Recoding: A Deficit In Phonological Mooding

Phonological processing is the use of the sound of one’s language, (called phonemes), to process spoken and written language (Wagner & Torgensen, 1987). It is the ability to perceive speech sounds and assemble them into the pronunciations of units such as sentences, words, syllables and phonemes. Once this is put together, it is used to access a word that is stored in an area of long-term memory called the mental lexicon. The mental lexicon is a dictionary that exists in the brain which contains lexical entries. A word can then be accessed and it is possible to read off the meaning or any other association of the word. Phonological processing is more of an umbrella, such that, it covers coding and phonological awareness. There are two types of coding: 1) Phonetic recoding and 2) Phonological recoding.

2) The string of phonemes is matched against word-patterns stored in long-termed memory to determine the pronunciation of words. 3) The pronunciation is then used to retrieve the lexical entry of the corresponding word from the mental lexicon in long-term memory (EDSL6501, 2017). A deficit in phonological recoding will lead to problems during reading. If the recoding of graphemes into phonemes is slow or subject to error, reading may be slowed or the wrong pronunciation may occur, leading to the retrieval of the wrong word or no word at all. Here, the International Phonetic Alphabet is a perfect example that teachers and literacy specialists can apply to help students understand the importance of letters and sounds. Wrong pronunciation may also result in reading and comprehension errors. According to Stanovich, (1986), Vellutino and Scanlon (1987), deficits in phonological processing are responsible for some differences between good and poor readers. Poor readers are slow and less accurate in repeating a string of digits and in naming objects that are familiar to