Bidirectional Relations of Phonological Sensitivity and Prereading Abilities: Evidence from a...

Bidirectional Relations of Phonological Sensitivityand Prereading Abilities:

Evidence from a Preschool Sample

Stephen R. Burgess and Christopher J. Lonigan

Florida State University

Children’s phonological sensitivity is a strong predictor of the development of readingskills. Recent evidence indicates that phonological sensitivity and reading are reciprocallyrelated. That is, phonological sensitivity facilitates the development of early reading andearly reading facilitates the development of phonological sensitivity. Whereas evidencefor this reciprocal relation has come from studies with school-age children, this studyexamined the relation between phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge in 97middle-income 4- and 5-year-old children in a 1-year longitudinal study. Multiple regres-sion analyses revealed that phonological sensitivity predicted growth in letter knowledge,and letter knowledge predicted growth in phonological sensitivity when controlling forchildren’s age and oral language abilities. These results indicate that the reciprocal relationbetween reading and phonological sensitivity is present relatively early in the develop-ment of literacy skills, prior to the onset of formal reading instruction.© 1998 Academic Press

An increasing body of evidence indicates that phonological sensitivity andalphabetic reading are reciprocally related (Perfetti, Beck, Bell, & Hughes, 1987;Stanovich, 1986; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994). More specifically,individual differences in rudimentary phonological sensitivity, as demonstratedby the appreciation of rhyme and alliteration, influence the development ofindividual differences in reading skills (e.g., Bryant, MacLean, Bradley, &Crossland, 1990; MacLean, Bryant, & Bradley, 1987). The process of learning toread an alphabetic language, however, appears to influence the development ofsubsequent individual differences in higher levels of phonological sensitivity

Stephen R. Burgess is now at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. Preparation of thismanuscript was supported, in part, by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and HumanDevelopment (1 RO3 HD36067-01A1) to Christopher J. Lonigan. The authors acknowledge thecontribution of the preschools, directors, and personnel who assisted with this project as well as thechildren and parents who made it possible. We also express our thanks to students at Florida StateUniversity for their assistance with data collection.

Correspondence concerning this article and reprint requests should be addressed to Christopher J.Lonigan, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1270.Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY70, 117–141 (1998)ARTICLE NO. CH982450

0022-0965/98 $25.00Copyright © 1998 by Academic Press

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

117

(i.e., phonemic awareness), as demonstrated by the ability to segment syllablesinto their constituent phonemes (Morais, Cary, Alegria, & Bertelson, 1979;Perfetti et al., 1987; Wagner et al., 1994).

This conceptualization of the relation between phonological sensitivity andreading is compatible with the observed interaction between reading skills andphonological abilities in school-age children, but it does not address the questionof when and how the relation is formed. In fact, despite the importance ofphonological sensitivity in reading development, relatively little research hasexamined the potential correlates and causes of its development. One step inanswering these questions is to determine the extent to which early levels ofemergent reading ability (e.g., letter knowledge) provide insight into the phono-logical structure of words as well as the extent to which rudimentary levels ofphonological sensitivity influence the ease of acquisition of emergent readingabilities.

The majority of evidence linking individual differences in phonological sen-sitivity with the development of reading has come from studies using school-agechildren. Typically, children are assessed on measures of phonological sensitivityonce they enter school (i.e., first grade), but before they receive formal readinginstruction. A number of concurrent and predictive studies have found a consis-tently strong relation between phonological sensitivity and learning to read (i.e.,decode words) even after accounting for variance due to factors such as IQ,receptive vocabulary, memory ability, and social class (e.g. Bradley & Bryant,1983, 1985; Bryant et al., 1990; Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Lundberg,Olofsson, & Wall, 1980; Stanovich, Cunningham, & Cramer, 1984; Wagner &Torgesen, 1987; Wagner et al., 1994). In addition, a number of interventionstudies have found that training children in phonological sensitivity skills leadsto better subsequent reading achievement (e.g., Brady, Fowler, Stone, & Win-bury, 1994; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991).

Although most of the research examining phonological sensitivity has usedschool-age children, both Adams (1990) and Stanovich (1992) have suggestedthat phonological sensitivity is best viewed as a hierarchy of sensitivity or levelsof phonological complexity. Higher levels of phonological sensitivity requiremore explicit analyses of smaller-sized phonological units (e.g., phonemes) andmore rudimentary levels of phonological sensitivity require a more shallow levelof analysis of larger sound units (e.g., syllables). In this view, phoneme segmen-tation tasks would represent the higher level of sensitivity and rhyming tasks amore rudimentary level. An intermediate task would be represented by detectionof alliteration. A number of studies have shown that young children are sensitiveto phonemes that occur as singleton onsets in words but not when the phonemeoccurs as part of a cluster onset or the rime unit (e.g., Kirtley, Bryant, MacLean,& Bradley, 1989; Treiman & Zukowski, 1996). The small number of studies thathave examined phonological sensitivity in preschool-age children indicate that:(a) some level of phonological sensitivity can be measured in children as young

118 BURGESS AND LONIGAN

as three years of age (Chaney, 1992; Fox & Routh, 1975; Lonigan, Burgess,Anthony, & Barker, 1998; MacLean et al., 1987; Smith & Tager-Flushberg,1982), (b) phonological sensitivity measured in very young children is signifi-cantly related to subsequent phonological sensitivity (Bryant et al., 1990; Bur-gess, Lonigan, Anthony, & Barker, 1996; MacLean et al., 1987), and (c)phonological sensitivity measured in preschool-age children is related to bothconcurrent and subsequent reading-related knowledge and word decoding ability(Burgess et al., 1996; Bryant et al., 1990; Chaney, 1994; Lonigan et al., 1998).

Most research examining the development of phonological sensitivity hasassumed that literacy begins when children can read words (e.g., Barron, 1991).However, children develop a wide range of prereading abilities or emergentliteracy skills before actually being able to decode individual words (Whitehurst& Lonigan, 1998). Prior to school entry children acquire to varying degrees theability to recognize product names, knowledge of the mechanics of print (e.g., thedirection that one reads words printed on a page; Clay, 1979), and the names ofletters (Adams, 1990). These abilities are predictive of subsequent individualdifferences in reading ability (e.g., Adams, 1990; Clay, 1979; Blatchford, Burke,Faquhar, Plewis, & Tizard, 1987; Stevenson & Newman, 1986; Whitehurst &Lonigan, 1998). For example, knowledge of the alphabet at school entry is oneof the single best predictors of eventual reading achievement (Adams, 1990;Stevenson & Newman, 1986). However, the role of early reading knowledge inthe development of phonological sensitivity has received relatively little researchattention.

Because both rudimentary levels of phonological sensitivity and early readingknowledge are developing simultaneously in children and both are implicated inthe process of learning to read, it is possible that the reciprocal relations ofreading and phonological sensitivity begin to develop prior to the ability to readwords. An increasing body of evidence suggests that the relations may actuallybegin very early in the development of reading and phonological sensitivityabilities. A number of studies indicate that letter knowledge is significantlyrelated to the acquisition of higher levels of phonological sensitivity (e.g.,Bowey, 1994; Johnston, Anderson, & Holligan, 1996; Stahl & Murray, 1994).For example, Stahl and Murray (1994) found that only 1 of 113 children inkindergarten and first grade who had low letter knowledge could manipulateword onsets in a phonological sensitivity task. In contrast, Naslund and Schnei-der (1996) reported that many of the children in their study could performlower-level phonological sensitivity tasks even though they demonstrated lowlevels of letter knowledge. These findings suggest that letter knowledge may benecessary for children to develop higher levels of phonological sensitivity (i.e.,the ability to manipulate phonemes) but not lower levels of phonological sensi-tivity, such as the ability to manipulate syllables or subsyllabic units (Bowey,1994). Moreover, results of intervention studies indicate that attempts to trainphonological sensitivity are most effective when instruction in letter knowledge

119PHONOLOGICAL SENSITIVITY AND LETTER KNOWLEDGE

is included in the intervention (e.g., Bradley, & Bryant, 1983; see also Wagner,1996, for a review). Finally, Wagner et al. (1994) reported the only study thatexplicitly tested the influence of letter knowledge on subsequent phonologicalsensitivity development, and they found that individual differences in kindergar-ten and first-grade letter-name and letter-sound knowledge were significantlyrelated to measures of phonological sensitivity one year later, even after con-trolling for variance attributable to verbal intelligence and the phonologicalsensitivity autoregressor.

Taken together, these studies indicate that letter knowledge plays an influentialrole in the development of phonological sensitivity, both prior to and after theinitiation of formal reading instruction; however, the majority of evidence for thisrelation has come from examination of higher levels of phonological sensitivity(i.e., sensitivity to phonemes). There is little evidence concerning the role ofletter knowledge in the development of more rudimentary levels of phonologicalsensitivity. Moreover, no study has directly examined the possible influence ofphonological sensitivity on the acquisition of letter-name and letter-sound knowl-edge in preschool-age children. This omission is important because little isknown about how various cognitive abilities influence children’s ability toacquire letter-name and letter-sound knowledge (e.g., Bowey, 1994; Whitehurst& Lonigan, 1998). Although letter-name and letter-sound knowledge can beacquired without phonological sensitivity (e.g., Stahl & Murray, 1994), it seemslikely that children who are more sensitive to the sound structure of words willbenefit more from the informal exposure to letters that preschool children receivein a literate society (e.g., Bowey & Francis, 1991) than children who are lesssensitive to the sound structure of words.

Whereas much recent research has highlighted the role letter knowledge may playin the development of higher levels of phonological sensitivity (i.e., phonemicsensitivity), the majority of this research has involved examination of concurrentrelations between letter knowledge and phonological sensitivity and has focusedon the question of how much letter knowledge children need before they can per-form specific levels of phonological sensitivity tasks, primarily phonemic sensi-tivity tasks. The basic questions of what role early levels of phonological sen-sitivity may serve in the development of emergent reading skills, in contrast toword reading, as well as longitudinal relations between letter knowledge andphonological sensitivity, have not been addressed. Questions concerning the factorsthat influence the early development of phonological sensitivity and other aspectsof emergent literacy are important for at least two reasons. First, kindergartenmeasures of phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge are the two best predictorsof subsequent reading achievement (Adams, 1990; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998).Second, it appears that individual differences in phonological sensitivity are presentprior to school and relatively stable once school is reached (Byrne, Freebody, &Gates, 1992; Lonigan et al., 1998; MacLean et al., 1987; Torgesen & Burgess, inpress; Wagner et al., 1994).


The present study was designed to examine the potential reciprocal relationsbetween the development of phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge in agroup of 4- and 5-year-old children to determine if the reciprocal relationsbetween reading and phonological sensitivity seen in school-age children actu-ally begin earlier in the development of both reading and phonological sensitiv-ity. In a one-year longitudinal study, the role of letter-name and letter-soundknowledge in the growth of lower and higher levels of phonological sensitivityin preschool children was examined. Additionally, the role of phonologicalsensitivity in the growth of letter-name and letter-sound knowledge in preschoolchildren was determined. Based on previous studies (e.g., Torgesen & Burgess,in press; Wagner et al., 1994), it was expected that individual differences in bothphonological sensitivity and letter knowledge would be relatively stable in thisage group. However, it was hypothesized that letter knowledge would contributeto growth in phonological sensitivity and that phonological sensitivity would alsocontribute to the development of letter knowledge even after controlling forchildren’s age and oral language abilities.

METHOD

Participants

In the first phase of this study (i.e., Time 1), 115 4- and 5-year-old childrenwere recruited from seven preschools in a moderately sized city in North Florida.Approximately one year after initial testing was completed, follow-up testing(i.e., Time 2) commenced. Ninety-seven of the original children were tested atTime 2. Children who were not included in the Time 2 testing either could notbe located or their parents did not give consent for continued participation. Therewere no significant differences on any variable used in this study from the Time1 assessment between the 97 children assessed at both times and the 18 childrennot assessed at Time 2 (allps . .06). The sample consisted of approximatelyequal numbers of boys and girls (52.6% of the sample were boys). At Time 1, themean age of the children was 60.4 months (SD5 5.41; range5 48 to 70). Thesample was predominantly Caucasian, and all of the children were from middle-class families according to the Hollingshead Four Factor Index (Hollingshead,1975), using parental occupation and education levels to estimate socioeconomicstatus. As part of an environmental print task, children were asked to read the textof common print found in their environments (e.g., STOP, Coke, Pepsi, Mc-Donalds). Over 80% of children could identify one or fewer words, suggestingthat the majority of the sample were nonreaders at the time of the initialassessment.1

1 Because of the severe deviation of normality of this variable, it was not used in the analysesreported below. However, limiting analyses to those children who were only able to read one or fewerwords at Time 1 did not alter the pattern of results for any analysis reported.


Procedure

Following informed consent, children were tested individually by trainedresearch assistants in their child care centers. Test administration for individualchildren was conducted over two to four sessions within a two-week period toensure optimal performance on all tasks. During Time 1 testing, children com-pleted two standardized tests of oral language, four tests of phonological sensi-tivity, and two tests of letter knowledge. During Time 2 testing, children wereadministered four tests of phonological sensitivity and two tests of letter knowl-edge. Each phonological sensitivity task was preceded by practice trials to teachchildren the task (e.g., blending or deleting word sounds). Many items on thephonological sensitivity tasks utilized pictures to reduce memory demands on thechildren.

Oral language measures.The Grammatical Closure subtest of theIllinois Testof Psycholinguistic Abilities(Kirk, McCarthy, & Kirk, 1968) requires the childto provide a grammatically correct word to complete a sentence prompt thatdescribes a sequence of two pictures. This test was used as an estimate ofchildren’s expressive language abilities. The Grammatical Understanding subtestof the Test of Language Development—Primary,2nd ed. (Newcomer & Ham-mill, 1991) requires children to select the correct picture out of three thatcorresponds to a sentence spoken by the examiner. This test was used as anestimate of children’s receptive language abilities.

Phonological sensitivity measures.Four tasks were used to assess differentaspects of children’s phonological sensitivity. Previous analyses of these fourtasks indicated that they had moderate to high internal consistencies for 4-year-olds (as5 .47 to .96) and 5-year-olds (as5 .69 to .94; see Lonigan et al., 1998).A rhyme oddity detection task,patterned after the task developed by MacLean etal. (1987), using their word list, required children to demonstrate awareness ofrhyme. Children were presented with three pictured words (e.g., boat, sail, nail)and were asked select the one that did not rhyme with (or that sounded differentthan) the other two. Two practice trials and eleven test trials were presented toall children. Corrective feedback was given during the practice trials, but nofeedback was given during the test trials. Internal consistency at Time 1 (a 5 .71)and Time 2 (a 5 .72) was moderate.

An alliteration oddity detection task,also patterned after the task developed byMacLean et al. (1987), using their word list, required children to demonstrateawareness of singleton word onsets. Children were presented with three picturedwords (e.g., car, cat, sun) and were asked select the one that did not sound thesame (or that sounded different) at the beginning of the word as the other two.Two practice trials and eleven test trials were presented to all children. Correctivefeedback was given during the practice trials, but no feedback was given duringthe test trials. Internal consistency at Time 1 (a 5 .68) and Time 2 (a 5 .80) wasmoderate.

A blending task,patterned after the task used by Wagner et al. (1994), required


children to combine word elements to form a word. Three practice items and thefirst eight test trials were presented both verbally and with pictures; theremaining test trials were presented verbally only. In both picture andnonpicture trials, the first five items required blending single-syllable wordsto form compound words, and the remaining items required blending sylla-bles or phonemes (see Appendix for complete word list). For picture itemsinvolving compound words, the examiner showed the child two pictures andnamed them (e.g., “This is a cow and this is a boy.”) and then asked the childwhat word would be produced if you said them together (e.g., “What do youget when you say cow . . . boy together?”). All practice items required theblending of compound words during which the examiner emphasized thenature of the task by physically putting the pictures together while presentingthe trial. Practice trials were followed by correction, explanation, and read-ministration (up to two times) if the child did not produce the correctresponse, and confirmation and explanation if the child provided the correctanswer. There was no feedback on the test trials. There were 18 test trials inthe Time 1 assessment, consisting of 10 word-blending items, 4 syllable-blending items, and 4 phoneme blending items. At Time 2, there were 37 testtrials consisting of all of the Time 1 items followed by 3 additional syllable-blending items and 16 additional phoneme-blending items. During bothassessments, testing was discontinued after a child missed 5 consecutivetrials. The internal consistency of the task at Time 1 (a 5 .91) and Time 2(a 5 .90) was high.

An elision task,also patterned after a task used by Wagner et al. (1994),required children to say a word minus a specific sound. Two practice items andthe first eight test trials were presented both verbally and with pictures; theremaining test trials were presented verbally only. In both picture and nonpicturetrials, the first four items required deleting a single-syllable word from a com-pound word to form a new word. Subsequent items in both picture and nonpicturetrials required deletion of a syllable or a phoneme from a word to form a newword (see Appendix for complete word list). Both practice items used compoundwords. For picture items involving compound words, the examiner showed thechild two pictures and named them (e.g., “This is a bat, and this is a man.”) andthen asked the child to say the compound (i.e., “batman”) prior to being asked todelete part of it. During practice trials, the examiner emphasized the nature of thetask by physically removing the picture of the word to be deleted. Practice trialswere followed by correction, explanation, and readministration (up to two times)if the child did not produce the correct response, and confirmation and explana-tion if the child provided the correct answer. There was no feedback on the testtrials. There were 15 test trials in the Time 1 assessment, consisting of 8word-level items, 4 syllable-level items, and 3 phoneme-level items. At Time 2,there were 32 test trials, consisting of all of the Time 1 items followed by anadditional 17 phoneme-level items. During both assessments, testing was dis-


continued after a child missed 5 consecutive trials. Internal consistency of thetask at Time 1 (a 5 .88) and Time 2 (a 5 .86) was high.

Letter knowledge measures.Two measures were used to assess differentaspects of children’s letter knowledge. Aletter-name knowledgetask requiredchildren to name all 26 upper-case letters that were presented individually inrandom order on individual 3 by 5 in. index cards. Aletter-sound knowledgetaskrequired children to name the sound made by each letter when it appears in aword. All 26 upper-case letters were presented individually in random order onindividual 3 by 5 in. index cards. If children responded with the letter name ora word that started with the letter (e.g., “dog” for D), they were prompted toprovide the letter sound.

RESULTS

Preliminary examination of the data indicated that some variables deviatedfrom normality (e.g., letter-name knowledge at Time 2 was negatively skewed).Transformation of these variables (e.g., Tabachnick & Fidell, 1989) improvedtheir distributions but did not change the pattern of correlations between vari-ables or the pattern of results for the multiple regression analyses reported below.Therefore, all analyses were carried out using the untransformed variables.Examination of the tests of phonological sensitivity as four items of a single testrevealed that they were substantially related to each other at Time 1 (a 5 .62)and Time 2 (a 5 .68). Unit-weighted composite variables were formed forphonological sensitivity and oral language measures. Each composite variablewas created by averaging the standard scores orz-scores of the relevant variables(e.g., phonological sensitivity composites are the average of the fourz-scoredtransformed phonological sensitivity tasks).2

Descriptive statistics for age and the measures of letter knowledge, phonolog-ical sensitivity, and oral language are shown in Table 1. As indicated in the table,there was substantial variability in all measures for this age group. Girls (M 561.17 months,SD 5 5.07) were slightly older than boys (M 5 59.02 months,SD 5 5.55),F(1,95) 5 3.95,p 5 .05. With one exception, boys and girls hadsimilar scores on phonological sensitivity, letter knowledge, and oral languagevariables (allps . .30). Girls (M 5 22.20,SD5 4.97) scored higher than boys(M 5 18.88,SD5 7.62) on the Time 2 letter-sound knowledge task,F(1,95)56.29,p 5 .02; however, this difference was not significant once the effect of agewas covaried. Consequently, all subsequent analyses were conducted with boysand girls combined.

Despite significant relations between letter knowledge and phonological sen-sitivity (see below), children with low levels of letter knowledge in this sample

2 Principal components analysis indicated that all four phonological sensitivity variables loaded ona single factor that accounted for 50% and 59% of the variance in the Time 1 and Time 2 assessments,respectively. A factor score composite phonological sensitivity variable produced results identical tothose reported for the unit weightedz-score composite variable.


at Time 1 were able to perform the phonological sensitivity tasks. For example,children who knew five or fewer letter names (n 5 9) were able to blend (M 510.22,SD5 7.10) and delete (M 5 5.89,SD5 4.91) sounds, mostly at the wordand syllable level. Similar results for the blending (M 5 11.59,SD5 4.40) andelision (M 5 7.50,SD 5 4.12) tasks were obtained for children who knew fiveor fewer letter sounds (n 5 46). Similarly, children who could perform eithernone of the blending task or none of the elision task (n 5 8) were able to identifyletter names (M 5 15.63,SD5 10.10) and letter sounds (M 5 8.50,SD5 8.70).

Bivariate Relations

Zero-order correlations between the variables are shown in Table 2. Asindicated by the correlations between similar measures at Time 1 and Time 2,phonological sensitivity was very stable, and letter knowledge was moderatelystable from Time 1 to Time 2. Age was moderately correlated with phonologicalsensitivity at both times and with letter-sound knowledge at Time 2. Orallanguage was moderately correlated with phonological sensitivity at both times

TABLE 1Means, Standard Deviations, and Ranges for Children’s Ages and Indices of Letter Knowledge,

Phonological Sensitivity, and Oral Language

Variable Mean SD

Range

Min Max

Chronological ageT1 60.40 5.41 48 70Chronological ageT2 72.88 5.71 60 82Letter-name knowledgeT1 20.02 7.37 0 26Letter-name knowledgeT2 20.45 8.90 0 26Letter-sound knowledgeT1 9.09 8.90 4 26Letter-sound knowledgeT2 20.45 6.68 0 26Phonological sensitivity (%)T1a 58.90 18.58 16 98

Rhyme oddityT1 6.49 2.75 1 11Alliteration oddity T1 5.46 2.64 0 11BlendingT1 12.22 5.03 0 18Elision T1 8.87 4.21 0 15

Phonological sensitivity (%)T2a 71.48 14.05 39 95Rhyme oddityT2 8.89 2.13 3 11Alliteration oddity T2 8.73 2.42 0 11Blending (all)T2 26.56 6.47 5 37

Blending phonemesT2 10.95 5.09 0 20Elision (all) T2 17.28 4.69 9 30

Elision phonemesT2 6.40 3.87 0 18Oral languageb 110.52 15.66 73 146

a Average percent correct on four phonological sensitivity tasks.b Standard scores transformed from tabled values to have a mean of 100 and standard deviation of

15. T1 5 Time 1 data.T2 5 Time 2 data.


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and more weakly correlated with letter-name knowledge at both times. Phono-logical sensitivity was moderately correlated with letter-name knowledge andletter-sound knowledge within and across time. Finally, letter-name and letter-sound knowledge were moderately interrelated both within and across time.

Predicting Growth in Phonological Sensitivity

Multiple regression analysis was used to test for reciprocal relations betweenphonological sensitivity and letter knowledge. Separate sets of regression anal-yses were conducted for letter-name knowledge and letter-sound knowledge toexamine the extent to which individual differences in Time 1 letter knowledgeexplained subsequent individual differences in the Time 2 measures of phono-logical sensitivity after controlling for variance attributable to oral languageabilities, chronological age, and phonological sensitivity at Time 1.

As noted previously, the four different phonological sensitivity tasks werehighly related when considered as separate items in an overall phonologicalsensitivity measure (i.e., coefficient alphas5 .62 and .68 at Time 1 and Time 2,respectively), and each of the phonological sensitivity measures was highlycorrelated with the overall phonological sensitivity composite (i.e.,rs 5 .59 to.79 at Time 1 andrs 5 .73 to .80 at Time 2; see Table 2). These results suggestthat the separate phonological sensitivity tasks were measuring largely the sameunderlying ability. Consequently, the first multiple regression analysis for bothletter-name and letter-sound knowledge was conducted using the compositephonological sensitivity variable to examine the relation between letter knowl-edge and growth in children’s overall phonological sensitivity. However, to morefully explore the relations between letter knowledge and the development ofhigher levels of phonological sensitivity (i.e., phonemic sensitivity), separatemultiple regression analyses were also conducted for each of the four phonolog-ical sensitivity tasks. All items on the alliteration task require sensitivity tophonemes (i.e., singleton word onsets).3 For the blending and elision tasks, onlythe items involving blending (20 items) or deletion (20 items) of phonemes wereused as indices of Time 2 phonemic sensitivity.4 Although the rhyme oddity taskdoes not measure phonemic sensitivity, results are presented for comparison and

3 Bowey and Francis (1991) argued that sensitivity to singleton onsets does not reflect sensitivityto phonemes because what is required is segmentation at the onset—rime level. In our view thesetasks do reflect sensitivity to phonemes because performance requires both segmentation ability andanalysis at the phoneme level.

4 Measures of lower levels of phonological sensitivity on the blending and elision tasks (i.e.,blending or deleting word- or syllable-level items) had restricted range and the means were at nearceiling levels at Time 2 (i.e., blending:M 5 15.48,SD5 2.39, 70% scored within 1 item of ceiling;elision:M 5 10.88,SD5 1.45, 46% scored within 2 items of ceiling). Multiple regression analysessimilar to those reported below for phoneme-level items did not indicate that letter-name orletter-sound knowledge contributed unique variance to the prediction of Time 2 scores on thesemeasures (zero-order correlations also were not significant, blendingrs 5 .00 and2.04, elisionrs 5.15 and .16 for letter-name and letter-sound knowledge, respectively). However, it is likely that anyindependent relation between letter knowledge and growth in these rudimentary levels of phonolog-


as an estimate of the role of letter knowledge in the development of lower levelsof phonological sensitivity.

Letter-name knowledge.The percentage of unique variance in Time 2 phono-logical sensitivity accounted for by each Time 1 predictor variable in theregression models (i.e., the change inR2 if the predictor variable were the lastvariable entered into the regression model) is shown in Table 3 for modelsincluding letter-name knowledge as a predictor. As shown in the table, allregression models were significant and accounted for moderate to large amountsof the variance in Time 2 phonological sensitivity scores. However, a sizableproportion of this variance was shared between two or more variables.

For the phonological sensitivity composite, both the autoregressive effectof the phonological sensitivity composite variable and letter-name knowledgecontributed significant amounts of unique variance to the equation (see Table3). With the exception of the alliteration oddity task, all phonologicalsensitivity measures showed significant autoregression effects when exam-ined separately, with Time 1 performance independently predicting Time 2performance. With autoregressive effects controlled, oral language contrib-uted to rhyme oddity detection, alliteration oddity detection, and phoneme

ical sensitivity would have been obscured due to the restricted range and near ceiling performance forword- and syllable-level blending and elision items.

TABLE 3Unique Variance Accounted for by Variables in Multiple Regression Models Including Letter-

Name Knowledge Predicting Composite and Task-Specific Higher Levels of Phonological Sensitivityat Time 2

Time 1 predictor variable

Phonological sensitivity dependent variable at time 2

Composite Rhyme AlliterationPhonemeblending

Phonemeelision

Letter-name knowledge 1.6* 0.3 7.1** 3.6* 2.4*Phonological sensitivitya 22.0*** 22.3*** 1.5 9.2*** 14.3***Oral language 0.7 2.4* 4.8* 1.9 3.6*Chronological age 0.7 0.7 1.8 3.7* 0.3

Common Varianceb (38.7) (18.6) (13.9) (14.8) (23.6)Variance for full model 63.7 44.3 29.1 33.2 44.2Overall modelF 40.35*** 18.31*** 9.45*** 11.43*** 18.23***

a Predictor variable at Time 1 for same phonological sensitivity task. For blending and elisiontasks, Time 1 variable included word, syllable, and phoneme items.

b Predictive variance shared by two or more predictor variables.N 5 97.* p , .05.

** p , .01.*** p , .001.


elision, and age contributed only to phoneme blending. Letter-name knowl-edge contributed independent variance to all higher level phonological sen-sitivity measures at Time 2, thereby suggesting that the influence of letter-name knowledge on the phonological sensitivity composite was due to effectson higher level phonological sensitivity tasks.

Because there were so few phoneme-level items on the Time 1 blending (4phoneme items) and elision tasks (3 phoneme items), the combined score for theword, syllable, and phoneme items on the blending and elision tasks at Time 1was used to control for Time 1 phonological sensitivity in the regressions aboveinvolving phoneme blending or phoneme elision, respectively. To cross checkthe obtained results, additional analyses using both the phoneme and nonpho-neme scores on these tasks were conducted. When Time 1 phoneme- andnonphoneme-level blending items were considered separately, the score fromTime 1 phoneme blending was not a significant predictor (sr2 5 .005,p 5 .40)but all other significant predictors remained essentially unchanged. When Time1 phoneme- and nonphoneme-level elision items were considered separately, thescore from Time 1 phoneme elision was not a significant predictor (sr2 5 .014,p 5 .13) but all other significant predictors remained unchanged.

Letter-sound knowledge.The percentage of unique variance in Time 2 pho-nological sensitivity accounted for by each Time 1 predictor variable in theregression models is shown in Table 4 for models including letter-sound knowl-

TABLE 4Unique Variance Accounted for by Variables in Multiple Regression Models Including Letter-

Sound Knowledge Predicting Task-Specific Higher Levels of Phonological Sensitivity at Time 2


Phonological sensitivity dependent variable at time 2

Composite Rhyme AlliterationPhonemeblending

Phonemeelision

Letter-sound knowledge 0.0 0.0 0.2 2.1 3.4*Phonological sensitivitya 24.2*** 23.3*** 1.9 9.7*** 13.7***Oral language 1.0 2.8* 7.0** 1.9 3.1*Chronological age 0.9 0.9 3.2† 4.0* 0.3

Common varianceb (36.0) (17.1) (9.9) (14.0) (24.8)Variance for full model 62.1 44.1 22.2 31.7 45.3Overall modelF 37.76*** 18.11*** 6.57*** 10.65*** 19.05***

a Predictor variable at Time 1 for same phonological sensitivity task. For blending and elisiontasks, Time 1 variable included word, syllable, and phoneme items.

b Predictive variance shared by two or more predictor variables.N 5 97.† p , .06.* p , .05.

** p , .01.*** p , .001.


edge as a predictor. Similar to the results for models with letter-name knowledge,all of the regression models were significant and accounted for moderate to largeamounts of the variance in Time 2 phonological sensitivity scores, and a sizableproportion of this variance was shared between two or more variables. The keyfindings from the analyses were that, with the exception of alliteration odditydetection, all phonological sensitivity measures again showed significant autore-gressive effects. Letter-sound knowledge contributed independent variance onlyto phoneme elision performance at Time 2. Again, neither phoneme blending atTime 1 (sr2 5 .004,p 5 .47), nor phoneme elision at Time 1 (sr2 5 .005,p 5.35) was a significant predictor of Time 2 phoneme blending or elision scores,respectively, when Time 1 phoneme- and nonphoneme-level items were consid-ered separately.

Additional analyses in which both letter-name and letter-sound knowledgewere considered simultaneously revealed that letter-name and letter-soundknowledge shared substantial predictive variance. However, letter-name knowl-edge made a unique contribution to children’s scores on the Time 2 phonologicalsensitivity composite (sr2 5 .023,p , .05) and the alliteration oddity task (sr2

5 .078,p , .01). Although letter knowledge made significant contributions toblending phonemes and elision phonemes when both letter-name and letter-sound knowledge were entered as a block (e.g., for elision,R2 change5 .04,F[2,91] 5 3.21,p , .05), neither variable made a significant independent contribu-tion to the prediction of blending or elision of phonemes.

The results of these analyses indicate that individual differences in preschoolchildren’s knowledge of letter names contribute to growth in higher levels ofphonological sensitivity even after controlling for differences due to age and orallanguage ability. In contrast, children’s knowledge of letter sounds appears tohave less of an overall effect on subsequent growth in their phonologicalsensitivity once differences due to age and oral language abilities are taken intoaccount. Consistent with the zero-order correlations, Time 1 phonological sen-sitivity was strongly and independently related to Time 2 phonological sensitiv-ity. Letter-name knowledge was also independently related to Time 2 phonolog-ical sensitivity; however, a sizable proportion of its bivariate relation was due tovariance shared with the other variables.

Predicting Growth in Letter Knowledge

Four multiple regression analyses examined the extent to which individualdifferences in phonological sensitivity explained subsequent individual differ-ences in letter-name or letter-sound knowledge once variance attributable to orallanguage, chronological age, and letter knowledge at Time 1 was taken intoaccount. Because the purpose of these analyses was to examine the potential roleof phonological sensitivity in the growth of letter-name and letter-sound knowl-edge, the 25 children who knew all letter names (mean age5 62.28 months,SD 5 5.22) or the 2 children who knew all letter sounds (mean age5 63.50


months,SD 5 3.54) at Time 1 were excluded from the respective analyses;however, results of analyses that included these children were virtually identicalto the results reported below.5 The percentage of unique variance in Time 2letter-name knowledge and Time 2 letter-sound knowledge accounted for byeach Time 1 predictor variable in the four regression models is shown in theupper panels of Table 5. Like the results for phonological sensitivity, all regres-sion models were significant and accounted for moderate to large amounts of thevariance in Time 2 letter knowledge, and a sizable proportion of this variancewas shared between two or more variables.

Letter-name knowledge.The first regression model examined the simultaneousinfluence of phonological sensitivity, age, oral language, and letter-name knowl-edge at Time 1 on letter-name knowledge at Time 2. As seen in Table 5, bothphonological sensitivity and the autoregressive effect of letter-name knowledgecontributed significant amounts of unique variance to the model. The secondregression model examined the simultaneous influence of phonological sensitiv-ity, age, oral language and both letter-name and letter-sound knowledge at Time1 on letter-name knowledge at Time 2. Again, both phonological sensitivity andthe autoregressive effect of letter-name knowledge contributed significantamounts of unique variance to the model (see Table 5). Letter-sound knowledgedid not add unique variance to the model.

Letter-sound knowledge.The third regression model examined the simul-taneous influence of phonological sensitivity, age, oral language, and letter-sound knowledge at Time 1 on Time 2 letter-sound knowledge. Age, pho-nological sensitivity, and the autoregressive effect of letter-sound knowledgecontributed significant unique variance to the model (see Table 5). The fourthregression model examined the simultaneous influence of phonological sen-sitivity, age, oral language and both letter-name and letter-sound knowledgeat Time 1 on letter-sound knowledge at Time 2. As shown in Table 5,phonological sensitivity, letter-name knowledge, and the autoregressive ef-fect of letter-sound knowledge contributed significant amounts of uniquevariance to Time 2 letter-sound knowledge.

The results of these four analyses indicate that individual differences

5 When all children were included in the analyses, the composite phonological sensitivity variablecontinued to make a significant unique contribution to the prediction of letter-name knowledge(controlling for Time 1 letter-name knowledge:sr2 5 .029,p , .05; controlling for letter-name andletter-sound knowledge at Time 1:sr2 5 .037,p , .05) and letter-sound knowledge (controlling forTime 1 letter-sound knowledge:sr2 5 .036, p , .05; controlling for letter-sound and letter-nameknowledge at Time 1:sr2 5 .030, p , .05). Variance contributed is likely lower because of theabsence of growth in letter-knowledge for the children excluded from the primary analyses. Whenanalyses were restricted to children who knew less than 20 letter names or 20 letter sounds at Time1, the composite phonological sensitivity variable made larger unique contributions to the predictionof letter-name knowledge (controlling for Time 1 letter-name knowledge:sr2 5 .181, p , .01;controlling for letter-name and letter-sound knowledge at Time 1:sr2 5 .198, p , .01) andletter-sound knowledge (controlling for Time 1 letter-sound knowledge:sr2 5 .080, p , .01;controlling for letter-sound and letter-name knowledge at Time 1:sr2 5 .090,p , .001).


in preschool children’s phonological sensitivity contribute to growth inboth letter-name and letter-sound knowledge even after controlling for dif-ferences due to age and oral language ability.6 Analyses examining theunique variance associated with the individual phonological sensitivity tasksat Time 1 (see lower panel of Table 5) suggested that most of the uniquepredictive variance accounted for in letter-name and letter-sound know-

6 A parallel set of analyses using only measures of rudimentary phonological sensitivity skills atTime 1 (i.e., az-score composite of the rhyme task, and the word- and syllable-level items from theblending and elision tasks) showed that even lower level phonological sensitivity abilities contributedto growth in letter-name knowledge (controlling for Time 1 letter-name knowledge:sr2 5 .050,p ,.02; controlling for letter-name and letter-sound knowledge at Time 1:sr2 5 .048, p 5 .02) andletter-sound knowledge (controlling for Time 1 letter-sound knowledge:sr2 5 .088, p , .001;controlling for letter-sound and letter-name knowledge at Time 1:sr2 5 .073,p 5 .001).

TABLE 5Unique Variance Accounted for by Variables in Multiple Regression Models Predicting

Letter-Name Knowledge and Letter-Sound Knowledge at Time 2


Letter knowledge dependent variable at time 2

Letter-name knowledge Letter-sound knowledge

Model 1a Model 2a Model 3b Model 4b

Letter-name knowledge 28.5*** 24.8*** —c 3.4*Letter-sound knowledge —c 0.5 14.9*** 6.4**Phonological sensitivityd 5.7** 5.8** 4.1* 3.4*Oral language 0.9 0.8 1.6 1.9Chronological age 0.1 0.2 2.8* 2.3†

Common variancee (10.4) (14.0) (17.9) (27.3)Full model 45.6 46.1 41.3 44.7Overall modelF 14.05*** 11.30*** 15.80*** 14.36***

Individual time 1 tasksRhyme oddity 1.6 1.4 1.9 1.3Alliteration oddity 1.8 2.3 0.2 0.2Blending 0.3 0.2 0.8 0.5Elision 6.7** 7.0** 9.3*** 8.5***

a n 5 72.b n 5 95.c Variable not in equation.d Composite phonological sensitivity variable.e Predictive variance shared by two or more predictor variables.† p , .06.* p , .05.

** p , .01.*** p , .001.


ledge by the phonological sensitivity composite was due to scores on theelision task.

DISCUSSION

Overall, this study demonstrated that rudimentary reading skills (i.e., letterknowledge) and phonological sensitivity are reciprocally related in preschool-agechildren. Higher initial levels of letter knowledge led to higher levels of phono-logical sensitivity. Additionally, higher initial levels of phonological sensitivityled to higher levels of rudimentary reading knowledge (i.e., letter knowledge).These findings are similar to those found with children during the early schoolyears (e.g., Wagner et al., 1994) and indicate that the reciprocal relation betweenreading and phonological sensitivity is present even earlier in the development ofliteracy skills, prior to the onset of formal reading instruction. This study alsodemonstrates that individual differences in phonological sensitivity and individ-ual differences in letter knowledge are relatively stable from late preschool to theearly school years (i.e., kindergarten and first grade).

Although letter knowledge made a significant unique contribution to growth inhigher levels of phonological sensitivity after controlling for age and orallanguage, the size of its effect on growth in phonological sensitivity wasgenerally smaller than the effect of phonological sensitivity on growth in letterknowledge. Letter knowledge accounted for between 2.4% and 3.6% uniquegrowth in sensitivity to phonemes as indexed by blending and elision tasks, andapproximately 7% as indexed by the alliteration detection task. In contrast, thecomposite phonological sensitivity variable accounted for between 4.1% and5.8% unique variance in growth in letter knowledge, and when scores from justthe elision task were considered, unique variance contributed was approximately8%. Whereas it is important to note that these differences do not approachstatistical significance, the relative difference in magnitude may indicate thedegree of ultimate importance of these factors in the development of prereadingskills. However, because it is difficult to know the ultimate value of the range ofphonological sensitivity skills obtained in this relatively homogenous group ofpreschool children (see Sechrest, McKnight, & McKnight, 1996, for relateddiscussion), the question of whether or not accounting for between 2.4% and 7%of the variance is meaningful cannot be answered. In other work, we have foundthat similar measures of phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge longitu-dinally predict over 50% of the variance in 6-year-old children’s decoding skillsas measured by a standardized test (Lonigan, Burgess, & Anthony, 1998).

Generally, it appears that knowledge of letter names is more influential in thesubsequent development of both phonological sensitivity and letter knowledgethan is knowledge of letter sounds. Results of the multiple regression analysesindicated that letter-name knowledge was significantly and independently relatedto growth in higher levels of phonological sensitivity, letter-name knowledge,and letter-sound knowledge. In contrast, letter-sound knowledge was unrelated to


growth in most measures of phonological sensitivity, and it was unrelated toletter-name knowledge once the autoregressive effects of prior letter-nameknowledge were controlled. Wagner et al. (1994) also found that letter-nameknowledge was a stronger predictor of subsequent reading skills than wasletter-sound knowledge. A partial explanation of this finding in the present studymay involve the range of scores on the letter-sound knowledge task at the Time1 assessment. Twenty-four children knew no letter sounds at the Time 1 assess-ment and 46 knew five or fewer letter sounds (all 4-year-olds). In contrast, onlyone child knew no letter names at the Time 1 assessment and only nine knew fiveor fewer letter names. Whereas this floor effect may have limited predictivevariance, the sizable zero-order correlations between letter-sound knowledge andother measures suggests that the failure of letter-sound knowledge to be asignificant predictor in most of the regressions was not due entirely to flooreffects.

Prior studies have demonstrated that higher levels of phonological sensitivity,like phonemic sensitivity, are dependent on some level of letter knowledge(Bowey, 1994; Bowey & Francis, 1991; Johnston et al., 1996; Stahl & Murray,1994; Walton, 1995). A measurable degree of letter knowledge, however, doesnot appear to be a prerequisite for lower levels of phonological sensitivity.Children in the present study demonstrated a measurable level of phonologicalsensitivity in the absence of high letter-name and letter-sound knowledge. Thedifferent predictive abilities of letter-name and letter-sound knowledge on sub-sequent phonological sensitivity suggests that knowledge of grapheme-phonemecorrespondence may not be the critical dimension in the relation between letterknowledge and phonological sensitivity measured by most tasks. Letter-soundknowledge was a significant unique predictor only of phoneme elision. It ispossible that knowledge of letter-sounds facilitates children’s abilities to isolatethese sounds better in a segmentation or deletion task—an ability less criticalwhen phonemes must be blended or identified at the beginning of a word (e.g.,alliteration detection).

The results of the present study are consistent with the view that the processof learning to read, even when assessed at the level of emergent literacy,facilitates growth in phonological sensitivity. Whereas letter knowledge may notbe required to obtain a measurable level of phonological sensitivity, letterknowledge does appear to facilitate the development of higher levels of phono-logical sensitivity. Letter-name knowledge contributed to the prediction of over-all phonological sensitivity. However, examination of the role of letter-nameknowledge in the growth of specific phonological abilities indicated that letter-name knowledge had its primary role in the development of higher levels ofphonological sensitivity (i.e., sensitivity to phonemes). Growth in detection ofsimilar word onsets (i.e., alliteration), phoneme blending, and phoneme deletionwas predicted by letter-name knowledge. In contrast, growth in the ability todetect rhyme, which is dependent on sensitivity to syllables, was not associated


with letter-name knowledge. Unfortunately, near ceiling performance on mea-sures of rudimentary phonological sensitivity other than the rhyme oddity task atTime 2 precluded additional strong tests of whether or not letter knowledgecontributes to growth in lower levels of phonological sensitivity (e.g., syllablesensitivity).

The results of the analyses examining the role of phonological sensitivity inthe acquisition of letter-name and letter-sound knowledge indicate that phono-logical sensitivity—particularly the ability to delete word sounds—contributes tothe ease with which letter names and letter sounds are learned. This result isconsistent with the view that phonological sensitivity facilitates the process oflearning to read. However, these results suggest a role for phonological sensi-tivity earlier in the process of reading acquisition than previously demonstrated.Moreover, the effect was found for word- and syllable-level items, indicating thatit is not phonemic sensitivity that is responsible for this facilitative effect.Whereas numerous studies have demonstrated that phonological sensitivity isstrongly related to subsequent decoding abilities (e.g., Bryant et al., 1990;Wagner et al., 1994), this study indicates that phonological sensitivity is alsorelated to the acquisition of predecoding reading abilities, like letter knowledge.

Although letter knowledge is a strong predictor of later reading achievement,training children in letter knowledge alone does not appear to improve children’sdecoding abilities (Adams, 1990; Gibson & Leven, 1975, but see Ehri, 1983).Because of this finding, Adams (1990) suggested that higher levels of letterknowledge may reflect a greater underlying knowledge of and familiarity withprint or other literacy-related processes. Consequently, whereas teaching letterknowledge may increase surface letter knowledge, it may not affect otherunderlying reading-related processes, such as print familiarity, attention, orgeneral cognitive abilities. Consistent with the cognitive abilities explanation,Bowey (1994) found that differences in phonological sensitivity associated withchildren who differed in letter knowledge were rendered nonsignificant once orallanguage differences were controlled. The results of both the present study andthose of Wagner et al. (1994) contrast with the results reported by Bowey (1994).In both studies, controlling for oral language abilities did not render the relationbetween letter knowledge and phonological sensitivity nonsignificant. Theseresults make the general cognitive abilities explanation less likely.

A number of previous studies have indicated that children’s oral languageabilities are related to phonological sensitivity (e.g., Bowey, 1990; Chaney, 1992;Lonigan et al., 1998; Smith & Tager-Flushberg, 1982; Tunmer, Herriman, &Neasdale, 1988). Similarly, in the present study, oral language was correlatedpositively with phonological sensitivity and letter-name knowledge. However,oral language was not a strong independent predictor of growth in phonologicalsensitivity overall, letter-name knowledge or letter-sound knowledge. Oral lan-guage did appear to have a larger role, however, in the growth of higher levelsof phonological sensitivity (i.e., alliteration, phoneme elision). These negative


results do not imply that oral language is an unimportant factor in the develop-ment of phonological sensitivity. As noted by Bowey (1994), there are manyways in which oral language may influence phonological sensitivity and rudi-mentary reading. Part of this potentially causal variance may already be includedin preschool children’s phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge. Conse-quently, once prior differences in these variables are taken into account, theunique effects of oral language would be rendered nonsignificant. Generally, orallanguage is likely to have its largest unique effects on reading once childrenmove beyond the early decoding stages of reading acquisition (e.g., Whitehurst& Lonigan, 1998).

The reasons that phonological sensitivity influences letter knowledge are notclear. It is possible that children who are more sensitive to the phonologicalstructure of words may be better prepared to benefit from the informal and formalexposure to print that many preschoolers receive (Lonigan, 1994; Whitehurst &Lonigan, 1998). For instance, it may be that the ability to discriminate word andsyllable boundaries makes more transparent the significance of letters (e.g., whentold that a word begins with a certain letter). Of course, the correlational natureof the results of this study requires caution in interpretation; however, thelongitudinal nature of the study and the fact that phonological sensitivityemerged as a substantial predictor of letter knowledge even after controlling forprior letter knowledge and oral language strengthens the finding. Future studiesshould directly test the proposition that children with more developed phono-logical sensitivity abilities profit more from the informal and formal exposure toinstruction in letter knowledge. For instance, Murray, Stahl, and Ivey (1996)reported that exposure to alphabet books that included letter-sound informationresulted in substantial gains in preschool children’s phonological sensitivity,whereas exposure to story books or exposure to alphabet books without letter-sound information did not. The facilitative role of phonological sensitivity wouldbe confirmed if children high in phonological sensitivity also experience greatergrowth in letter knowledge following exposure to alphabet books than childrenlow in phonological sensitivity (see Torgesen & Davis, 1996, for a similar effectinvolving phonological sensitivity training).

The fact that both letter knowledge and phonological sensitivity independentlypredicted growth in this study indicates that letter knowledge and phonologicalsensitivity are not completely overlapping. Consequently, it is unlikely that letterknowledge and phonological sensitivity are simply proxy measures of the sameunderlying literacy-related variable such as print exposure, print familiarity, orinterest and abilities in abstract or symbolic activities. However, it is possible thatthe reciprocal relation between phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge isdue to their associations with children’s developing decoding abilities. Whereasmost of the children in the sample were not readers at Time 1, it is likely thatmany could read words at Time 2. Because learning to read promotes bothphonological sensitivity and letter knowledge (e.g., Wagner et al., 1994), it could


be through this indirect path that early emergent reading skills (i.e., letterknowledge) and phonological sensitivity are related to later measures of letterknowledge and phonological sensitivity. Regardless of the path through whichthese prereading abilities are related, it is clear that both letter knowledge andrudimentary phonological sensitivity abilities are important factors in the devel-opment of a host of reading-related processes in young children. That theseabilities can also be measured in children prior to the time reliable decodingabilities emerge highlights their significance in explanatory accounts of theprocess of reading acquisition.

APPENDIX

Test Items Used in Different Phonological Sensitivity Tasks

I. Items Used for Blending Task

Practice a. cow–boyPractice b. tooth–brushPractice c. fire–man

Items administered with pictures

1. foot–ball2. shoe–string3. star–fish4. sand–box5. doll–house6. momm–e [mommy, brother, key]a

7. bro–ther [bear, brother, bird]8. h–a–t [bat, house, hat]

Items administered without pictures

9. base–ball10. air–plane11. sea–shell12. jump–rope13. light–bulb14. dad–e15. sis–ter16. b–a–t17. g–o18. t–oy

Items administered at Time 2 only

19. pen–cil20. num–ber21. happ–y


22. c–at23. d–oll24. i–f25. b–ig26. sh–e27. s–aw28. f–a–s–t29. wh–i–ch30. j–u–m–p31. w–a–s–h32. l–i–ke33. m–oo–n34. d–i–ff–er–e–n–t35. c–ir–c–u–s36. m–i–s–t–a–ke37. g–r–a–ss–h–o–pp–er

II. Items Used for Elision Task

Practice a. Batman (bat)b

Practice b. Doormat (door)

Items administered with pictures

1. Sunshine (shine)2. Watchdog (watch)3. Streetcare (street)4. Doorbell (bell)5. Carpet (pet) [car, pet, cat]a

6. Candy (dee) [cup, can bear]7. Rattle (til) [rake, duck, rat]8. Time (m) [tie, line, tree]

Items administered without pictures

9. Orangejuice (orange)10. Playground (ground)11. Stopsign (stop)12. Target (get)13. Dandy (dee)14. Battle (til)15. Dime (m)16. Heat (h)

Items administered at Time 2 only

17. Card (d)18. No (n)


19. Be (b)20. Bat (b)21. Man (m)22. Gone (g)23. Swing (w)24. Stun (t)25. Prance (r)26. Winter (t)27. Walter (l)28. Rasket (s)29. Tiger (g)30. Strain (r)31. Driver (v)32. Stable (s)33. Silk (l)

a Items in brackets in blending and elision tasks refer to names of pictures shown to children inmultiple choice format to maintain pictured presentation of items.

b Items in parentheses in elision task represent the part of the word to be deleted.

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Received: September 18, 1997; revised: May 22, 1998


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