Graphophonemic awareness in adults after instruction in phonic generalisations

Abstract

A number of studies have shown, counter-intuitively, that skilled adult readers find it difficult to correctly relate phonemes to graphemes in written words. In most adults this is of little consequence. However, teachers are required to show children how to relate phonemes to graphemes when teaching reading. This study investigated whether a brief period of instruction would improve the ability of adults in this task. Results showed a general level of improvement relative to controls. Exposure alone to the task had no effect. Improvement for the instructed group was not very large and there was difficulty relating phonemes to graphemes which had more than one letter. It may be that trainee teachers need instruction to improve knowledge of grapheme phoneme correspondence so that they can pass such knowledge onto young readers.