ABSTRACT
Literacy is an extension of language learning to print which involves more than decoding. Research in recent years sponsored by the National Institutes of Health has suggested that the riddle of reading disabilities has been solved. Brain anomalies and the location of a gene associated with dyslexia have been identified. Numerous studies have documented the significant role of phonemic awareness, which is the explicit awareness that is needed to segment, identify, or manipulate the phonemes in words, as well as rapid phonemic decoding skills in the reading process (Adams, 1990; Blachman, 1997; Kamhi & Catts, chap. 3, this volume; Keogh, chap. 2, this volume; Lyon, 1999). In response to these findings, there has been a plethora of assessment tools and intervention programs published to train phonemic awareness. Researchers, speech-language pathologists, and educators should not, however, assume that the cure for all reading disabilities has been identified. Reading problems manifest in a variety of ways, and although language difficulties are implicated in most reading problems, the specific nature of the language problems varies.
