ABSTRACT
A remarkable number of research studies have now found evidence for a strong link between phonological knowledge and reading development (e.g., Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Fox & Routh, 1975; Juel, 1988; Lundberg, Frost, & Petersen, 1988; Lundberg, Olofsson, & Wall, 1980; Maclean, Bradley, & Bryant, 1987; Perfetti, Beck, Bell, & Hughes, 1987; Snowling, 1980; Stanovich, Cunningham, & Cramer, 1984; Tunmer & Nesdale, 1985; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987; Wagner, 1988). The research discussed in this chapter focusses on one aspect of phonological knowledge—knowledge of the units that linguists call onsets and rimes (e.g., Treiman, 1988, 1992)—and discusses the role that these phonological units may play in the reading development of young children. It is argued that rime-based coding is clearly evident in the reading strategies adopted by young children who are learning to read English, and that this rime-based coding offers a number of advantages in decoding the English orthography. In particular, rime-based coding allows children to make analogies to new words that share rimes with familiar words, and it also significantly reduces the ambiguity of written English.
