Identity matching of consonant-vowel-consonant words by prereaders.

The team asked prereaders to play a matching game. Kids saw a spoken CVC word like "cat" and then picked the same word from two choices.

All children could already match single letters. The test was whether that letter skill let them tell similar whole words apart.

Accuracy crashed when the words looked almost alike. Most kids could not reliably match "cat" to "cat" when "cap" was the other choice.

The study calls this a failure of stimulus control transfer. In plain words, knowing letters did not automatically teach kids to read words.

Connell et al. (2004) flipped the result. They used a computer to teach letter names and sounds, then kids could match whole spoken words to print. The difference: they trained letters first and used a screen, not cards.

Miller et al. (2025) extends the idea. They showed that having children match the single letters inside a word beats matching the whole word. Their element-matching trick fixed the exact problem Rose et al. (2000) found.

Early et al. (2012) got strong identity matching too, but they worked with adults learning braille. Again, the computer format and clear stimulus differences helped learners succeed.

Do not assume a child who knows letters is ready for similar-looking words. Build lessons that highlight the one changed letter before asking for whole-word matches. Try computer trials or element-matching drills first. These small tweaks can turn a frustrating task into a quick win.