History of the English Language at the U of S

Ashley LeKach

Image: (c) Ashley LeKach

Learning how to read can be hard. That is the simple, clearly unbiased, opinion of my own. However, individuals with a learning disability may struggle with phonetic awareness more than their neurotypical peers. Phonological awareness is “the broad awareness of the sound system of speech, including awareness of syllables, phonemes and rhyme” (Chera and Wood 37). Phonological awareness is being aware of the sounds in words, and for alphabetical languages, such as English, depend on this for reading. To learn how to read one needs to be able to recognize words, which would be knowing how the words are pronounced. One also needs to be able to comprehend the alphabet, recognize letters, and be able to use convention between the letters and pronunciation (Duff 1). Without basic comprehension of the various aspects of language, such as the prosody, which is the intonation and timing of speech, it can be much harder to learn how to read. While learning these core speech principles may be easy to some, others, such as individuals with learning disabilities, may find it difficult. In this blog post I will explain why and how individuals with learning disabilities may struggle with aspects of reading.