alphabetic knowledge enhances childrens learning of new vocabulary words, and it influences their memory for doubled letters in words. Four phases characterize the course of development of sight word learning. The phases are distinguished according to the type of alphabetic knowledge used to form connections: pre-alphabetic, partial, full, and consolidated alphabetic phases. These processes appear to portray sight word learning in transparent as well as opaque writing systems.

Systematic Phonics Instruction Helps Students Learn to Read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel’s Meta-Analysis

A quantitative meta-analysis evaluating the effects of systematic phonics instruction compared to unsystematic or no-phonics instruction on learning to read was conducted using 66 treatment-control comparisons derived from 38 experiments. The overall effect of phonics instruction on reading was moderate, d = 0.41. Effects persisted after instruction ended. Effects were larger when phonics instruction began early (d = 0.55) than after first grade (d = 0.27). Phonics benefited decoding, word reading, text comprehension, and spelling in many readers. Phonics helped low and middle SES readers, younger students at risk for reading disability (RD), and older students with RD, but it did not help low achieving readers that included students with cognitive limitations. Synthetic phonics and larger-unit systematic phonics programs produced a similar advantage in reading. Delivering instruction to small groups and classes was not less effective than tutoring. Systematic phonics instruction helped children learn to read better than all forms of control group instruction, including whole language. In sum, systematic phonics instruction proved effective and should be implemented as part of literacy programs to teach beginning reading as well as to prevent and remediate reading difficulties.

Word recognition in beginning literacy

Contents: Preface. Part I: Basic Processes in Beginning Word Recognition. L.C. Ehri, Grapheme-Phoneme Knowledge Is Essential for Learning to Read Words in English. U. Goswami, The Role of Analogies in the Development of Word Recognition. S.A. Stahl, B. Murray, Issues Involved in Defining Phonological Awareness and Its Relation to Early Reading. J.L. Metsala, A.C. Walley, Spoken Vocabulary Growth and the Segmental Restructuring of Lexical Representations: Precursors to Phonemic Awareness and Early Reading Ability. G.D.A. Brown, The Endpoint of Skilled Word Recognition: The ROAR Model. Part II: Processes and Instruction for Disabled Readers. L.S. Siegel, Phonological Processing Deficits and Reading Disabilities. J.K. Torgesen, S.R. Burgess, Consistency of Reading-Related Phonological Processes Throughout Early Childhood: Evidence From Longitudinal-Correlational and Instructional Studies. B.W. Wise, R.K. Olson, J. Ring, M. Johnson, Interactive Computer Support for Improving Phonological Skills. I.W. Gaskins, A Beginning Literacy Program for At-Risk and Delayed Readers. Part III: Word Recognition in Context. A.E. Cunningham, K.E. Stanovich, The Impact of Print Exposure on Word Recognition. L. Baker, S. Fernandez-Fein, D. Scher, H. Williams, Home Experiences Related to the Development of Word Recognition. R. Treiman, Why Spelling? The Benefits of Incorporating Spelling Into Beginning Reading Instruction. R. Calfee, Phonics and Phonemes: Learning to Decode and Spell in a Literature-Based Program. D.H. Tracey, L.M. Morrow, Motivating Contexts for Young Childrens Literacy Development: Implications for Word Recognition. M. Pressley, R. Wharton-McDonald, J. Mistretta, Effective Beginning Literacy Instruction: Dialectial, Scaffolded, and Contextualized.

Movement into Reading: Is the First Stage of Printed Word Learning Visual or Phonetic?.

KINDERGARTENERS WERE GROUPED according to their ability to read words: prereaders (no words read), novices (a few words read), and veterans (several words read). They were taught to read two kinds of word spellings: simplified phonetic spellings whose letters corresponded to sounds (e.g., JRF for giraffe), and visual spellings whose letters bore no sound correspondence but were more distinctive visually. Prereaders learned to read the visual spellings more easily than the phonetic spellings, while novices and veterans learned to read the phonetic spellings more easily. These results suggest that when children move into reading, they shift from visual cue processing of words to phonetic cue processing. Phonetic processing entails recognizing and remembering associations between letters in spellings and sounds in pronunciations. This learning mechanism, rather than visually based sight-word learning or sounding out and blending, is claimed to explain how children first become able to read single words reliably.

Learning to Read and Spell Words

Learning to read and spell words is a central part of becoming literate. During text reading, most words are processed, and skilled readers are able to do this effortlessly. How they become skilled at processing graphic cues has been the focus of our research. Findings indicate that prereaders do not acquire graphic skill by learning to read signs and labels in their environment. Rather, mastery of letters is required. Whereas prereaders use visual or context cues to identify words, as soon as children move into reading they shift to letter-sound cues. Initially, words are read by accessing remembered associations between a few letters in spellings and sounds in pronunciations. Later, when decoding skill matures, complete spellings are analyzed as phonemic symbols for pronunciations and are stored in memory. Various studies indicate that having a visual picture of speech in memory is an important part of a persons information-processing equipment. Spellings may influence how words are pronounced, what sounds people think are in words, how quickly people judge spoken word rhymes, how rapidly pronunciations change over time.

Reading Storybooks to Kindergartners Helps Them Learn New Vocabulary Words.

In sessions conducted individually, kindergartners who were nonreaders listened to an adult read the same storybook twice, 24 days apart, and then completed a posttest measuring their knowledge of the meanings of 22 unfamiliar words, half of which had appeared in the story. Some target words occurred twice in the story and some only once, so children heard some words four times and some words twice. Children recognized the meanings of significantly more words from the story than words not in the story, thus indicating that storybook reading was effective for building vocabulary. Gains were greater among children with larger entering vocabularies. Four exposures to words appeared to be necessary but not sufficient for higher rates of word learning

Learning To Read and Learning To Spell: Two Sides of a Coin.

Learning to read words and learning to spell words are closely related. Both follow a similar course of acquisition. Both rely on the same knowledge sources—knowledge about the alphabetic system, and memory for the spellings of specific words—that develop together and are reciprocally related. Corre

Does Learning to Spell Help Beginners Learn to Read Words

IN THIS EXPERIMENT, we examined whether teaching beginners to produce phonetic spellings improves their ability to read words. Kindergarten students who could name letters but could not spell words with consonant clusters were assigned either to an experimental group that was taught to spell or to a control group that practiced matching letters to isolated sounds. According to posttest performances, spelling-trained subjects learned to read a set of words more effectively than controls. Their greater success was not because they had learned how to sound out and blend the words, but rather because they had become better at phonetic cue reading, which entails reading words by remembering associations between letters in spellings and sounds in pronunciations. Spelling training also improved phonetic segmentation and spelling recognition skills. Findings suggest the value of linking spelling instruction to reading instruction when children first begin learning to read.

PHASES OF WORD LEARNING: IMPLICATIONS FOR INSTRUCTION WITH DELAYED AND DISABLED READERS

When students attain reading skill, they learn to read words in several ways. Familiar words are read by sight. Unfamiliar words are read by decoding, by analogy to known words, or by prediction from graphophonic and contextual cues. Five phases of development are identified to distinguish the course of word reading; each phase is characterized by students’ working knowledge of the alphabetic system, which is central for acquiring word reading skill. The phases are: pre‐alphabetic, partial alphabic, full alphabetic, consolidated alphabetic, and automatic alphabetic. The usefulness of this information for teachers of problem readers is explained.

Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning.

Orthographic mapping (OM) involves the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory. It explains how children learn to read words by sight, to spell words from memory, and to acquire vocabulary words from print. This development is portrayed by Ehri (2005a) as a sequence of overlapping phases, each characterized by the predominant type of connection linking spellings of words to their pronunciations in memory. During development, the connections improve in quality and word-learning value, from visual nonalphabetic, to partial alphabetic, to full grapho-phonemic, to consolidated grapho-syllabic and grapho-morphemic. OM is enabled by phonemic awareness and grapheme-phoneme knowledge. Recent findings indicate that OM to support sight word reading is facilitated when beginners are taught about articulatory features of phonemes and when grapheme-phoneme relations are taught with letter-embedded picture mnemonics. Vocabulary learning is facilitated when spellings accompany pronunciations and meanings of new words to activate OM. Teaching students the strategy of pronouncing novel words aloud as they read text silently activates OM and helps them build their vocabularies. Because spelling-sound connections are retained in memory, they impact the processing of phonological constituents and phonological memory for words.