Gender Gaps in Letter-Sound Knowledge Persist Across the First School Year.

Hermundur Sigmundsson,Monika Haga,Adrian Dybfest Eriksen,Greta S Ofteland

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00301

Hermundur Sigmundsson, Monika Haga + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00301

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Abstract

Literacy is the cornerstone of a primary school education and enables the intellectual and social development of young children. Letter-sound knowledge has been identified as critical for developing proficiency in reading. This study explored the development of letter-sound knowledge in relation to gender during the first year of primary school. 485 Norwegian children aged 5–6 years completed assessment of letter-sound knowledge, i.e., uppercase letters- name; uppercase letter -sound; lowercase letters- name; lowercase letter-sound. The children were tested in the beginning, middle, and end of their first school year. The results revealed a clear gender difference in all four variables in favor of the girls which were relatively constant over time. Implications for understanding the role of gender and letter-sound knowledge for later reading performance are discussed.

Highlights

Literacy is one of the main goals of primary education and is attained predominantly through reading, writing, speaking and listening (Rose, 2006)
The aim of this study was to examine how letter-sound knowledge develops in girls and boys during their first year of primary school
There was no significant time x gender interaction [F(1.553, 635) = 0.456, ns; partial η2 = 0.001]. These results demonstrate that, over time, the development in letter-sound knowledge were similar for both girls and boys, but that the relative difference in performance between genders tended to persist (Figure 1)

Summary

Introduction

Literacy is one of the main goals of primary education and is attained predominantly through reading, writing, speaking and listening (Rose, 2006). All of these domains facilitate children’s intellectual, emotional and social development. A lack of basic reading skills at a young age is later associated with behavior problems and academic shortcomings (Adams, 1990; Elbaum et al, 2000; Tønnessen and Uppstad, 2015). Achieving a sufficient level of awareness and automaticity in reading requires a systematic knowledge of phonemes, i.e., knowing the sound of each letter in the alphabet (Hulme et al, 2012; Tønnessen and Uppstad, 2015). Importance of Letter-Sound Knowledge for Reading Development

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