Literacy skills begin to develop in early childhood, and addressing deficits in reading and writing skills early may prevent later problems in school. This journal self-study explores special situations that may affect literacy skills, including the presence of speech sound disorders, hearing impairment, and cultural and/or socioeconomic differences. It also includes articles that discuss intervention techniques to improve phonological awareness, an important emergent literacy skill. Clinicians can use this information to improve reading and writing assessment and treatment techniques for preschool and early elementary school children.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• discuss the benefits of teaching phonological awareness and alphabet skills together
• describe how a scripted instructional program can be implemented for children at risk for later reading difficulties
• explain how speech sound disorders may affect a child’s spelling ability
• discuss the impact of hearing technology on literacy outcomes in children with severe-profound hearing loss
• explain how the home literacy environment affects literacy skills in bilingual children

Contents

The following articles are included in this course:

• Modeling Alphabet Skills as Instructive Feedback Within a Phonological Awareness Intervention, by Arnold Olszewski, Xigrid Soto, and Howard Goldstein
• Efficacy of a Supplemental Phonemic Awareness Curriculum to Instruct Preschoolers With Delays in Early Literacy Development, by Howard Goldstein, Arnold Olszewski, Christa Haring, Charles R. Greenwood, Luke McCune, Judith Carta, Jane Atwater, Gabriela Guerrero, Naomi Schneider, Tanya McCarthy, and Elizabeth S. Kelley
• A Comparison of the Metalinguistic Performance and Spelling Development of Children With Inconsistent Speech Sound Disorder and Their Age-Matched and Reading-Matched Peers, by Brigid C. McNeill, Julie Wolter, and Gail T. Gillon
• Literacy Outcomes for Primary School Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing: A Cohort Comparison Study, by Margaret Harris, Emmanouela Terlektsi, and Fiona E. Kyle
• The Home Literacy Environment and the English Narrative Development of Spanish–English Bilingual Children, by Dana Bitetti and Carol Scheffner Hammer

Learning Assessment
Online, multiple-choice exam