Rhyme and alliteration, phoneme detection, and learning to read.

Bryant, P. E., MacLean, M., Bradley, L. L., Crossland, J.·1990·Developmental Psychology

Abstract

In this article, 3 views of the relation between various forms of phonological awareness (detection of rhyme and alliteration and detection of phonemes) and children's reading were tested. These are (a) that the experience of learning to read leads to phoneme awareness and that neither of these is connected to awareness of rhyme, (b) that sensitivity to rhyme leads to awareness of phonemes, which in turn affects reading, and (c) that rhyme makes a direct contribution to reading that is independent of the connection between reading and phoneme awareness. The results from a longitudinal study that monitored the phonological awareness and progress in reading and spelling of 65 children from the ages of 4 years 7 months to 6 years 7 months produced strong support for a combination of the 2nd and 3rd models and none at all for the 1 st model.

Cites (1)

  1. The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills
    Wagner, Richard K., Torgesen, Joseph K. · 1987 · Psychological Bulletin

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    Muter, Valerie, Hulme, Charles, Snowling, Margaret J., Stevenson, Jim · 2004 · Developmental Psychology
  3. Promoting Academic and Social-Emotional School Readiness: The Head Start REDI Program
    Bierman, Karen L, Domitrovich, Celene E, Nix, Robert L, Gest, Scott D, Welsh, Janet A, Greenberg, Mark T, Blair, Clancy, Nelson, Keith E, Gill, Sukhdeep · 2008 · Child Development
  4. The development of cognitive skills and gains in academic school readiness for children from low-income families.
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  5. Reading aloud to children: the evidence
    Duursma, E, Augustyn, M, Zuckerman, B · 2008 · Archives of Disease in Childhood

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Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Rhyme and alliteration, phoneme detection, and learning to read. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0012-1649.26.3.429
The paper
Bryant, P. E., MacLean, M., Bradley, L. L., & Crossland, J. (1990). Rhyme and alliteration, phoneme detection, and learning to read. Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.26.3.429

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