The genesis of reading ability: what helps children learn letter-sound correspondences?

Knowledge of letter-sound correspondences underpins successful reading acquisition, and yet little is known about how young children acquire this knowledge and what prior information they bring to the learning process. In this study, we used an experimental training design to examine whether either prior letter awareness or prior phonemic awareness directly assists preliterate children in subsequently learning letter-sound correspondences. Here 76 preschoolers received 6weeks of training in either letter awareness, phonemic awareness, or control tasks and then received a further 6weeks of training in either letter-sound correspondences or control tasks.