Chapter 12. Prosodic Skills and Literacy Acquisition in Spanish

In the acquisition of literacy skills, children have to learn how to use the prosodic marks included in the written script, as prosody is necessary for reading and writing. In this chapter we review the main Spanish suprasegmental elements and how they are represented on the script. We also review the main studies regarding prosodic skills in Spanish and their relationships to literacy acquisition, as well as some prosody training studies. We propose that stress sensitivity, both lexical and metrical, may be related to Spanish literacy acquisition. Moreover, we argue that prosodic reading, or reading with expressiveness, may improve reading comprehension.