Chinese adults literate only in Chinese characters could not add or delete individual consonants in spoken Chinese words. A comparable group of adults, literate in alphabetic spelling as well as characters, could perform the same tasks readily and accurately. The two groups were similar in education and experience but differed in age and consequently in whether they had learned an alphabetic writing system in school. Even adults who had once learned alphabetic writing but were no longer able to use it were able to manipulate speech sounds in this way. This “segmentation” skill, which has been shown to contribute to skilled reading and writing, does not develop with cognitive maturation, non-alphabetic literacy, or exposure to a language rich in rhymes