Systematic Instruction in Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence for Students With Reading Disabilities

Abstract

Letter-sound knowledge is a strong predictor of a student’s ability to decode words. Approximately 50% of English words can be decoded by following a sound-symbol correspondence rule alone and an additional 36% are spelled with only one error. Many students with reading disabilities or who struggle to learn to read have difficulty with phonology, an understanding of how sounds are organized within language. This can result in difficulty grasping the alphabetic principle, the knowledge of the relation between speech sounds and the letters/letter patterns that represent them. Research has demonstrated the benefits of intensive, explicit instruction for developing struggling readers’ capacity to identify phonemes and apply knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspondence for decoding. In this article, common misconceptions and basic tenets of effective letter-sound instruction are provided to help special educators and reading interventionists plan for effective phoneme-grapheme correspondence instruction for students with reading disabilities or who are at risk for reading failure.