Expert researchers created this developmentally sequenced, 11-week program in order to give students repeated opportunities to practice and enhance their beginning reading and spelling abilities. Specifically targeting phonemic awareness, this program helps young children learn to distinguish the individual sounds that make up words and affect their meanings. With the unique screening method that accommodates up to 15 children at a time, educators can gauge the general skill level of the class and identify children who may need additional testing. And teachers can choose from a range of activities to use with the whole class-from simple listening games to more advanced sound manipulation exercises such as rhyming, alliteration, and segmentation. After an introduction to the psycholinguistic approach, an assessment framework is built on analysis of the psycholinguistic nature of speech and auditory processing assessments.
Later chapters elaborate theoretical foundations for the assessment framework.
Includes detailed case studies, suggested activities involving children, and assessment instruments for each activity. For practitioners and researchers, especially speech and language pathologists and therapists, and for teachers and psychologists who work with children. Language acquisition is one of the key milestones in early childhood development. So much of a child's future social and intellectual development hinges on this milestone, that its delay can create a domino effect that begins with isolation and withdrawal, turns into poor academic performance, and eventually leads to the development of learning disabilities and social problems. Recent research has revealed a dramatic link between the development of spoken language and written language among children, and the importance of language acquisition to basic reading skills.