ABSTRACT
Most children with reading and spelling problems know that spoken words can be segmented into constituent speech sounds, but they often lack the insight into the phonological make-up of specific words. One test of this phonological insight is having children say the phonemes of given words. It was found that this procedure sometimes underestimates a child’s insight into a word’s structure, as complex words are more difficult to segment into their constituent sounds than to spell, even with writers who can be assumed to base their spelling on phonemic segmentation. It is argued that the use of letters in spelling facilitates phonemic segmentation. This finding not only raises doubts about the validity of the phonemic segmentation test, but also suggests that the acquisition of phonological insight would be facilitated by the use of visual support. A study comparing different segmentation training programs, however, produced no evidence in favor of this suggestion.
