Metalinguistic abilities and learning to read

Abstract

The complexity of grapheme ‐ phoneme correspondences ‐ traditionally held to be a major difficulty in learning to read ‐ may have been overstated. Evidence suggests children's knowledge that the words they use can be made up of discrete sounds may be just as important. Without this metalinguistic insight, how are they to know what it is in their spoken language that graphemes are supposed to correspond to? Evidence is cited to show that children who demonstrate this insight perform better in learning to read. Evidence that metalinguistic insight can be taught with consequent benefits accruing to reading skills is also cited.