Phonetic segmentation in prereaders: Effect of corrective information

This study is focused on the capacity of preliterate children to learn explicit phonetic segmentation. In Experiment 1, subjects were induced through examples to delete the initial consonant in consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) utterances. Performance was very poor at the beginning of the test but large improvements were observed in 5-year-olds when corrective feedback was provided. Four-year-olds did not on the average show a similar effect of feedback, but when tested again in Experiment 2 with a free segmentation procedure the majority proved capable of decomposing CVC syllables into smaller units and also displayed significant transfer from the earlier experience. In Experiment 3, fresh groups of children, aged four and five, were tested for either initial or final consonant deletion with immediate feedback. Improvements were observed at both ages and for both manipulations, although performance on initial consonant deletion was poorer than on final consonant deletion. Most children as young as 4 years can thus learn new segmentation games quite rapidly. The finding is discussed in relation to the notion that phonetic analysis is an important stumbling block in reading acquisition.