ABSTRACT
It is well-documented that phonological awareness and knowledge of letter names are very strong predictors of early reading success (see Adams, 1990, for a review). Large-scale studies of beginning reading, conducted in the United States in the 1960s, found prereaders’ letter knowledge to be the best predictor of first-grade reading, followed by their ability to discriminate phonemes auditorally, with mental age coming in third (Bond & Dykstra, 1967; Chall, 1967). This chapter describes the results of a longitudinal study in which 38 British children were followed from nursery school through their first two years at primary school. It focuses on the nature of phonological awareness, its interaction with letter knowledge, and its contribution to beginning reading and spelling.
