Phonological sensitivity as a proximal contributor to phonological receding skills in children's reading

Abstract

Because it permits self-teaching, phonological receding (the efficient translation of letters or letter groups into sound) is arguably the key skill acquired in learning to read an alphabetic writing system. Deficits in this skill are the most common source of children's reading difficulties. In addition, poor readers tend to perform at a lower level than good readers on a wide variety of phonological processing tasks. These findings have been widely interpreted as implying a latent phonological processing ability as a distal cause of variation in reading skill. Clearly, such an interpretation does not imply that all phonological processing skills contribute directly to the phonological receding process. This paper outlines a series of studies conducted at the University of Queensland. This work consistently suggests that children's phonological sensitivity contributes more directly than other phonological processing abilities to the development of phonological receding skills.