It has been over 20 years since the initial Russian studies on phoneme
analysis were translated into English (Elkonin 1963; Zhurova 1963). Today,
there is a large body of evidence which suggests that phoneme awareness
is related to success in early reading (e.g., Blachman 1984b; Bradley and
Bryant 1978, 1983; Fox and Routh 1980; Juel, Griffith, and Gough 1986; Liberman
et al. 1974; Lundberg, Olofsson, and Wall 1980; Stanovich, Cunningham,
and Cramer 1984). It has also been suggested that training in
phoneme awareness is one of the most promising avenues for improving
reading instruction (Jue11986; Williams 1984).
In this paper we will present the results of a kindergarten reading
readiness intervention study that focused on phoneme segmentation
training. Clinical suggestions for implementing phoneme segmentation
instruction are also included.