ABSTRACT
The research discussed in the previous chapter indicates that phonological segmentation and blending skills play a key role in the development of reading. In particular, poor phonological awareness at the level of the phoneme may hinder acquisition of the alphabetic principle (Frith, 1985; Share, 1995; Snowling, 1995) although, as pointed out by Tunmer et al. (1988), “Phonological awareness is necessary but not sufficient for acquiring phonological recoding skill” (p. 150). Furthermore, the relationship between rhyme detection and the abilty to make analogies suggests that children who have difficulty in segmenting words at the onset-rime level will find it difficult to read some words by analogy with others. Indeed, dyslexic children have been found to make fewer analogies than reading age matched controls (Hanley, Reynolds, & Thornton, 1997; Manis, Szeszulski, Howell, & Horn, 1986). This may mean that they tend not to use analogies spontaneously. However, poor readers (Baron, 1979) and dyslexics can be taught to make analogies and may do so spontaneously if provided with a clue word (Deavers & Brown, 1997a, 1997b).
