Fingerpoint-Reading of Memorized Text: What Enables Beginners to Process the Print?

Author(s): Linnea C. Ehri and Jennifer Sweet

Source: Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 442-462
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading Association
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442

? InternationalReadingAssociation7031-4620/91/US$1.25+ .00
LinneaC. Ehri
JenniferSweet
Universityof California,Davis

Fingerpoint-reading of memorized text:

What enables beginners to process the print?
IN A LABORATORY study, we investigatedthe kinds of print-relatedknowledgethat emergent
readersmust possess in order to learn to point to the words of a text as they recited it from
memory (fingerpoint-reading)and to rememberinformationabout the print from this activ-
ity. Childrenwhose ages rangedfrom 4.5 to 6 years completedseveraltests of readingskill.
Then they practiced fingerpoint-readinga simple text they had memorized. We assessed
the impact of this practice on their reading capabilities with the text. Regression analyses
revealedthat differenttypes of print knowledge facilitateddifferent aspects of fingerpoint-
reading.Knowinghow to reada few preprimerwords was importantfor learningto readnew
words in the text. Phonemic segmentationwas importantfor learning to point to printed
words at the same time as they were spoken, and for rememberinghow to read individual
words in text. Letter knowledge was importantfor noticing that letters in the text had been
altered,and for locatingwordsin text. These resultshelp to unravelthe complex relationships
between various knowledgesources as they are used by beginningreadersto process written
text in a focused word-by-wordmanner.

Lire en suivant du doigt des textes memorises: Comment les lecteurs

dkbutants traitent-ils l&crit?
DANS UNE RECHERCHEen laboratoire, nousavons6tudieles typesde connaissances reli6es a
l'6critque les apprentis-lecteursdoivent poss6derpour apprendrea pointerdu doigt en lisant
des mots d'untexte qu'ilsont au pr6alablem6moris6set pour se souvenirde l'informationsur
l'6crit acquise a travers cette activit6. Des enfants ag6s entre 4.5 et 6 ans ont compl6t6
diff6rentstests d'habilet6sen lecture. Par la suite ils se sont entrain6sa suivre du doigt en
lisant un texte qu'ils avaient m6moris6 au pr6alable. Nous avons alors 6valuer l'impactde
cette activit6 sur leurs habilet6sa lire le texte. Des analyses de regression montrerentque
diff6rentstypes de connaissances sur l'6crit facilitaientdiff6rentsaspects de la capacit6 de
suivre du doigt en lisant. Savoir lire certains mots appris auparavantest apparuimportant
pour apprendrea lire des mots nouveaux dans le texte. La segmentation phon6tique est
apparueimportantepour pouvoir suivre les mots en meme temps qu'ils 6taientprononc6sa
l'oral et pour se souvenir comment prononcercertains mots du texte. La connaissance des
lettres6taitimportantepour 8trecapablede remarquerque certaineslettresavaientchangede
caligraphiedans le texteet pour rep6rerdes mots dans le texte. Ces r6sultatsaidenta d6nouer
les relationscomplexes qui existententrediff6rentstypes de connaissancestelles qu'ellessont
mises en applicationpar les lecteursd6butantsdans une tache contr616ede lecturede texte.

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Fingerpoint-reading EHRI & SWEET 443

La lecturasehalando con el dedo de un textomemorizado:iQue es lo que

permitea los principiantesprocesar la palabra impresa?
EN UN ESTUDIO de laboratorio, investigamos los tipos de conocimiento relacionadocon la
letra impresa que los lectores incipientes necesitan poseer para aprender a sefialar las
palabrasen un texto conforme lo recitan de memoria (lectura sehalando con el dedo) y a
recordarinformaci6nacerca de la palabraimpresade esta actividad.Los nifios, cuyas edades
variaban de 4.5 a 6 afios de edad, completaron varias pruebas de habilidad de lectura.
Despu6s practicaron lectura sefialando con el dedo en un texto simple que habian
memorizado. Valoramosel impacto de esta prictica en sus capacidadesde lectura con el
texto. Los anailisisde regresi6n revelaronque diferentestipos de conocimientode la palabra
impresa facilitabandiferentesaspectos de la lectura sefialandocon el dedo. El saber c6mo
leer unas pocas palabrassencillas era importantepara aprendera leer nuevas palabrasdel
texto. La segmentaci6n fon6mica fue importante para aprender a sefialar las palabras
impresasal mismo tiempo que estas eran pronunciadas,y para recordarc6mo leer palabras
sueltasen el texto. El conocimientode las letras fue importantepara notarque las letrasen el
texto habian sido alteradasy para localizar palabrasen el texto. Estos resultadosayudana
desenredarlas complejasrelacionesque existen entre varias fuentesde conocimientoy c6mo
son usadaspor los lectoresprincipiantesparaprocesartexto escrito de maneraque se enfoque
la atenci6nen cada palabra.

Fingerlesen eines auswendiggelerntenTextes:Wasbewirktbei Anfangern

die Verarbeitungvon gedrucktemText?
IN EINER Versuchsstudieuntersuchtenwir die Arten des Wissens, das sich auf gedruckten
Text bezieht und das Anfiinger im Lesen besitzen miissen, um zu lernen, daB sie auf die
W6rter eines Textes beim auswendigenAufsagen zeigen sollen (Fingerlesen), und daB sie
sich anhanddieser Ubung an Informationenfiber das Gedruckteerinnernsollen. Kinder im
Alter von 4 bis 6 Jahrennahmenan verschiedenenLesefertigkeitsfibungenteil. AnschlieBend
fibten sie das Fingerlesen eines einfachen Textes, den sie auswendig gelernt hatten.
Wir bewerteten den EinfluB dieser Ubung auf die Textlesefiihigkeiten der Kinder.
Regressionsanalysen zeigten, daB unterschiedliches Wissen von gedrucktem Text
verschiedene Aspekte des Fingerlesens erleichterte. Es war z.B. wichtig zu wissen, wie
einige Worterder Vorschulstufezu lesen sind, um das Lesen neuerW6rterim Textlernen zu
k6nnen. Die phonemischeGliederungwar wichtig, um zu lernen, parallelzum Aufsagen auf
die gedrucktenW6rterzu zeigen und sich daranzu erinnern,wie einzelne W6rterim Textzu
lesen sind. Buchstabenkenntnissewaren wichtig, um erkennenzu k6nnen, daB Buchstaben
im Text verdindertworden waren, und um W6rter finden zu k6nnen. Die Ergebnisse
dieser Studie erleichtern ein Verstlindnis der komplexen Beziehungen zwischen den
unterschiedlichen Wissensquellen, die von Leseanfdingernverwendet werden, wenn sie
gedrucktenTextWortfiir Wortlesen.

of emergent literacy have revealed Yaden & Templeton, 1986). Very young chil-
Studies
that childrenbecome readersmuch earlier dren become readers as they gain experience
than is commonly recognized- in fact, long be- listening to stories and learning how they are
fore they can read novel words and stories on structured semantically, in terms of ideas, as
their own (Sulzby, 1985; Teale & Sulzby, 1987; well as visually, in terms of appearance on the

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444
printedpage. One of the earliest forms of read-
ing among preschoolershas been referredto as
pretend reading or emergentstorybookreading
(Sulzby, 1985). This occurs when childrenturn
the pages of a book they have heardmany times
and recite the story from memory. A more ad-
vanced form of pretendreadinginvolves point-
ing to the words as the text is recited verbatim
from memory,orfingerpoint reading.
Some educators have argued that it is es-
sential for beginners to practicethese forms of
reading in order to come to understandwhat
reading is all about and how the act of read-
ing is executed (Clay, 1972; Holdaway, 1979;
Mason & Allen, 1986; Mason, Kerr, Sinha, &
McCormick, 1990; Taylor, 1986). Withoutthis
type of practice, mechanicsof the process such
as letter-soundrelationsand isolatedword read-
ing do not makemuch sense to learners(Dyson,
1984). Holdaway (1979) cites Martinand Bro-
gan's (1972) assertions that "book experience
should precede word experience in bringing a
child to print"and that "[a]n emerging reader
needs a battery of books that he [or she] can
zoom throughwith joyous familiarity."
The focus of the presentstudywas upon the
transitionfrom memorizedtext readingto inde-
pendentreading.We were interestedin how this
transitionoccurs, andwhetherthereare types of
print-relatedknowledge that emergent readers
must possess in order to learn to fingerpoint-
read a memorizedtext and rememberinforma-
tion aboutthe printfrom this activity.
Sulzby (1985) studied pretend reading in
young children. She assessed readingstrategies
by having kindergartenchildrenselect their fa-
vorite storybookand "pretend-read it."Based on
her observations,she proposeda developmental
hierarchyto distinguishmore maturefrom less
maturestrategiesfor this activity. Readerspro-
gress from simply reacting to the pictures to
rendering an interpretation that follows the
story line. At first, their stories exhibit oral
story-telling language. Later on, they utilize
language characteristicof written text, such as
repetitive sentence patterns. Initially, readers
generate written language forms from the pic-
tures combined with their memory for the text.
Later on, readers produce written language
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READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4
forms by watchingthe print.
Sulzby (1985) provides evidence for this
very interestingcourse of developmentof pre-
tend reading. However,it is not clear from this
work what causes children to advance in the
hierarchy and to begin processing the print,
whether pretendreading practice is the impor-
tant factor,whetherother kinds of printexperi-
ences are critical as well, and if so, what these
experiences might be. There is reason to doubt
that pretendreading by itself has the power to
move children closer to independent reading,
because successful pretendreadingdoes not re-
quire readersto pay any attentionto the print.
Emergent readers can pretend-readadequately
by studying the pictures and linking them to
what they recall of the spoken text. There is no
"press"from the task itself necessitatingfurther
adaptation.In their reading of storiesp to chil-
dren, adultsmay not revealto listenersthatthey
are doing anythingotherthanlooking at the pic-
tures and recallingthe story.
Studies of children'sreading of signs such
as STOPand McDonalds have shown that envi-
ronmental print reading does not bring chil-
dren any closer to reading the print itself.
Masonheimer,Drum, and Ehri (1984) selected
102 preschoolerswho could read at least 8 out
of 10 labels and signs. They modified the labels
and signs in severalways: by removingthe con-
texts and logos, by printingthem in manuscript
type, and by alteringletters in the labels, such
as in changing Pepsi to Xepsi. They found that
practicallyall of their experts lost their ability
to "read"the print when it was modified. Few
could identify the words out of context. Most
failed to recognize the letter alterations. The
fact that letters were not processed in the signs
indicates that extensive experience with envi-
ronmental print does not move preschoolers
into reading of the sort that involves noticing
and rememberingprintbecause doing so would
serve no purpose. Childrencan read the labels
and signs successfully by paying attention to
more obvious contextual cues, such as golden
arches. The same may be true of pretendread-
ing: Using pictures to promptmemory for the
text may be sufficient.
A more difficult form of pretendreadingis
Fingerpoint-reading EHRI& SWEET
fingerpoint-reading,which requireschildren to
pay closer attentionto the print. Such "reading"
of text that has been memorizedhas been incor-
porated into instructional programs currently
marketedby basal text publishersfor use in the
early grades. The approachfollows Holdaway's
(1979) proceduresfor conductinga sharedbook
experience. Teachers are directed to read and
reread books that have been enlarged suffi-
ciently so thatthe text and picturesare visible to
the entireclass. The teacherreadseach line and
points to each word as it is read. This is done
for several reasons: so that children will see
how text is read, from left to right; so that they
will come to understandhow printis structured
to correspondto speech, at the word and letter
levels; so that they will become able to recite
and fingerpoint-read smaller versions of the
books on their own; and so that they will begin
to acquirea sight vocabularyof familiarwords.
Advocates of whole language instruction be-
lieve that practice at memorized text reading
enables beginners to move into independent
reading. The purpose of the present study was
to investigatethis hypothesis in the laboratory.
Whereas preschoolers may find it easy to
learnpretendreadingthatrelies on picturesplus
memoryof a story,pretendreadingthatrequires
pointing to the words in a text may prove more
difficult. Not all pretendreadersmay be able to
learn to follow print with their fingers or to
process and rememberprintedwords and letters
during pretend-reading practice. In order to
trackspeech, they may need to know something
about print and how it works, such as how to
segment speech into constituent words and
sounds, how to recognize letter shapes, how in-
dividual letters correspondto sounds, and how
writtenwords correspondto spoken words. De-
spite the fact that empty spaces are available as
cues markingthe breaks between words, some
knowledge about the alphabeticsystem may be
needed. Speakers do not pause between the
words they utter, so word units are not as obvi-
ous in speech as they are in print. Readersmay
need to recognize how initial letters in printed
words correspond to initial sounds in spoken
words in orderto distinguishand point to words
in a line of memorizedtext. One purposeof the
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445
present study was to examine whether begin-
ners need to know something about the alpha-
betic system in order to succeed in learning to
fingerpoint-read.
Morris and Henderson (1981; Morris,
1983) have studied children'sability to finger-
point-readmemorizedtext, which they refer to
as reflectinga child's"conceptof word."In their
task, studentsfirst learn to recite a poem, then
observe and practice fingerpoint-reading,then
try to read selected words in the text. Three lev-
els of fingerpoint-reading have been distin-
guished. The least mature students exhibit no
ability to point to words or read them after-
wards. Transitionalstudentsuse spacing cues to
point to words, but tend to monitor spoken syl-
lables ratherthan words and do not self-correct
these errors by noticing the lack of correspon-
dence between the letters pointed to and the
sounds spoken. When asked to read a wordbur-
ied in a line, these studentsrespondby attempt-
ing to rereadthe line up to that word. The most
advancedstudentscan point accuratelyto words
as they are said, can correcterrorson two-sylla-
ble words by noticing the mismatch between
sounds and letters, and can learn to read new
words from a fingerpoint-readinglesson. Stu-
dents at this level, according to Morris and
Henderson, have achieveda "conceptof word."
In a longitudinalstudy conductedwith kin-
dergartenchildren, Morris (1989, in press) ex-
amined precursors of fingerpoint-reading.He
found that students achieved proficiency with
initial consonants before they achieved profi-
ciency with the "concept of word,"indicating
that beginners may need to know how to seg-
ment and spell beginning consonant sounds in
wordsbefore they can succeed at matchingprint
with speech in their fingerpoint-reading.
Morris's (1989) measure of beginning conso-
nantknowledgewas a compositemeasureof let-
ter knowledge and phonemic segmentation
skill. His measure of "conceptof word"was a
composite of several aspects of fingerpoint-
reading. One purpose of the present study was
to examine components of fingerpoint-reading
and printknowledgeseparately,in orderto pin-
point possible causal relations between these
variables.
446
The design of the presentstudyinvolvedse-
lecting 4- to 6-year-oldswho had not advanced
beyonda novice level in readingwordsby sight.
Most could read no words. Subjects practiced
fingerpoint-readinga text. Several aspects of
fingerpoint-readingwere then measured:recit-
ing lines verbatimfrom memory, matching up
spoken and printed words in the child's point-
ing, rememberinghow to read individualwords
in print, and detecting letter alterationsin the
lines of text. In addition, severalaspects of sub-
jects' print knowledge were assessed: letter
naming, preprimer word reading, phonemic
segmentation,and discriminationof letters dis-
tinguishing similarly spelled words. We were
interestedin determiningwhich types of print
knowledge were related to various aspects of
successful fingerpoint-reading.
Of special interestwas the contributionof
letter knowledge. In other reading tasks, letter
knowledge has been found to be a strong pre-
dictor of reading. Share, Jorm, Maclean, and
Matthews (1984) found that letter knowledge
measuredat the beginning of kindergartenwas
one of the two best predictors of reading
achievementat the end of kindergartenand first
grade; the other predictor was phonemic seg-
mentation skill. Also, Ehri and Wilce (1985)
and Masonheimeret al. (1984) found that mas-
tery of letters distinguishedbeginnerswho were
able to learn to read words effectively from
those who were not.
Of interest here was whether letter knowl-
edge would distinguish beginners who could
learn to fingerpoint-readfrom those who could
not. It may be thatletter knowledgeenables be-
ginners to adaptto the fingerpointingtask and,
with practice, to figure out how printedwords
correspond to spoken words. Moreover, letter
knowledge may enable beginners to remember
how to readthe individualwordsthey encounter
in the text. Accordingto Ehri's(1987) theory of
beginning word reading, knowledge of letters
provides the basis for forming connections
between the letters seen in spellings and the
sounds detectedin pronunciations,and for stor-
ing these associationsin memory in orderto re-
memberhow to readthose words when they are
seen again.
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READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4
Method
Subjects
The subjectswere 36 children, 18 male and
18 female, rangingin age from 4.5 to 5.8 years
(M = 5.1 years), all proficientin English. Sub-
jects were drawn from local groups willing to
cooperatein a researchstudy:two preschools, a
day care center, and a kindergartenclassroom.
Children younger than 4.5 years were not in-
cluded. Although some of the children had en-
gaged in reading readiness activities, they had
not received any formal, structuredreadingin-
struction. Also, they had not participated in
emergentliteracyprograms.
Additional subjects included in the initial
sample were not included in the study for the
following reasons: One child read some target
words and words above the preprimer level;
four childrenwere unavailablefor a second day
of testing; one child was unableto memorizeor
participatein choral reading of the story; and
three childrenrefusedto cooperate.
Procedure
The assessment and training were con-
ducted individuallyon 2 successive days, with
each day's session lasting 20-30 minutes. On
Day 1, each child completed the pretests mea-
suring letter knowledge and word readingabil-
ity. (Some subjects completed these pretests a
day earlier.)Then the subjectwas introducedto
fingerpoint-reading, and practiced reading a
story and fingerpointingwith the experimenter
(one of the authors). After several trials, the
subject fingerpoint-read the story alone. Fi-
nally, the child completed the first part of the
trainingfor the phonemicsegmentationtask.
On Day 2, subjects received additional
practice in choral and fingerpoint-reading,in-
terspersedwith attemptsto read the text them-
selves. We then assessed what the childrenhad
learned about printedwords from their finger-
point-reading.Finally, they completedthe pho-
nemic segmentationtask.
Pretests
Three tests of letter and word knowledge
Fingerpoint-reading EHRI& SWEET 447

were given on Day 1, prior to the fingerpoint- the title of this nursery rhyme was written in
readingtraining. capitalletters.
In addition, a story of 8 lines was creat-
1. Reading target words. Subjects were ed by modifying one verse of a poem by
asked to read 12 words from the story that Olive A. Wadsworth entitled "Over in the
would be used for the fingerpoint-readingtrain- Meadow."Wordswere changedto make the ini-
ing. Each word was printedin capital letters on tial letters more varied, to make the text less fa-
a flash card. The words were blue, old, dived, miliar,andto includemore wordswith an initial
fishes, and, mother,jungle, the, swim, where, letter that symbolized the initial sound in the
down, and two. Five picture cards were mixed word as well as a sound in the name of the letter
in with the word cards to minimize nonreaders' (e.g., M, named "em"'containing/m/, the first
sense of failure. Subjects who could read more sound in Mother). The 8 lines were printed in
than one target word were excluded from the capitalletters, one line per page:
study. Two of the subjects who were retainedin
the sample were able to read one target word DOWNIN THEJUNGLE
each; the remainingsubjectscould not readany WHERETHERIVERRUNSBLUE
targetwords. LIVEDAN OLDMOTHERFISH
AND HERLITTLEFISHESTWO.
2. Naming letters. Subjects named 26 up- "SWIM," SAIDTHEMOTHER.
"WEARESWIMMING" SAIDTHETWO.
percase letters presentedin randomorder on a
card. Scores of subjects ranged from 0 to 26; SO THEY PADDLED AND THEYDIVED
25 percent knew 0-10 letters, 22 percent knew WHERETHERIVERRUNSBLUE.
11-21 letters, and 53 percent knew 22-26 let-
ters. Each line was accompaniedby a relevant pic-
ture in color. The 8 pages formed a soft-cover
3. Reading preprimerand Slosson words. booklet. Capitalletters were used because they
Subjects were shown 11 preprimer words on are more familiarto preschoolers.
flash cards mixed with 5 picture cards. If the
child read at least one word, then he or she was Training.On Day 1, each child was first in-
shown 11 more preprimerwords mixed with 3 troduced to fingerpoint-readingusing the pic-
picture cards. Subjects who read more than 2 ture of "Peter,Peter,PumpkinEater"along with
words were given the Slosson OralReadingTest the printedtitle. The experimenterread the title
(1963). Subjects who scored above the pre- twice, pointing to each word as she said it. She
primer level on this test were excluded from explainedthat she knew which wordsto pointto
the study. Scores of subjects who remained in by attendingto the correspondencebetween ini-
the study ranged from 0 to 9 preprimerwords tial letters and sounds in the words. Then the
correct; 67 percent read 0 words, 28 percent child attemptedto point to each word as he or
read 1-3 words, and the 2 remaining subjects she spokethe four-wordtitle. If this attemptwas
read 6 and 9 words, respectively. Thus, the unsuccessful, the experimentermodeled how to
sample comprised a large group of nonreaders point at the words until the child was able to do
(n = 24) and a small group of novice readers so correctly, up to a maximum of three times.
(n = 12). Most children (86%) were successful within
two trials.
Fingerpoint-reading training Next, the experimenterreadthe story aloud
Materials. Two sets of materialswere used while the subject looked at the pictures in the
for the trainingin fingerpoint-reading.The ma- booklet. Then she read the story again more
terials for the introductorytask consisted of an slowly while pointingher finger at the words as
illustrationof the nursery rhyme "Peter,Peter, the child watched. The child and experimenter
PumpkinEater"and a sheet of paper on which then readthe book together in chorus, and both

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448 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4

pointed to the words- with the experimenter 1. Withthe bookclosed, the child was asked,
pointing above the line, and the child below the "Werethe wordsin thatbookjust like the
line. The child then fingerpoint-readthe first wordswe readbeforein the otherbook?"If
line alone. The experimenterand child read the the child answered"No,"the experimenter
story together again in chorus using finger- asked,"Howweretheydifferent?"
2. With the book open, the experimenter
pointing. Then the child fingerpoint-readthe pointedto the first line of printandasked,
whole story alone. This was followed by one fi- "Dothesewordslookjust likethewordswe
nal choral reading. readbefore?" If thechildanswered"No,"the
On Day 2, the story was read five times. experimenter asked,"Howweretheydiffer-
On Trials 1, 2, and 4, the experimenterand the ent?"
child read the story in chorus while pointing to 3. Withthe firstbookopenandpositionedon
the words. On Trials 3 and 5, the child finger- top of the secondbook so thatthe original
point-readthe story alone. andalteredlinesof printwerevisible,theex-
perimenter said, "Lookat thesewords.Are
Taskperformance. Performanceon the fi- thesejustlikethose?"
nal solo readingof the 8 lines of text was scored
for three characteristics:(a) correctly reciting Childrenwere assigned 4 points for spontane-
each line, (b) pointing to words in each line, ous recognition of the altered text before any
and (c) voice-point matching (i.e., pointing to questions were asked, 3 points for answering
words at the same time as they were spoken). that the text had been changed when the book
The scoring criteriafor the first two characteris- was closed, 2 points for recognitionwith the al-
tics were as follows: If subjectsrespondedto a tered book open, 1 point for recognition upon
line perfectly,they received a score of 3; if they seeing the two books open side-by-side, and 0
respondedcorrectlyto only some of the words, points for no recognition.
they received a score of 1; if their responsewas 2. Reading isolated lines of text. Subjects
totally incorrect, they received a score of 0. were asked to read three lines from the text
Nonlinear values were adopted to lend greater
(Lines 3, 1, and 7, in that order) with the pic-
weight to perfectperformances.Scores were to- tures removed.
taled for the 8 lines, for a maximum score of
24. The scoring criterion for the voice-point 3. Reading isolated target words. This was
matching measure was the numberof lines re- a repeat of the Day 1 pretest. Subjects were
spondedto perfectly (maximumscore = 8). asked to read 12 words from the story printed
on flashcards,with 5 picturecards mixed in.
Posttests
Six tasks measuringletterand word knowl- 4. Readingtargetwordsin text. The experi-
edge were given after the fingerpoint-reading menter turned to various pages of the text,
task (i.e., the last solo reading)on Day 2. pointed to words in the text out of order, and
asked subjects to read the words. These were
1. Recognizingaltered text. Subjects were the same 12 target words that were tested in
shownan alteredversion of the story booklet, in isolation.
which the pictures, the length of the words, and
the line length remainedthe same as in the orig- 5. Recognizing words in text. The experi-
inal, but new letters were substituted.For ex- menteropened the book and pronouncedwords
ample, the first line, DOWNIN THEJUNGLE, on severalpages, and asked the subjectto point
was changed to WSWSAL WOH OEWNIH. to these words. Five of the target words used
Childrenwere askedto readthe first four pages. above plus 5 new words were used. (Subjects
The experimenternoted whetherthe child spon- were not betterat recognizingpreviouslytested
taneously commented on the altered text, then than untestedwords, indicatingthat testing did
asked three questions: not teach the words.)

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Fingerpoint-reading EHRI& SWEET 449

6. Letter discrimination. The purpose of mouthblocks in a phonemic segmentationtask.

this task was to assess whether subjects proc- First, the child was shown how to select two
essed print globally or analyzed letter details blocks to depict the blend /me/ ("mae").Then
when asked to compare pairs of similarly the subject was given a blend orally and was
spelled words. Subjectswere shown 7 nonsense asked to segment it into constituentsounds by
word pairs. Each pair was writtenin capitallet- selecting a picture of each sound as the subject
ters on a flashcard, with one word appearing4 spoke it. A total of 24 blends were presented,
centimetersabovethe other. The two wordsdif- which includeda mix of CV (consonant-vowel),
feredby one letter, which was in initial, medial,VC, CVC, VCC, and CCV sequences (e.g.,
or final position. There were 6 pairs of three- /le/, /es/, /mel/, /em/, /sle/, /els/, /lem/). If the
letter words, of which 3 were pronounceable child performedthe task incorrectly,the experi-
(e.g., WOR/DOR)and 3 were unpronounceable menter modeled the correct response and de-
(e.g., BPC/BPX). The 7th pair contained two scribedher mouthmovements.
consonant blends (CLUST/CLUSP). Subjects Three measures were derived from per-
were asked if the wordswere the same or differ- formance on the phonemic segmentationtask:
ent, and if different, how. Any explanationthat (a) the number of trials to reach criterion the
involved referringto the lettersthat were differ-first time in learning associations between the
ent was acceptedas correct. four mouth pictures and sounds; (b) the total
numberof individualsounds spoken and repre-
Phonemic segmentation training sented correctly with mouth blocks in the
Materials. Fourmoveableblocks, each 2 x blends (maximum = 60); and (c) the numberof
21/2 inches in size, were covered with pictures blends correctly segmented (maximum = 24).
of mouth positions depicting four different Because this task followed the fingerpoint-read-
sounds: A smiling mouth portrayed/e/ (long a ing task, it did not influence reading perform-
as in ate), a mouth with lips closed portrayed ance.
/m/, a mouth open slightly with tongue against
teeth portrayed/s/, and a mouth open with the
tongue up touching the top of the mouthbehind Results
the teeth portrayed/1/. The /s/ block also dis-
played a pictureof a snake. The mouthpictures To determinewhich of several readerchar-
were adapted from those used by Lindamood
and Lindamood(1975). acteristicsaccountedfor unique variance in the
measures of text reading and word readingthat
Training. On Day 1 (after completing the followed fingerpoint-readingpractice, stepwise
pretests and the fingerpoint-readingtraining), regressionanalyses were conducted. The maxi-
subjectswere shown the blocks and were taught mum R2 improvement technique (in the SAS
to associate the mouthpictureswith sounds. To statisticalprogram)was used to find the best re-
make the connection, children observed their gression model for each dependent variable,
own mouths making those sounds in a mirror. with the best model defined as the one in which
They learnedthese associationsto a criterionof the factorsyielded the highest value for R2 and
8 errorlesstrials. in which each factoraccountedfor uniquevari-
On Day 2 (aftersubjectshad completedthe ance thatwas significant. Significancewas indi-
fingerpoint-readingtraining and the posttests), cated if removal of the factor resulted in a
the training in associating the mouth pictures statistically significant drop in the amount of
with sounds was continuedor reinstatedto a cri- varianceaccountedfor by the model at p <.05.
terion of 8 errorlesstrials. The independentvariables that were tested
in these regression analyses were age, letter-
Taskperformance. After the association name knowledge, preprimerword readingskill,
training on the second day, subjects used the letter discriminationskill, and two measuresof

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450 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4

Table 1 Performanceon all measures:Mean scores, standarddeviations, mean percentage

correctscores, and percentagesof subjectswith scores of zero and with perfect scores

Mean %with %with

Measure Max. M SD % zero perfect
correct score score

Age (months) - 61.27 4.42

Letter/word knowledge
Namingcapital letters 26 17.83 8.45 68% 3% 25%
Readingpreprimerwords 22 0.92 1.90 4% 67% 0%
Letterdiscrimination 7 5.50 2.20 79% 6% 56%
Phonemic segmentation
Trialsto criteriona 4 5.63 2.75 - 6% 44%
Correctphonemessegmented 60 36.97 13.43 62% 6% 1%
Blends segmentedcorrectly 24 6.64 5.56 28% 14% 0%
2-phonemeblends 12 5.11 3.62 43% 14% 3%
3-phonemeblends 12 1.53 2.52 13% 53% 3%

Fingerpoint-reading
Recitinglines verbatim 24 17.39 5.06 72% 0% 14%
Pointingto words 24 10.47 7.74 44% 6% 3%
Voice-pointmatching 8 1.83 2.36 23% 44% 3%
Recognizingalteredtext 4 1.47 1.34 37% 19% 17%
Readingwordsin isolation 12 0.50 1.11 4% 78% 0%
Readingwordsin text 12 2.11 2.94 18% 58% 0%
Locatingwords in text 10 2.56 2.22 26% 19% 0%
Note. N = 36.
aTheminimum(notmaximum) of subjectswitha perfectscoreis thepercentage
numberof learningtrialswas4. Thepercentage achieving
criterionin theminimum of trials;thepercentage
number thatneverreachedcriterion.
of subjectswitha zeroscoreis thepercentage

phonemic segmentation(numberof correct in- We examinedfirst the subjects'initial letter

dividualphonemes, and numberof correctpho-
neme blends). The dependent variables were
the measuresof subjects'ability to fingerpoint-
read text following practice, their recognition
that the text's letter configurationhad been al-
tered, and their ability to read individualwords
in the text.
Performance of the subjects on all mea-
sures is reportedin Table 1, which shows the
means, standarddeviations, and mean percent-
age correct scores, as well as the percentageof
subjects who scored 0 and scored perfectly on
each task. The coefficients of correlation be-
tween these variables are reportedin Table 2.
Single and multi-factormodels listing the vari-
ables that provedsignificantare reportedin Ta-
ble 3. Two variableswere not significantin any
model: age and the number of individualpho-
nemes correctlysegmented.
and word knowledge before any training. We
then examined subjects' fingerpoint-reading
performance and the variables that best ex-
plained this performance.Finally, we looked at
the measures of subjects'ability to read words
afterthe trainingin fingerpoint-reading.
Initial letter and word knowledge
From Table 1, it is apparentthatthe sample
consistedof subjectswho were typically 5 years
old, knew over half the letter names but could
read few if any preprimerwords, and were able
to attendto and discriminatelettersdistinguish-
ing most pairs of letter strings. In the phonemic
segmentation task, all but 2 subjects reached
criterionin learningto associate mouthpictures
with sounds. In using the pictures to segment
blends, subjects could distinguish many single
phonemes correctly (M = 62% correct), but

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Fingerpoint-reading EHRI& SWEET 451

Table 2 Intercorrelationsbetween all measures

Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. Age - -.01 .12 .11 .31 .23 .07 .38 .31 -.04 .25 .15
2. Naming letters - .46 .08 .64 .50 .34 .47 .48 .61 .55 .54
3. Readingpreprimerwords - .08 .47 .70 .05 .57 .51 .51 .72 .63
4. Letterdiscrimination - .16 .07 .42 .13 .29 .28 .26 .07
5. Correctphonemes segmented - .83 .32 .64 .53 .44 .55 .53
6. Blends segmentedcorrectly - .28 .70 .60 .47 .68 .58
7. Recitinglines verbatim - .26 .38 .46 .22 .18
8. Pointingto words - .89 .38 .61 .57
9. Voice-pointmatching - .48 .61 .48
10. Recognizingalteredtext - .56 .55
11. Readingwords in text - .51
12. Locatingwords in text
Note. r > .32 is significantly
differentfrom0 atp <.05; r > .40 is significantly
differentfrom0 atp <.01.

were not good at segmenting entire blends (M
= 28% correct). Most of the blends that were
correctly segmented consisted of two pho-
nemes, either CV or VC (M = 43%). Se-
quences of threephonemeswere much harderto
segment (M = 13%).
Fingerpoint-reading performance
Three aspects of subjects'ability to learn to
fingerpoint-read the story were measured in
their final solo readingattempt:accuracyat re-
citing each line of text verbatim, accuracy at
pointingto the wordsin each line, and ability to
coordinate these two behaviors to match print
with speech. From the mean percentagecorrect
values in Table 1, it is apparentthat subjects
learnedto recite the text fairly well. They were
less able to point to the words in each line and
least able to match their voice with their point-
ing. In fact, 44 percent of the subjects scored
zero on the measure of voice-point matching.
Inspection of the children's shortcomings re-
vealed that subjects would often slide their fin-
gers along beneath the line of text ratherthan
pointing to individual words in the line. How-
ever, this behavior was apparentonly in sub-
jects without much skill in fingerpoint-reading;
none of the subjects who fingerpoint-read at
least one line accuratelyever did this.
As shown by the correlations in Table 2,
accuracy at voice-point matching was more
highly related to pointing accuracy (r = .89)
than to reciting accuracy (r = .38). This find-
ing indicatesthatthe majorproblemin learning
to fingerpoint-readis not memorizing the text
but pointingto the word segments.
In the regressionanalysis on scores for re-
citing the text accurately,letter discrimination
ability and letter-name knowledge accounted
for unique variance. However,as shown in Ta-
ble 3, the amountof varianceaccountedfor was
fairly small, .27. What explains this relation-
ship is not clear.
The best regression models for the word
pointing and voice-point matching measures
were identical, which is not surprisingbecause
the two measures were highly correlated (see
Table 3). One independentvariable explained
the variance: phonemic segmentation skill as
measuredby the number of blends segmented
correctly. This finding suggests that phonemic
segmentationis a critical skill enabling begin-
ners to learn to fingerpoint-readfamiliartext. It
may be that the hardestpart of the fingerpoint-
reading task is finding the appropriatephone-
mic segments in speech to match up with the
printedletters.
To verify this interpretation,we examined
scores on the measures of phonemic segmen-
tation and voice-point matching. Figure 1
presents a scatter plot of these scores. Data
points are distinguishedfor two groups of sub-
jects: weak segmenters (those who segmented
mainly two-phoneme blends) and strong seg-

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452 READING RESEARCH QUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4

Table 3 Best models found in stepwise regressionanalyses (as judged by maximumR2

improvement)
F F to
Model R2 statistica removeb p

Dependent variable: Reciting lines verbatim

Single-factormodel .174 7.14*
Letterdiscrimination 7.14* .0115
Two-factormodel .267 6.02"
Letterdiscrimination 6.86* .0132
Naming letters 4.23* .0477

Dependent variable: Pointing to words correctly during recitation

Single-factormodel .497 33.60**
Blends segmentedcorrectly 33.60** .0001

Dependent variable: Matching word pointing with recitation

Single-factormodel .363 19.39**
Blends segmentedcorrectly 19.39** .0001

Dependent variable: Recognizing altered text

Single-factormodel .369 19.85**
Naming letters 19.85** .0001

Dependent variable: Reading target words in text

Single-factormodel .519 36.71**
Readingpreprimerwords 36.71** .0001
Two-factormodel .582 22.94**
Readingpreprimerwords 9.28* .0045
Blends segmentedcorrectly 4.93* .0334

Dependent variable: Locating target words in text

Single-factormodel .400 22.70**
Readingpreprimerwords 22.70** .0001
Two-factormodel .482 15.36**
Readingpreprimerwords 11.88* .0016
Naming letters 5.20* .0291
Note. df = 1,34 for single-factormodels; df = 2,33 for two-factormodels.
aTheF statisticfromtheANOVA is theratioof regressionmeansquareto errormeansquare. bTheF to removeis theratioof thesumof
squares(SS)thatis addedto theerrorSSif thatvariableis removedfromthemodel,to errorSSwithoutthevariableremoved.
"*
p <.05 **p <.0001

menters (those who segmented some CV and
VC words plus at least 2 of the three-phoneme
blends). The distributionof the weakest scores
is especially interesting(see lower left cornerof
figure): All 8 subjectswho correctlysegmented
only 1 or 0 blends failed to fingerpoint-readany
lines correctly. However, of the 16 subjects in
total who did not fingerpoint-readany lines cor-
rectly, 69 percent were able to segment from I
to 8 blends. These data suggest that phonemic
segmentation skill may emerge before finger-
point-readingand may be a necessary but not
sufficient condition for its development. Note
that the phonemic segmentationskill examined
here is a rudimentaryform: segmenting two-
phonemeblends.
After the fingerpoint-readingpractice, sub-
jects were also given a version with the letters
alteredand were asked to read it. Subjectsvar-
ied in their recognitionthat the print had been

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Fingerpoint-reading EHRI & SWEET 453

Figure 1
Scatterplot of scores on phonemicsegmentationtask and fingerpoint-readingtask (with datapoints
distinguishedby whethersubjectswere able to segment at least two 3-phonemeblends)

g
Length of Blends
O CV/VC(N=18)
"8 U CV/VC+ at least
0- 7 - 2 CVC/VCC/CCV
"13 (N=12)
r- 60-
o ? ?
"13 5 0

S2- o
S 0
80 0
0- 000 000 0O
S 00 0
E 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
zNumber of Blends Segmented into Phonemes

changed: 6 noticed it spontaneously as they
were reading, 2 mentioned it when they were
questioned with the book closed, 2 noticed it
when questionedwith the book open, 18 did not
see it until the two books were presentedside-
by-side for comparison, and 8 never noticed it
at all. Thus, 26 subjects, or 72 percent, exhib-
ited no memory for the letter configuration
in the text they had practiced reading. This
percentage is similar to results reported by
Masonheimer et al. (1984), who found that
about two thirdsof the subjectswho could read
environmentalprint failed to detect the differ-
ence between original and altered signs (e.g.,
Xepsi vs. Pepsi), even when the signs were pre-
sented side-by-side.
In the regressionanalysis for scores on rec-
ognizing altered text, the best model included
only one factor, letter-nameknowledge, which
accounted for 37 percent of the variance (see
Table3). These results suggest that letter-name
knowledge was the critical skill underlyingper-
formance, very likely because it enabled sub-
jects to distinguish and rememberelements of
the original letterconfiguration.
The distribution of scores on these two
measures- detecting altered text and naming
letters-were plotted in a scatter diagram, pre-
sented in Figure 2. Interestingly,letter knowl-
edge was highly tied to success or failurewhen
subjects did not have the two texts side-by-side
to compare. The subjects who detected the al-
terationspontaneouslyor when asked with the
book either closed or open were subjects who
had named the majority of the letters. In con-
trast, those who never recognizedthe alteration
knew fewer than 18 letters, and most of these
subjects knew fewer than 10 letters. This indi-
cates that near-masteryof letterswas crucial for
complete success in the detection task. Letter
knowledge was less importantamong subjects
who detectedthe alterationwhen they could see

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 454 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4

Figure 2
Scatterplot of scores on the letter-namingtask and alteredtext task

Low
0 4 0 @ Spontaneous
c)

.2 3 - Bookclosed

o2 Bookopen

x 1 * ** * *** : : Sidebyside

) 0 * * * ** Norecognition
d)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
Numberof Letters Named

the books side-by-side; these subjects varied
greatly in their letter knowledge (see Figure 2).
This is not surprising,because the information
needed to make the comparisonwas at hand, so
letter memory was not essential.
One subjectwith weak letter knowledgere-
sponded to this task in a way that revealedthat
he had not paid attentionto the letters during
fingerpoint-reading. During the latter part of
the task, when the altered and original lines
of print were exposed together, this subject re-
positionedthe books in orderto see both sets of
pictures before answering the question about
whetherthe words were the same or different.
The alteredprinttask was similarto the let-
ter discrimination task in that both required
readers to compare letters in two print speci-
mens. However,performanceswere not correl-
ated (r = .28, p >.05), revealing that the
ability to detect letter differences when two
words are seen side-by-side did not account
for variance in performanceon the alteredtext
task. Moreover,even subjects with weak letter
knowledgeperformedwell in the letter discrim-
ination task, indicating that letter knowledge
was not centralto this task (r = .08).
After the altered text task, subjects were
asked to read three different lines without the
pictures. Only 7 subjects(19%) read any of the
lines correctly,and none readmorethan2 lines,
indicatingthat readinglines out of context was
very difficult. All but one of the subjects who
were able to readat least one line had displayed
word reading ability on the pretest, indicating
that word readingability facilitatedmemory for
lines of text.
Word reading after training
Three word reading tests were given fol-
lowing the fingerpoint-reading task. When
words from the text were presentedin isolation,
only 8 subjects(22 %)readany wordscorrectly,
and these subjects read no more than 4 apiece
(out of 12). All but one of these subjects had
read at least one preprimerword on the pretest.
The low scores on this task reveal that even
novice word readersdid not learn to read many
individual words out of context as a result of
fingerpoint-reading practice. Several factors
may be responsible, including subjects'lack of

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Fingerpoint-reading EHRI& SWEET 455

success in fingerpoint-reading many lines of
text, the rudimentarynature of these subjects'
word readingskill, the greatersalience of other
non-printcues such as the pictures, and the ab-
sence of pressureto process print cues because
the text had been memorized. Because 78 per-
cent of the subjects received a word reading
score of zero, a regressionanalysis was not con-
ducted.
Subjects read more words when the words
appearedin text. Of the 17 subjects who read
any words, 15 read more words in text than in
isolation, indicating the facilitating effect of
context (Goodman, 1965; Stanovich, 1986). In
the regression analysis, two factors explained
unique variance in the numberof words read in
text: the number of preprimer words subjects
had read on the pretest, and the number of
blends correctly segmented into phonemes (see
Table3).
A scatter plot of scores was examined to
clarify this relationship.In Figure 3, datapoints
are distinguishedaccordingto whether subjects
read any preprimerwords in the pretest. All of
the subjects who read any words either in text
or in isolation (i.e., the circles and squares
shown in Figure 3 for subjectswho read at least
2 words correctly) also displayedsome phone-
mic segmentationskill. In addition, there were
14 subjectswho displayedsome phonemic seg-
mentationskill but read no words (i.e., the cir-
cles shownfor subjectswho read0 wordsin text
but segmentedat least 1 blend). However,there
were no subjects who read words but lacked
phonemic segmentation skill. This indicates
that having some phonemic segmentationskill
was necessary but not sufficient for learning to
readwords in text.
Observations of subjects' strategies for
reading the words in text suggested that only
one subject identified words by reciting and
pointing to all the preceding words in the line.
Thus, the relationship between word reading
and phonemic segmentationis not explainedby
skill in fingerpoint-readingthe text to deduce
words. A more common strategywhen subjects

Figure 3
Scatterplot of scores on the phonemic segmentationtask and word readingin text (with datapoints
distinguishedby whethersubjectsread any preprimerwords on pretest)

12
x PreprimerWords
m Read (N=12)
10
er O Not Read (N=18)

cis 88

" 6
O
l 0
4 - O

0 0 0
"2 O0
.0

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Number of Blends Segmented into Phonemes

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456
were uncertain about words was to recite the
poem to themselves in an attempt to pluck a
likely candidatefromthe set of lexical possibili-
ties. Two subjects were observed doing this
with a couple of words. However, most words
were read directly without any observable de-
ductive processing, indicating that subjects
were using printcues to retrievethe wordsfrom
memory.
Phonemic segmentation skill may have
provedimportantfor rememberinghow to read
words for two reasons. It may have helped sub-
jects store words in memory to read them, as a
process of forming access routes into memory
by linking letters in spellings to phonemes in
pronunciations(Ehri, 1987, in press). Alterna-
tively, phonemic segmentation may have en-
abled subjectsto pluck words covertly from the
memorized lines by helping them analyze first
soundsin words. The fact thatword readingwas
better in context than in isolation indicatesthat
subjectswere using contextin some way to read
the words. Decoding skill does not explain the
relationshipbecause all of the subjectswere un-
skilled decoders, and the words were not easily
decoded.
Inspection of word misreadings revealed
that many subjects respondedwith whole lines
when asked to read single words. For example,
subjects misread the word blue as where the
river runs blue. The weaker readerswere more
likely to respondwith whole lines thanwere the
other subjects. Of the subjectswho had readno
preprimerwords and knew fewer than 15 letter
names (n = 12), 92 percent responded with
lines rather than words at least once. In con-
trast, of those who had read some preprimer
wordsand knew most of the letters, only 33 per-
cent gave entire lines ratherthan words. Lines
may have been given for several reasons: Sub-
jects may have been "reading" the pictures
rather than the print, or they may have asso-
ciated lines rather than words with the letter
sequences, or they may have had difficulty dis-
tinguishing word boundaries in speech. Line
reading appeared to be a default response
among subjects who could read some words,
for subjects did not recite lines when they were
able to read single wordscorrectly.
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READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4
Success overall was greater when subjects
examined lines of text to locate single words
spoken by the experimenter than when they
read individualwords pointed to by the experi-
menter.Fewersubjects(19 percent)failed com-
pletely in this task than had failed at reading
words in text (58 percent). In the regression
analysis, two factorsaccountedfor uniquevari-
ance in word location scores: preprimerword
reading ability and letter-name knowledge.
Wordreadingability may have enabledsubjects
to rememberhow to read the words or how to
readneighboringwords, which helped them de-
duce the location of targetwords. Knowinglet-
ter names may have enabled subjects to locate
words using these cues. One child verbalized
this strategy,saying that 'paddled was easy to
find because of the p." Six subjects used the
method of reciting the entire line, pointing to
each word in turnuntil they arrivedat the target
word.
A scatterplot of scores was constructedto
clarify these relationships.In Figure4, the data
points distinguish subjects according to their
preprimerword readingskill. It is apparentthat
subjects who were most successful in locating
words in text (i.e., those who located more than
half the wordscorrectly)were mostly preprimer
word readerswho knew almost all the letters. In
contrast,subjectswho were partiallysuccessful
at locating words showed a range of letter
knowledge.
Discussion
Resultsof the presentstudy indicatethat, in
orderfor emergentreadersto achieve some suc-
cess learning to fingerpoint-read memorized
text and to remember information about the
print from this activity, they need to possess
some print-relatedknowledge. Phonemic seg-
mentation skill enables beginners to learn to
fingerpoint-readmemorizedtext and to remem-
ber how to read individual words in the text.
Also, being able to read even a few preprimer
words enables beginners to rememberhow to
Fingerpoint-reading EHRI& SWEET 457

Figure 4
Scatter plot of scores on the letter-namingtask and on locating words in text (with data points
distinguishedby whethersubjectsreadany preprimerwords on pretest)

10
x PreprimerWords
9
Read (N=12)
.• 8 0 Not Read (N=18)
a 7
o 6 O-
".J 5 -
4-
0
3- 0 000
0 2 0 00 0O
I- OU0

8 0 o8
:0 0 0 0 0 00 0

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
Number of Letters Named

read individualwords in the text. Knowing let-
ter names enables beginners to locate words in
lines of text they have read and to recognize
when letters in the text have been altered.
One limitation of this study should be
noted. Because results are correlational,causal
interpretationsof the data must remain tenta-
tive. Furtherexperimentalresearchis needed to
show that trainingin these capabilitiesbenefits
fingerpoint-readingin the ways described.
One purpose of the study was to examine
the importance of letter-name knowledge for
fingerpoint-readingand word reading. Results
indicatedthat letter knowledgeenabled subjects
to locate individual words spoken by the ex-
perimenterin text, but it did not enable them
to rememberhow to read individualwords, nor
to fingerpoint-read memorized text. Because
letter-nameknowledge is a powerful predictor
of readingachievement(Shareet al., 1984), we
had expected this factor to have a greater im-
pact.
Perhapsif we had measuredsubjects'abil-
ity to use letters for spelling words, as Morris
did (1983, 1989), or subjects' letter naming
speed (Adams, 1990), or their knowledge of
letter-sound correspondences, then letter
knowledge might have accounted for unique
variancein other dependentmeasures. Alterna-
tively, perhapsletterknowledgewas less impor-
tant for fingerpoint-readingbecause subjects
did not have to rely exclusively on letter cues in
print to read correctly. Instead they could use
their memory for the text, the pictures accom-
panying the text, and white spaces separating
letter sequences in the lines of text. Phonemic
segmentation skill, by contrast, may have
provedof uniqueimportancebecause therewere
no other means available for analyzing units in
speech correctly.

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458
Phonemic segmentation skill contributed
not only to subjects'ability to rememberhow to
read individual words in text, but also to their
abilityto matchprintwith speech duringfinger-
point-reading. It proved even more important
than preprimer word reading skill for finger-
point-readingperformance,indicatingthatpho-
nemic units may be more centralin learningthis
operationthan lexical units. Phonemicsegmen-
tation skill has been found to be an important
contributorto reading skill by many other re-
searchers(Ehri, 1979; Juel, Griffith, & Gough,
1986; Liberman, Shankweiler, Liberman,
Fowler, & Fischer, 1977; Lundberg, Frost, &
Petersen, 1988; Morris, 1983; Perfetti, Beck,
Bell, & Hughs, 1987; Share,Jorm, Maclean, &
Matthews, 1984; Stanovich, Cunningham, &
Feeman, 1984; Treiman& Baron, 1983; Tun-
mer & Nesdale, 1982, 1985; Vellutino &
Scanlon, 1987). The measureof phonemic seg-
mentation used here differed from measures
used by others. Also, the subjects tested were
younger and less literate than those in other
studies.
In our phonemic task, preschoolers were
taughtto associate four picturesof mouthposi-
tions with isolated sounds and then to segment
the soundsin wordsby pronouncingeach sound
separatelyand selecting the appropriatemouth
picture. Lindamoodand Lindamood(1975) in-
cluded such a task in their programto teach au-
ditory conceptualizationskill. We thought that
this activity wouldprovidechildrenwith a more
concrete method of analyzing sounds than the
method of counting or tapping out phonemes
used by others, and hence might be more sensi-
tive to individualdifferences between nonread-
ers who lack spelling knowledgeto help them in
these tasks (Ehri & Wilce, 1980; Tunmer &
Nesdale, 1982). From Table 1 and Figure 3, it
is apparentthat we did create a task that could
be grasped by the least mature readers. Most
(86 percent) were able to learn the picture-
sound associations to criterion and to segment
some blends into phoneme segments.
One purpose of the present study was to
discover the relations between beginners'
knowledge of print and their success in various
aspects of the fingerpoint-reading task. Our
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READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4
conclusions differ somewhat from those drawn
by Morris (1989). Morris interpretedhis longi-
tudinal data as indicatingcausal links between
successively developing capabilities. He con-
cluded that knowledge of initial consonantlet-
ters/sounds in words enables mastery of the
ability to matchwrittenwords to spokenwords,
which in turnenables masteryof phonemicseg-
mentation,which enables masteryof word read-
ing. Our data suggest that letter knowledge,
phonemic segmentationskill, and word reading
ability each enable differentaspects of the abil-
ity to matchwrittenwordsand spoken words.
Differences in the difficulty levels of the
tasks may accountfor some of the disparitybe-
tween Morris's(1989) conclusions and our own.
Morris measured more advanced phonemic
segmentation,whereaswe looked at a rudimen-
tary form, possibly more comparable to his
word-initialconsonanttask. Also, it may be that
causal relationshipsbetween these variablesare
reciprocal rather than unidirectional (Ehri,
1979; Stanovich, 1986): Entrylevels of phone-
mic segmentation and word reading abilities
may enable various aspects of fingerpoint-
reading, which in turn may promote further
developmentof segmentationand word reading.
The importance of letter knowledge for
processingprintduringfingerpoint-readingwas
also measured. We found that subjects who
were able to detectletter alterationsin text prior
to seeing the original and altered texts side-
by-side were those who knew most of the letters
(see Figure 2). Our explanation is that letter
knowledge providedthe basis for remembering
elements of the print configuration. It enabled
subjects to store aspects of the original text in
memory, such as the first letter or the first and
final letters in salient words. However,an alter-
native interpretationneeds to be considered.
Subjectsmay have recognizedthe orthographic
abnormality or illegality of the altered text
(e.g., WSWSAL WOHOEWNIH).Three facts
make such an explanation unlikely. First, the
print was all in capital letters, so there were no
deviant word shapes signaling that something
was amiss. Second, most if not all of our sub-
jects had insufficient experience with conven-
tional print to be sensitive to orthographic
Fingerpoint-reading EHRI& SWEET
structure. Third, research findings have indi-
cated that the ability to distinguish legal from
illegal orthographicsequences does not emerge
typically until second grade (Allington, 1978;
Gibson & Levin, 1975; Juola, Schadler, Cha-
bot, & McCaughey, 1978; Leslie & Shannon,
1981; Leslie & Thimke, 1986; Massaro& Hes-
tand, 1983). Our subjects were in preschool or
kindergartenand had not even begun formal
reading instruction.We conclude that sensitiv-
ity to orthographicstructure does not explain
why subjects with letter knowledge were better
able to detect letter changes in the text. The
more likely explanationis that letter knowledge
enabled subjectsto rememberwhat the original
text had looked like.
The presentfindings suggest resolutionof a
discrepancy arising in two previous studies.
Masonheimeret al. (1984) found that children
who were experts at reading environmental
print did not detect letter alterationsin familiar
signs (e.g., Xepsi for Pepsi) and concluded that
these children paid little attention to letters.
However,McGee, Lomax, and Head (1988) ob-
served environmentalprint readerspoint to and
comment on letters in signs, even when they
could not readthe signs, indicatingthatthey did
pay attention to letters. The present findings
suggest a possible distinction between paying
attentionto letters and being able to remember
letters.
In the letter discriminationtask, most sub-
jects were able to attendto lettersto distinguish
similarly spelled words. Yet, in the alteredtext
task, only those with substantialletter knowl-
edge had sufficient memory of the original text
to recognize letter alterations when the texts
were not side-by-side. The correlationbetween
these two tasks was low and was not signifi-
cantly different from zero. These results show
that attendingto letters in print is not the same
capability as being able to remember letters.
Immaturereaders may notice letters and even
name them, but unless they know letters well,
they will not be able to store letter information
in memory. It is letter memory, not letter dis-
crimination,that is critical for developingread-
ing skill (Ehri, 1987; Ehri & Wilce, 1985,
1987a, 1987b). Our explanationfor why sub-
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
459
jects in Masonheimeret al.'s(1984) studyand in
the presentstudy did not notice letter alterations
is that they did not know letters well enough to
store the print in memory in order to detect the
changes.
Findings in the present study also indicate
that beginnersdo not rememberhow to read in-
dividual words from letter cues as a result of
simply being exposed to the written words and
their spoken matches in the course of finger-
point-reading memorized text. In the present
study, it was primarilythose subjectswho dem-
onstratedword reading ability prior to the ex-
perimentwho rememberedhow to read any of
the targetwords when the wordswere presented
in isolation. It is noteworthy,in fact, that these
subjects did learn how to read some individual
words, even though there were plenty of other
non-printcues available, such as picturesand a
well-rehearsedtext. These results suggest that
word reading memory may require a special
mechanism. The unprepared mind does not
pick up words and rememberhow to read them
spontaneously.On the other hand, the prepared
mind does not avoid using printcues to remem-
ber how to read words, even when there are
other non-printcues available. Subjects in the
present study were novice readerslacking well-
developed word memory mechanisms, so the
strong showing of this variableis noteworthy.
Further research may be needed to estab-
lish the generalizability of our findings. Our
text was printed in uppercase letters, because
beginners are known to be more familiar with
uppercasethan lowercaseletters (Smythe, Sten-
nett, Hardy, & Wilson, 1970-1971), and be-
cause uppercase letters are easier to
discriminate. However, most big books are
printed in a mix of upper and lower case. We
believe that the processes and relationshipsob-
served in this studywould be apparentalso with
text printed conventionally. However, this re-
mains to be verified.
In considering the implications of the
presentfindings for early readinginstruction,it
is importantto recognize thatwe examinedonly
the effects of short-termpracticeon fingerpoint-
reading, in a study conductedin the laboratory.
The practicethat Holdaway(1979) advocatesis
460
long-term, extending over 3 months, during
which time "sixty books, twenty poems, ten
songs, and a chant or two"might be processed.
Moreover,advocatesof memorizedtext reading
do not claim that practice alone moves child-
ren closer to independentreading. Holdaway's
(1979) shared book experience includes more
thanjust practice; in addition, teachers are di-
rected to model fingerpoint-reading,to explain
and discuss the structureof alphabeticprint, to
draw attentionto printedwords, empty spaces,
and letter-sound associations, and to provide
corrective feedback and reinforcementfor stu-
dents'efforts.
What the results of this study and the one
by Morris (1989) indicateis thatbeginnersmay
be unableto make much progressin various as-
pects of memorized text reading without also
acquiring specific print-related knowledge.
Holdaway(1979) and othersare less clear about
the importanceof these skills for making pro-
gress, and when they are needed. To validate
our conclusions, trainingstudies should be per-
formedin which memorizedtext readingis con-
tinued over a longer period of time. Not only
practice but also instruction in print-related
skills might be manipulatedexperimentallyto
assess their respective contributionsto reading
acquisition.
Although the design of their study was
quasi-experimental,Reutzel, Oda, and Moore
(1989) have reportedone trainingstudy lasting
6 months. They compareda traditional"readi-
ness"kindergartenclassroomto a classroomus-
ing an "immersion in print" approach and a
classroom using immersionplus teacher-ledin-
struction. The immersion approach included
shared book experience following Holdaway's
(1979) recommendations,plus language exper-
ience and writing using invented spelling.
Teacher-ledinstructionconsisted of "short,ex-
plicit lessons on selected print concepts during
the daily rereadingof a big book."This included
instruction on "concept of word" and how to
identify words in text. Both immersion groups
were found to surpass the readiness group on
print awarenessmeasures, readinesstests, and
word readingtests. The two immersion groups
performedequally well on these tests, with one
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READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * 1991 XXVI/4
exception: The teacher-instructed group did
better on the concepts-about-printtest. These
resultsindicatethatimmersionin printis suffic-
ient for moving childreninto reading.However,
it shouldbe notedthat immersionin this experi-
ment went beyond the simple practice effects
examined in the present study. Although the
teacher-ledinstructionwas designed as part of
only one of the treatments, it is likely that
teacher explanation and modeling were also
presentin the other immersioncondition, given
the kinds of activities that studentsperformed.
In conclusion, our results should not be in-
terpretedas challenging the use of memorized
text reading in classrooms. On the contrary,
other researchindicatesthatthis is a very effec-
tive means of moving children into reading.
Clay (1979) has incorporatedthe method into
her Reading Recovery program. It may be the
most effective way to bring at-risk youngsters
with limited home literacy experiences to the
brinkof reading(Masonet al., 1990). Whatour
research does is to point out how children's
success with such proceduresis influenced by
what they already know about print. It may be
important to ensure that these skills are in
place before children are expected to display
fingerpoint-readingon their own. If childrendo
not know lettersand do not have a graspof rudi-
mentaryphonemic segmentation,they will have
trouble performing the necessary operations.
However,this is not to say that childrenlacking
these skills should not be exposed to
fingerpoint-reading experiences. There are
many other benefits to be gained from teacher-
modeled memorized text reading, such as
left-to-rightorientation,familiaritywith written
languagestructures,and realizationthat spoken
language corresponds to written language.
Moreover, such advance exposure may enable
beginners to catch on very quickly to
fingerpoint-readingonce the enabling skills are
acquired.
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Footnotes
This research was supported by Grant No. HD-23719
awardedby the National Instituteof Child Health and Hu-
man Development.
We express our gratitude to the Davis Parent Nursery
School, the Redbug Montessori School, The Children's
Center at North Davis ElementarySchool, and the Davis
Joint Unified School District for their cooperationand as-
sistance in the conductof this study.
Requests for reprintsshould be sent to Linnea C. Ehri,
PhD Programin EducationalPsychology, CUNY Graduate
School, 33 West 42nd St., New York, NY 10036-8099
(USA).
Received October30, 1989
Revisionreceived August 23, 1990
Final revision acceptedApril 9, 1991