How early phonological development might set the stage for phoneme awareness.

Abstract

A recent chapter by Treiman and Zukowski (in press) provides evidence that pre-readers are aware of sublexical units intermediate between the syllable and the phoneme. Whereas four-year old preschoolers can note commonalities in sound only when a full syllable is shared (e.g., entreat/retreat), five-year old kindergartners also demonstrate an ability to group words on the basis of a shared onset or a shared rime (e.g., treat/trick, sack/black). In their study, the ability to group words on the basis of a single shared segment (e.g., break/block) does not appear before the first grade. These findings support Treiman's view, expressed in other papers (Treiman, 1985, Treiman & Danis, 1988), that syllables, onsets, and rimes constitute units of linguistic processing that are more accessible than the phoneme. In demonstrating the developmental priority of onsets and rimes, Treiman and Zukowski suggest that this initial cut may serve as a guide in focussing explicit attention on the internal structure of the syllable. In my discussion, I would like to explore the possibility that the developmental progression observed by Treiman and Zukowski over the preschool years may extend beyond phonological awareness to reflect more fundamental changes in phonological representation, in particular to how lexical items are stored for recognition and retrieval. That is, the child's early vocabulary may

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