Reading Words

Many of the children who have to learn to read in English may not know that language as well as they know their first language. Children who are being taught in a language they don't understand very well are likely to encounter symbols that don't make much sense to them. Letters of the alphabet may be related to sounds that they don't necessarily distinguish because the sound system of their first language uses some sounds that are different from those in the system of sounds that English uses. For example, in English, hit and heat are two different words. The short vowel sound [I] of hit is different from the long vowel sound [i] of heat. In Spanish, of course, the sound difference between [I] and [i] does not make a difference in meaning. Native Spanish speakers may be influenced by the sound inventory of Spanish when they are speaking English. They might pronounce hit and heat the same (both like heat), and they might say either it is little or eet eez leetle to mean the same thing.

Then too, some children may be less familiar with the Roman alphabet that English uses. New immigrants from countries with languages that use another alphabetic system—such as Arabic, Hebrew, or Korean—have different background knowledge about the connection between sound and print.   next