Adult beginning readers, like other beginning readers, have difficulty applying letter-sound knowledge in order to figure out new or unfamiliar words while reading, although they are generally better at recognizing familiar sight words than children who are learning to read.

Studies: **Byrne & Ledez, 1983; **Gottesman, Bennett, Nathan, & Kelly, 1996; **Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997; Read & Ruyter, 1985

Research. Lacking the ability to manipulate speech sounds in words orally, adult beginning readers may also have difficulty manipulating the written letters and letter-combinations that represent speech sounds (Read & Ruyter, 1985; Gottesman et al, 1996; Greenberg et al., 1997; Byrne & Ledez, 1983). Adults learning to read may tend not to use letter-sound knowledge to figure out unknown words as they read (Byrne & Ledez, 1983); they may be relatively better at sight word recognition or recognizing whole words (Read & Ruyter, 1985). One experimental result comparing children and adults at the same reading level finds that adults are better at recognizing familiar words but are worse than the children in using letter-sound knowledge (Greenberg et al., 1997).

Sight word recognition is a relative strength among ABE beginning readers and this strength could be used during reading instruction. However, this strength may also make phonics assessment more difficult. While six-year-old beginning readers might be given the words gas, car, or tax to assess their knowledge of individual letter sounds and blending, many adults would know these words by sight, without having to sound them out. For this reason, phonics assessment with adults should include work with nonsense words (e.g., fas, nax, dar) that they do not know by sight.