Conference on Writing DevelopmentJuly 2, 2009

Charles Read

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Learning to UseAlphabetic Writing

Alphabets currently in usefrom Omniglot.com

Examples of Japanese Writingfrom Wikipedia: Japanese Writing System

Chinese charactersby Benjamin L. Read

Character Pinyin English meaning

火 hǔo fire

考 kǎo give or take a test or examination

烤 kǎo roast / toast / bake

Initial Steps

• Knowing that symbols represent an utterance, such as a word or sentence.– [Scribble] “says ‘Let’s go.’”

Initial Steps

• Knowing that symbols represent an utterance, such as a word or sentence.

• Recognize or manipulate conventional symbols, such as letters.

Initial Steps

• Knowing that symbols represent an utterance, such as a word or sentence.

• Recognize or manipulate conventional symbols, such as letters.

• Associate letter(s) with word(s).– “M is for Max.”

Key Steps (1)

• Acquiring phonemic awareness– The concept of sounds within syllables.– Not all are pronounceable in isolation– Those that are pronounceable don’t sound

like language.

Signs of Phonemic Awareness

• Pronounce or name individual sounds, such as “first sound” in a word.

• Manipulate sounds:– Add, delete, move sounds within a syllable

Key Steps (2)

• Knowing that spellings (one or more letters each) represent those sounds.– The Alphabetic Principle

• Not just “M is for Max,” but “M is for [m]”

• Phonemic Awareness and the Alphabetic Principle [PA and AP] are

BIG STEPS.

Phonemic Awareness

• May not develop outside of instruction in alphabetic writing.– Morais, et al.: studies in Portugal:

– Illiterates can detect sound similarity (e.g., rhyme), but cannot analyze a syllable into its phonemes (e.g., delete an initial sound).

Study in China

0.00.51.01.52.02.53.03.54.04.55.0

0 2 4 6 8 10

Number Correct

AlphabeticNon-alphabet

Syntheses of Research

• Snow, Burns, and Griffin (1998) Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. National Academy Press.– http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6023

• Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read. (2000). National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.– http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications

Both conclude PA is essential

• Snow et al.:– [PA is] “key to understanding the logic of the

alphabetic principle and thus to the learnability of phonics and spelling.” (p. 52)

• National Reading Panel:– “Teaching children to manipulate phonemes in

words was highly effective across all the literary domains and outcomes.” (pp. 2-3)

From Carol Chomsky, 1979.

YUTS A LADE YET FEHEG AND HE KOT FLEPR

• Carol Chomsky, 1979. “Approaching Reading Through Invented Spelling”

YUTS A LADE YET FEHEG AND HE KOT FLEPR

Some of the standard spellings

YUTS A LADE YET FEHEG AND HE KOT FLEPR

Not standard, but phonetically accurate

YUTS A LADE YET FEHEG AND HE KOT FLEPR

A letter-name spelling.

YUTS A LADE YET FEHEG AND HE KOT FLEPR

YUTS A LADE YET FEHEG AND HE KOT FLEPR

Another letter-name spelling?

YUTS A LADE YET FEHEG AND HE KOT FLEPR

E spells /ɪ/ as well as /i/.

Application to Instruction

• Are there stages in initial writing development?

• Are there best practices in initial instruction?

What have we learned?

• PA and AP are necessary steps, difficult for some learners, but can be taught.

• Learning standard correspondences and ‘rules’ is significant in English but not so conceptually challenging as PA.

• Initial learning is a creative cognitive process, not merely memorization of sound- spelling correspondences.