A Method for Analyzing the Grapheme-Phoneme Structure of Primary Reading Text: Preliminary Findings

Abstract

The impetus for the current work came from persistent requests from educators for assistance with decisions about allocating children to various pre-reading and reading programs. Our review of existing reading readiness tests revealed that they have two major related weaknesses: (a) they are based on items which are often far removed from the basic skills necessary for success in reading, and (b) when a student fails to reach an appropriate level of performance on such a test, the pattern of his failures does not provide the teacher with specific indications for remedial work. Indeed, the composition of many so-called reading readiness tests suggests that their authors regard reading readiness as a global characteristic of the child like general intelligence.We take issue with the very concept of reading readiness. The question "Is the student ready to begin a formal reading program?" suggests a discontinuity between the sub-skills involved in reading and the reading process itself, a discontinuity which does not exist. A more appropriate question is "Has the student

Hierarchical Organization of Reading Subskills: Statistical Approaches

“…and, 'In what order?'. All commercially-available kindergarten and primary-level reading programs have answers to these questions implicit in them; none provide a sound rationale or adequate documentation for either the relevance of their skill content or the sequence of instruction (Stennett et al, 1970). Although the delineation and operational specification of the subskills necessary for reading will probably have to depend on a combination of logical analysis and experimentation, the question of hierarchical organization could perhaps yield to more direct attack.…”