Suprasegmental phonology
Suprasegmental phonology is the study of stress, intonation and rhythm within the sound systems of a language.
Suprasegmental phonology refers to intonation patterns, stress placement and rhythm in spoken language; also called prosody. It involves the melody of spoken language; this includes awareness of speech rhythm, and perception and production of stress placement and word boundaries. Apart from oral prosody, suprasegmental phonology can also be assessed in a more holistic manner, namely with text reading prosody. In this type of assessment, a correct use of pauses, phrase boundaries and intonation patterns is assessed, whilst children are reading out loud.
Benjamin, R. G., Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2010). Text complexity and oral reading prosody in young readers. Reading Research Quarterly.
Miller, J., Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2008). A longitudinal study of the development of reading prosody as a dimension of oral reading fluency in early primary school children. Reading Research Quarterly.