ABSTRACT
There is little dispute about the basic idea that oral language skills are fundamentally related to reading. In response to much eloquent theorizing and compelling empirical evidence from research with beginning readers and students with reading disabilities, a consensus has coalesced around the view that phonological abilities are the most crucial language skills for successfully learning to read, and that phonological weaknesses underlie most reading disabilities (Adams, 1990; Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties of Young Children, 1998; Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989; Shankweiler & Fowler, in press; Stanovich & Siegel, 1994; Torgesen et al., 1999). This phonological model is indeed a “beautiful hypothesis,” and one that has been hailed as “one of the more notable scientific success stories of the last decade” (Stanovich, 1991, p. 78).
