Developing Assessment Tool and Teaching Program forLearning Hiragana Letters

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The present study aimed to clarify the developmental process of normal pre-schoolers in correctly identifying Japanese phonemic symbols, "hiragana" letters with their "sounds" in reading and writing. The study also aimed to develop educational programs for children with deayd speech and language more effectively learning to read hiragana letters. First, 90 normal 4- to 6-year-olds were examined by the modified version of Bi-syllable Word Test (Tezuka, 1987). Developmental stages were then identified as (a)recognizing a word as a whole (b)understanding the difference between initial and final syllables, (c)identifying each letter with correct sounds in initial positionsin a given word(Sakaguchi, Sakihara, Iitaka, 1993). These results agreed with Amano(1970)'s report that normal children first identify the number of syllables in a given wordd and can articulate them before they can read.Tezuka's Test was then administered to a group of aphasic patients with reading difficulties and proved to be an effective tool for assessment and teaching to read hiraganas (Goto, Suzuki, Iitaka, 1994). With the above findings, Horiguchi is developing a computer assisted program for the handicapped to lear to read hiraganas.In addition, a therapeutic program is now undertaken to teach a retarded child (CA 8 : 6, VA 4 : 1) to identify Japanese hiragana letters associated with correct sounds by using the syllabification games with familiar bi-syllable and tri-syllable words. Improvements have been observed not only in reading hiragana letters but also in articulating them.