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Spoken vocabulary growth: Its role in the development of phoneme awareness and early reading ability

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Abstract

In this paper, two theoretical positionsregarding the developmental origins of thephoneme as a unit for lexical representationand processing are outlined – theaccessibility and emergent positions. OurLexical Restructuring Model (Metsala & Walley1998), which is consistent with the secondposition, focuses on the role of vocabularygrowth in prompting the implementation of morefine-grained, segmental representations forlexical items in childhood; this restructuringis viewed as an important precursor to theexplicit segmentation or phoneme awarenessskills implicated in early reading success.Empirical evidence that supports this model issummarized, including preliminary results fromone of our most recent studies. Severalsuggestions are made for future research thatwill lead to a better understanding of thedevelopment of spoken word recognition and thelinks between speech- and reading-relatedabilities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

    Amanda C. Walley

  2. Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland, USA

    Jamie L. Metsala

  3. Department of Social Sciences, Warren Wilson College, Asheville, North Carolina, USA

    Victoria M. Garlock

Authors
  1. Amanda C. Walley
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  2. Jamie L. Metsala
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  3. Victoria M. Garlock
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Walley, A.C., Metsala, J.L. & Garlock, V.M. Spoken vocabulary growth: Its role in the development of phoneme awareness and early reading ability. Reading and Writing 16, 5–20 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021789804977

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