The spelling of final letter patterns: A comparison of instruction at the level of the phoneme and the rime

Two groups of first graders (n=63) participated in a brief 10-day intervention study in which they were instructed in the spelling of five final letter patterns in monosyllabic words. Apart from the final letter pattern sh, the other four patterns (nk, ke, sk, and ck) incorporated the phoneme /k/. One group received phoneme-based instruction that emphasized the direct relation between final speech sounds and their spelling patterns, whereas the second group received linguistically implicit instruction that focused solely on the spelling of the rime. The group receiving phoneme instruction (PI) improved accuracy of final pattern spelling as well as speed of word reading over the group receiving rime instruction (RI). The representation of one sound with the digraphs sh or ck did not confuse first graders as much as the discrimination and representation of two sounds with the blends sk and nk, or spelling of /k/ with ke when preceded by a long or tense vowel. The results suggest that the difficulty for beginning spelling does not necessarily lie in the letter pattern but in the sound sequence that is represented by letters. The results seem to support phoneme-based spelling instruction.