Beginning Reading by Teaching in Rime Analogy: Effects on Phonological Skills, Letter-Sound Knowledge, Working Memory, and Word-Reading Strategies

Abstract

Prereading kindergartners were assigned to groups that varied experience with (a) the rime analogy reading strategy; (b) the implicated prereading skills of rhyming, initial phoneme identity, and letter-sounds; or (c) a control group. Teaching in the rime analogy strategy and the prereading skills resulted in more reading than teaching in the rime analogy strategy or prereading skills alone. Many children developed the untaught abilities of medial and final phoneme identity and the letter recoding reading strategy. Children with high prereading skill levels read the most words, and the use of specific prereading skills varied across different reading word types. Working memory was unrelated to increases in prereading skills or reading. Children were able to generalize the rime analogy strategy to read words with unfamiliar rime spellings.