Research indicates a strong relationship between early phoneme awareness and later reading success, and it links some reading failure to insufficiently developed phoneme awareness skills. Intervention research clearly demonstrates the benefits of explicitly teaching phoneme awareness skills. Many children at risk for reading failure are in general education classrooms where phoneme awareness training is not part of their reading program. Children at-risk need explicit instruction in phoneme awareness if they are to become skilled readers and spellers. (Alexander, Anderson, Heilman, Voeller, & Torgesen, 1991; Brady, Fowler, Stone & Winbury, 1994).

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development:  Using modern neuroimaging technology, medical researchers have identified a unique signature on the brain scans of persons with reading problems.  These unique brain scans seem to reflect an inability to work with phonemes in the language.  This lack of phonemic awareness seems to be a major obstacle to reading acquisition.  Children who are not phonemically aware are not able to segment words and syllables into phonemes.

Research on Treatment for Reading Difficulties:

Treatment intervention research has shown that appropriate early direct instruction seems to be the best medicine for reading problems. Reading difficulties reflect a persistent deficit, rather than a developmental lag in linguistic (phonological) skills and basic reading skills.  Children who fall behind at an early grade (K and gr. 1) fall further and further behind over time. Longitudinal studies show that of the children who are diagnosed as reading disabled in third grade, 74% remain disabled in the ninth grade (Fletcher, et al., 1994; Shaywitz, Escobar, Shaywitz, Fletcher & Makuch, 1992; Stanovich & Siegel, 1994). Adults with reading problems exhibit the same characteristics that are exhibited by children with reading problems. 

The best predictor in K or gr. 1 of a future difficulty in grade 3 is performance on a combination of measures of phonemic awareness: rapid naming of letters, numbers and objects, and print awareness.   Instruction using the following types of phonemic awareness tasks has had a positive effect on reading acquisition and spelling for pre-readers: rhyming, auditorily discriminating sounds that are different, blending spoken sounds into words, word-to-word matching, isolating sounds in words, counting phonemes, segmenting spoken words into sounds, deleting sounds from words. (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1990; Cunningham, 1990; Foorman, Francis, Beeler, Winikates, & Fletcher, in press; Lie, 1991; Lundberg, Frost & Petersen, 1988; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987b; Yopp, 1988)

Kindergarten children with explicit instruction in phonemic awareness did better than a group of first graders who had no instruction, indicating that this crucial pre-skill for reading can be taught at least by five and is not developmental (Cunningham).

Seven weeks of explicit instruction in phonemic awareness combined with explicit instruction in sound-spelling correspondence for kindergarten children was more powerful than instruction in sound-spelling correspondences alone and more powerful than language activities in improving reading skills. (Ball & Blackman, 1991)

Phonemic awareness alone is not sufficient.  Explicit, systematic instruction in common sound-spelling correspondences is also necessary for many children (Adams, 1988; Ball & Blackman, 1991; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1990; Foorman et al, in press; Mann, 1993; Rack, Snowling & Olson, 1992; Snowling, 1991; Spector, 1995; Stanovich, 1986; Torgeson et al., in press; Vellutino, 1991; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987a; Foorman, Francis, Novy & Liberman, 1991.)

Explicit, systematic instruction in sound-spelling relationships in the classroom was more effective in reducing reading difficulties than a print-rich environment characterized by interesting stories, even with children who had benefited from phonemic awareness instruction in kindergarten. (Foorman, Francis, Beerly, Winikates, and Fletcher, in press)

Stanovich and Stanovich (1995) summarize the findings regarding the role of context in reading acquisition. Of the three cueing systems frequently mentioned in reading (semantic, syntactic, and graphophonemic cues), the semantic and syntactic cueing systems seem to play a minor role.

Research indicates that good readers rely primarily on print rather than on pictures or context to help them identify familiar words, and also to figure out words they have not seen before.

Substantial evidence that phonemic awareness is strongly related to success in reading and spelling acquisition (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer & Carter, 1974; Perfetti, Beck, Bell, & Hughes, 1987; Share, Jorm, Maclean, & Matthews, 1984; Treiman & Baron, 1983; Yopp, 1992a).