Phonemic awareness,spontaneous writing,and reading and spelling development from a preventive perspective

This study examined the nature of the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading and spelling development and focused particularlyon the development of early self-directed writing. The spontaneous writing attempts of 44 first-graders were followed on 6 test occasions from the start of grade 1 (7 years) until the middle of grade 2. The children were divided into 2 groups, one group (N = 21) with a high level of phonemic awareness on entry into grade 1 (HPA) and one group (N = 23) with a low level on entry (LPA). The connection between level of inventedspelling used in the self-directed writing and later reading andspelling achievement in grades 1 and 2 was investigated. The results showed remarkable differences between the two groups. Level of invented spelling at Time 1 was highly predictive of both reading and spelling achievement at the end of grades 1 and 2, but only for the HPA group. With Time of Mastery regarding phonemic spelling as the independent variable and reading and spelling at the end of grade 2 as the dependent variable, regressions analysis indicated strong direct effects of early phonemic spelling upon later reading and spelling development, but only for the LPA children. The two groups showed different patterns of development in learning to read and spell during grades 1 and 2.     

Orthographic awareness,phonemic awareness,syntactic processing,and working memory skill in hyperlexic children

Children classified as hyperlexic learn to readwords spontaneously before age five, areimpaired in both reading and listeningcomprehension, and exhibit word recognitionskills above their linguistic and cognitiveabilities. Despite their strong wordrecognition skills, previous studies have shownthat the phonemic awareness skills ofhyperlexic children are low and notcommensurate with their word reading skill, inpart because of their limited comprehension of phonemic awareness tasks. Heretofore, a verylimited number of studies have investigateddirectly the orthographic processing, syntacticprocessing, and working memory skills ofchildren with hyperlexia. In the presentstudy, measures of orthographic processing,syntactic processing, and working memory skillwere administered to three hyperlexic childrenand three normally achieving readers; inaddition, measures of phonemic awareness,academic achievement, and cognitive abilitywere also administered. Results showed thatthe hyperlexic children performed aboveexpectations on the orthographic processingmeasures based on their cognitive andlinguistic abilities. The children withhyperlexia did not exhibit orthographic skillsthat were superior to the normally achievingreaders, although ceiling effects on theorthographic tasks may not have allowed them todemonstrate this skill. The three children withhyperlexia achieved lower scores than thenormally achieving readers on the syntacticprocessing measures and had great difficulty onthe phonemic awareness measures. Only one ofthe three hyperlexic children performed at alevel consistent with that of normallyachieving readers on the working memorymeasures. Findings suggest the hyperlexicchildren had levels of orthographic processingsimilar to that of normally achieving readers,read words using strategies similar to those ofnormal readers, and had phonemic awarenessskill that appears to be adequate for wordanalysis but could not be demonstrated ontraditional phonemic awareness measures.     

The effects of syllable instruction on phonemic awareness in preschoolers

Purpose

Preschooler instruction for speech sound awareness typically teaches a progression of speech units from sentences to phonemes, ending at simple first phoneme activities. This study investigates the effects of teaching advanced tasks of phoneme blending and segmenting with and without the larger speech unit of the syllable.

Method

Thirty-nine 4-5-year-old typically developing children received twice-weekly small-group instruction in three conditions: two weeks of syllable tasks then four weeks of multiple phoneme tasks (SP), four weeks of multiple phoneme tasks only (MP), or an active control condition of first phoneme instruction (FP).

Results

The conditions SP and MP showed large significant gains on blending and segmenting and no significant differences on first phoneme isolating compared to the FP condition. A comparison of SP and MP did not show significant differences on phoneme blending and segmenting, but SP showed significantly more confusion during early sessions of phoneme instruction.

Conclusion

This preliminary evidence suggests that preschoolers can improve understanding of phoneme blending and segmenting, without first being taught syllable blending and segmenting, and with no negative effects on first sound awareness. These findings support a more efficient way of teaching preschoolers awareness of the individual sounds of speech. Replication with a larger sample, including children at-risk for literacy difficulties, is recommended before firm conclusions should be drawn.     

Differences in reading development among Danish beginning-readers with high versus low phonemic awareness on entering grade one

This longitudinal study explored the relation betweenpreschool phoneme awareness and initial reading development. Distinctions were made between formal and functional letter knowledge and between foundation and subsequent phases of reading development. 44 children with at least average language comprehension were followed from the beginning of grade 1(7 years) until the end of grade 2. They were divided intotwo groups: one group of 21 children with high phonemic awareness (HPA) and 23 children with low phonemic awareness (LPA) on entering grade 1. The results showed persistent group differences in favour of the HPA children regarding letter-knowledge and word reading. The results confirmed a significant impact of functional letter knowledge on the length of the foundation period and on later reading development. Length of foundation period was shown to have a significant impact on reading development at the end of grades 1 and 2. It is argued that phonemic awareness is an indispensable catalystin the development of initial word processing ability.     

The effectiveness of synthetic phonics in the development of early reading skills among struggling young ESL readers

A quasi-experimental research design was used to investigate the effectiveness of synthetic phonics in the development of early reading skills among struggling young English as a second language (ESL) readers in a rural school. The pretest and posttest, adapted from the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) for Preschool Students and Grades 1 to 3 tests, assessed children’s early reading skills. A semi-structured interview was used to gather information. The findings indicated that the performance of students in the experimental group in decoding was significantly higher in the posttest, where t(39) = 31.441, p < .00005. Likewise, in comprehension, the experimental group achieved significantly higher scores in the posttest, where t(39) = 15.322, p < .00005. There was a significant difference in the achievement between the two groups, where t(78) = 31.010, p < .00005. This indicates that synthetic phonics could be effective in developing early reading skills for struggling readers.     

Clinical appraisal of spelling ability and its relationship to phonemic awareness (blending,segmenting, elision,and reversal), phonological memory,and reading in reading disabled,ADHD, and normal children

Seventy-eight 8-to-12-year-old children (34 ReadingDisabled; 31 Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disordered; and 13diagnosed normal controls) were given a battery oftests including cognitive, linguistic, academic,phonemic awareness, and memory tests. As part of theacademic battery an 8-point spelling rating scale wasdeveloped (Rating Scale) that resulted in threedifferent scores which reliably discriminated amongthe three groups. Relationships between phonemicawareness, phonological memory, reading and spellingwere explored. Zero-order and second-ordercorrelations were completed with indications thatphonemic awareness tasks (elision, blending, reversal,and segmenting) and phonological memory (WISC-IIIDigit Span) are significantly correlated with readingdecoding and spelling measures with slightly highercorrelations with the Rating Scale. Regressionanalyses resulted in a large proportion of thevariance on reading and spelling tasks accounted forby phonemic awareness (particularly elision andreversal) and phonological memory. The ReadingDisabled group was found to produce more errors thatwere phonetically inaccurate than the other twogroups. The demand of spelling ten ``error' wordsbeyond the RD students' achievement level appeared toelicit greater weaknesses in their phonologicalrecoding abilities than in those of the ADHD ornormally achieving students.     

Levels of phonological representation in skilled reading and in learning to read

This paper refers to and discusses empiricalevidence supporting the general idea that bothskilled reading and learning to read capitalizeon underlying phonological representations.These representations must be specified interms of degree of abstractness, unitsrepresented and degree of conscious access tothese units. In skilled reading, pre-lexicalrepresentations, at different levels ofphonological structure, are unconsciously,mandatorily and automatically activated, inconnection with correspondent orthographicrepresentations. This process is distinct fromthe intentional and controlled phonologicaldecoding assumed by the classic dual-routemodel. Learning to read may be described as theprogression from conscious phonologicaldecoding, in which phoneme awareness plays acritical role, to the unconscious mapping oforthographic and phonological segments.Phonological dyslexia is related to someanomaly in speech perception capacities, makingit difficult both to develop efficientconscious segmentation abilities andgrapho-phonological decoding. It is suggestedthat this conscious speech segmentation deficitis caused by a lack of appropriate segmentationat the unconscious, perceptual level.     

Cultivating morphological awareness improves reading skills in fifth-grade Hebrew readers

The effectiveness of an intervention program aimed at improving morphological awareness was evaluated in Hebrew-speaking poor readers in Grade 5. The 12-week intervention in small groups focused on learning morphological structure of words by identifying, decomposing, and constructing morphologically complex words. Results were compared with a comparison group of similarly poor readers that participated in the school’s reading support program focused on reading comprehension strategies. The intervention group improved morphological awareness to a greater extent than the comparison group and also showed a clear advantage in their reading accuracy and reading comprehension. The results suggest that morphological instruction develops awareness of the morphemic structure of words that contributes to extracting meaning from texts.     

The necessity of the alphabetic principle to phonemic awareness instruction

This investigation examined the extent to whichcurricular choice and incorporation of phonemicawareness (PA) into the kindergarten curriculumaffects growth in kindergarten literacy skillsand first-grade reading and spelling outcomesin 114 classrooms in 32 Title 1 schools for4,872 children (85% African American). Literacy curricula were described as havingmore or less teacher choice and more or less PAand were implemented with ongoing professionaldevelopment. Observations of curriculumfidelities and ratings of student behavior werealso obtained. Alphabetic instruction withoutPA was not as effective as alphabeticinstruction with PA. However, effectiveinstruction in PA and alphabetic codingappeared to be as much a consequence of ongoingprofessional development as it was a functionof prescribed PA activities. Results providelarge-scale classroom support for findings onPA reported by the National Reading Panel[(2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-basedassessment of the scientific research literature onreading and its implications for reading instruction.Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health andHuman Development].     

The effects of morphological versus phonological awareness training in kindergarten on reading development

The aim of this study was toinvestigate the long-term effects of twodifferent training programs in kindergarten onreading development. One group received aprogram focusing on the phonological structureof words, while a second group received aprogram focusing on morphology. Both groupsalso had some print exposure focusing onphonological or morphological elementsrespectively. During their last pre-schoolyear, participants received training for 30minutes per week for a total of 17 weeks. Acontrol group received no intervention but wasregularly visited by the researcher and hadextensive print exposure. Both trained groupsshowed improvements in phonological,morphological and reading skills in comparisonto the Control Group. The effects of trainingvaried according to mother's educational level:Children of relatively highly educated mothersentered the pre-school training with betterdeveloped metalinguistic abilities thanchildren of less well educated mothers.Significant interactions between the groups andthe mother's educational level, for some of theschool reading measures, indicated thatdifferent training programs had differenteffects on different groups of children.Children of poorly educated mothers profitedthe most from metaphonological training whilechildren of highly educated mothers profitedthe most from metamorphological training.     

The role of different levels of phonological awareness in the development of reading and spelling in Greek

Phonological awareness is a strong predictor of children's progress in literacy acquisition. There are different ways of segmenting words into sound sequences – syllables, phonemes, onset-rime – and little is known about whether these different levels of segmentation vary in their contribution to reading and writing. Does one of them – for example, phoneme awareness – play the major role in learning to read and spell making the other phonological units irrelevant to the prediction of reading? Or do different levels of analysis make independent contributions to reading and spelling?

Our study investigated whether syllable and phoneme awareness make independent contributions to reading and spelling in Greek. Four measures were used: syllable awareness, phoneme awareness, reading and spelling. Analyses of variance showed that Greek speaking children found it easier to analyse words into syllables than phonemes, irrespective of the influence of task variables such as position of the phonological element, word length, and placement of stress in the word. Regression analyses showed that syllable and phoneme awareness make significant and independent contributions to learning written Greek. We conclude that phonological awareness is a multidimensional phenomenon and that the different dimensions contribute to reading and writing in Greek.

     

Raising the reading skills of secondary-age students with severe and persistent reading difficulties: evaluation of the efficacy and implementation of a phonics-based intervention programme

The importance of reading skills to academic achievement, job acquisition and future success is well documented. Most of the research on reading interventions focuses on children in primary schools but many children start secondary school with very poor reading skills and schools require evidence-based interventions to support these children. The aims of this study were (i) to explore the efficacy of a phonics-based reading intervention programme, Toe By Toe, among secondary age students with severe reading difficulties and (ii) to examine perceived barriers to implementing this intervention programme. Results showed the intervention brought about a statistically significant improvement in the students’ decoding and word reading skills. Interviews with staff and students indicated a wide range of positive responses to the intervention and some key barriers to implementation. This study adds to the evidence base for the use of reading interventions in secondary schools to support students with severe reading difficulties.     

The relationship between phonological awareness and the development of orthographic representations

A training study was conducted to investigatethe relationship between phoneme segmentationability and the development of orthographicrepresentations. Five-year-old children withvarying degrees of phoneme segmentationability were taught to read ten new words byrepeated presentation of the words onflashcards. It was found that those childrenwho were most well equipped to perform phonemesegmentation tasks acquired this new readingvocabulary significantly faster than those whowere less phonemically aware. A series ofpost-tests was implemented to discover thenature of the internal orthographicrepresentations which the children had createdfor the words learned. The results of thesepost-tests demonstrated that the children whowere most phonemically aware had alsointernalised the most detailed orthographicrepresentations, despite needing fewerlearning trials. Salient letters fororthographic storage were predictable from thechildren's phoneme segmentation abilities. This paper provides strong support for thethesis that phonemic awareness is related toorthographic storage as well as alphabeticreading techniques.     

Influence of eye movements,auditory perception,and phonemic awareness in the reading process

The authors' aim was to analyze the relationship of eye movements, auditory perception, and phonemic awareness with the reading process. The instruments used were the King-Devick Test (saccade eye movements), the PAF test (auditory perception), the PFC (phonemic awareness), the PROLEC-R (lexical process), the Canals reading speed test, and the ACL-1 (reading comprehension). The sample was composed of 52 first-year primary school pupils. After the correlational analysis, results indicate that all of these factors correlate in reading (lexical process, speed, and word comprehension). Moreover, the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test reveals that children with saccade eye movements and auditory perception problems obtain lower reading levels. In addition, children with lexical problems obtain a lower level of phonemic awareness. Given the importance of these variables, the authors conclude with a proposal of neuropsychological activities to improve reading skills.     

The linguistic base of initial reading and spelling in English: a tutorial review

ABSTRACT

This article summarises the linguistic base of initial reading and spelling in English for the benefit of teachers and others engaged in education who need explicit understanding of parts of the linguistic base in order to teach initial literacy accurately. The aspects covered are those most relevant to children entering formal schooling: spoken language as the foundation of literacy; phonetics and phonology; phoneme-grapheme and grapheme-phoneme correspondences; sequencing in phonics teaching; vocabulary, morphology and syntax; and the linguistic effects of reading to children. Several aspects are discussed from two angles, first describing the full system, then summarising where 5-year-olds have reached in their development towards it.     

Children with Down syndrome use phonological knowledge in reading

Contrary to the findings of Cossu, Rossini &Marshall [(1993a), Cognition 46: 129–138], the present experiment showed a clear link between phonological awareness and reading performance in children with Down syndrome. Although metaphonologicalperformance was lower in children with Downsyndrome than in normal controls of the samereading level, phonological awareness andreading were significantly correlated in bothgroups. However, children with Down syndromeremained deficient in skills such as rhymingwhich are not practised as a result ofliteracy. These results are discussed withinthe framework of Gombert's metalinguisticdevelopment theory where, on the basis of aninitial phonological sensitivity, alphabeticreading is a pacemaker for the development ofexplicit phonological awareness.     

Interactions in the development of spelling,reading and phonological skills

Early interactive processes of development in reading, spelling and implicit and explicit phonological awareness were assessed in a group of children at four time-points as they progressed through their first three years in school. Exploratory causal path analyses were used to investigate the contribution of each ability to the subsequent growth of skill in reading, spelling and phonological awareness. The resultant structural models demonstrate a role of spelling in the early stages of reading acquisition, as well as differential contributions of implicit and explicit phonological awareness to both reading and spelling. They also suggest a developmental cascade from implicit to explicit phonemic awareness in the normal acquisition of phonological knowledge and associated skills. In the early formulative stages of reading implicit phonemic awareness and reading act reciprocally to build skill in each other. But, as ability in word recognition improves, implicit phonemic awareness plays a diminished role in reading. This pattern of initial reciprocal influence and later dissociation is repeated in the relationship between implicit phoneme awareness and spelling. Explicit phonemic awareness is an important factor in the first stages of spelling development but only emerges later as a significant contributor to reading. The early influence of explicit phoneme awareness on spelling, in conjunction with the major contribution of spelling to beginning reading, indicates that experience in spelling promotes the use of a phonological strategy in reading. Within a developmental context, explicit phoneme awareness initially appears to grow out of an implicit appreciation of the overall sound properties of words. Thereafter, ability to identify and segment phonemes develops independently of implicit phonemic awareness and plays an increasingly important role in the further growth of reading and spelling.