Phonemic knowledge and learning to read are reciprocal: A longitudinal study of first grade children.

Explicit knowledge of the phonemic structure of spoken words, or phonemic awareness, has sometimes been seen as necessary for learning to read. But it is suggested that although some phonemic knowledge is important for beginning reading, the relationship between phonemic knowledge and learning to read is reciprocal. The results of a longitudinal study of first grade readers support this claim. Children were tested at four points throughout the year on tasks of syn thesis (phoneme blending) and analysis (deletion and tapping). Analyses of the tasks emphasize the differing cognitive demands of phoneme synthesis and pho neme deletion. According to the results of partial time-lag correlations, the dele tion task in particular taps a phonemic knowledge that is truly reciprocal in its re lation to reading. Gains in reading enable gains in deletion which enable further gains in reading. The synthesis task taps a more primitive phonemic knowledge that has a simple (nonreciprocal) enabling relationship to reading gains.