Teaching Phonological Processing Skills in Early Literacy: A Developmental Approach

Abstract

This study evaluated an intervention to enhance early phonological processing skills and reading. Early phonological processing skills are strongly related to progress in early literacy and phonological processing deficits are found related to specific reading disability. Thirty children aged 5.1–6.0 (15 in each of two schools) were assigned to an experimental or control group and compared before and after a 12-week intervention on measures of phonological processing skills and reading. There were no pretreatment differences between groups. The experimental intervention was based on findings of (a) early developmental phases in phonological recoding, (b) reciprocal development between phoneme awareness and phonological recoding, and (c) reciprocal development between phonological processing skills and early reading. The instruction was designed to facilitate the gradually expanding use of letter-phoneme relationships in early reading and spelling. The results indicated that, at posttest, the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group on the measures of phonological processing skills and in reading. Intervention that includes teaching the sounds of letters and phoneme awareness as part of using letter-phoneme relationships in recognizing printed words, in spelling, and in reading (pronouncing words) appears to be effective for enhancing early reading and may possibly reduce the probability of subsequent reading disability.