CC-Saliency and complexity of onsets in spoken language may
influence the development of onset awareness and phoneme
awareness. Caravolas and Bruck (1993) found preliterate Eng-
lish-speaking children were better than preliterate Czech-
speaking children at isolating singleton onsets (onsets with one
consonant), which is an onset–rime awareness skill. In contrast,
Czech-speaking children were better at isolating initial pho-
nemes from cluster onsets (onsets with more than one consonant),
which is a more advanced phoneme-awareness skill. These
findings are consistent with the phonological characteristics of
the two languages: Czech has 258 different cluster onsets that
occur more frequently than the 31 cluster onsets in English.
Thus, frequency of exposure to and/or variety and complexity of
cluster onsets in oral language may guide children to become