ABSTRACT
Introduction
When learning to read, a child must develop a mapping from orthography to phonology; that is, from the letters of the word to the correct pronunciation of the word. Although the ultimate goal of reading is comprehension and extraction of the message of the text, to become a fluent reader of English the young child must grasp the alphabetic nature of the language and must develop a fluent and reflexive knowledge of spelling-sound correspondences in order to read with any measure of skill (Adams 1990). Most computational models of reading assume that the phonological form plays a passive role as a static mapping target. However, the child certainly has substantial knowledge of phonological structure before learning to read. Here, we consider what effect that knowledge might have on learning.
