Phonics

that young children have to develop 'phonological awareness' before they can learn phonics (Ehri 1975; Goswami and Bryant 1990; Lundberg et al. 1988) andthat this awareness is developed through the process of learning to read (Bryant 1993);

that the development of phonological awareness is a slow 'whole to part' process, as children become aware of words as distict entities, then syllables, then the sub-syllabic units of onset and rime and finally phonemes (Treiman 1985; Goswami and Bryant 1990; Moustafa 1997) and that teaching can accelerate this development (Cunningham 1990);

that analogy is a powerful learning strategy for young children, particular for phonics learning of (Goswami 1992);