Improvement In Phonological Awareness Research Articles

Do family learning phonics courses improve parents' reading‐related skills and ability to support their children's reading?

BackgroundParents play a crucial role in supporting children's literacy, especially in the first years of school. However, parents can find this challenging if they struggle with reading themselves. We explore whether family learning phonics courses boost parents' reading‐related skills and ability to support their children's reading, in a collaboration between UK academics and the National Family Learning Forum.MethodsPrior to data collection, academics and course leaders identified key skills for courses to target: phonological awareness, letter‐sounds, segmenting and blending, and awareness of irregular words. Family learning teams recruited parents of Reception children (4–5 years old) for the phonics group (N = 50), targeting parents who were likely to need literacy support. Parents received 6 weeks of 1‐ to 2‐hour phonics sessions in groups. Control participants (N = 76) were recruited online and had a Reception‐age child (4–5 years old); controls received no training. All participants completed phonics‐related tests at weeks 1 and 6.ResultsThe phonics group significantly improved on letter‐sound knowledge (by 4.64 letters; 51 total items); the control group did not significantly improve on this measure. Both groups showed some improvement in phonological awareness and word reading (likely due to practice effects), and neither group improved on nonword reading. The reading questionnaire showed that the phonics group reported giving their children more regular support with literacy activities and placed a higher level of importance on homework, with no increase for the control group.ConclusionsWe provide evidence that family learning phonics courses can improve crucial reading skills (letter‐sound knowledge) and increase parents' confidence to support their children's reading. Some reading skills (phonological awareness, whole word reading, and decoding) may be slower to change and require longer term support. Future work should explore long‐term consequences of such courses for parents' and their children's reading habits and skills.

Mystery of the Runaway Letrabytes: Inclusive Assessment of Phonological Awareness With Tangible Gamification

The development of phonological awareness, i.e. the metacognitive skill that allows thinking and manipulating the language structure, from an early age is mandatory for the acquisition of literacy skills. Multisensory stimulation, curiosity and interest are fundamental for learning. In doing so, Communication Technologies have a key role because a learning-oriented use can encourage current digital natives’ interest and thinking. This paper presents a game with tangible technology designed for both intervention and diagnostic, formative and summative evaluation. The user experience was carried out during two weeks through a multiple case study with four kindergarten children. A multimedia adventure game was presented in which they had to solve phonological awareness challenges through the manipulation of tangible technology to achieve the final goal. The observation was recorded in the designed evaluation model, allowing the analysis of pre- and post-intervention data after the triangulation of data for subsequent qualitative analysis. The results show an improvement in phonological awareness, as well as the gamified experience marks. These promising outcomes support the use of such methodologies to a learner-centered education model.

Using phonics to develop the emergent English literacy skills of Spanish learners

Phonics is well established in the English-speaking world, but to date it has beenimplemented to only a limited extent in contexts where English is a foreign language.This study aimed to evaluate the appropriateness of phonics for developing literacy skills of Spanishlearners of English. An experimental pre-test – post-test design was used to determine the method’sadded value. The sample consisted of two equivalent groups in a Spanish bilingual state primaryschool, a control and a treatment group, where a phonic method was implemented by the researcher.Data were collected through tests measuring emergent Spanish and English literacy skills. Non-parametric tests and correlations were used for data analysis.The treatment group presented a significant improvement in phonological awareness, naming andletter and pseudo-word reading in the Spanish and English post-test. These 7-year-old childrenattained a level in English literacy skills equivalent to English children aged 5.8. The findings alsosuggested a positive transference of skills between English word reading and Spanish pseudo-wordreading.The present study can serve as a possible proposal to help improve our Spanish bilingual programmesthrough the use of phonics in the early years in order to increase learners’ English reading level.

Effects of computerized grapho-phonological training on literacy acquisition and vocabulary knowledge in children with an immigrant background learning German as L2

As a consequence of globalization and migration, the number of children receiving literacy instruction in their second language (L2) is high and still increasing. Therefore, teachers need instruction methods that are effective in both L1 and L2 learners. Here, we investigate the effectiveness of a computerized training program combining phoneme perception, phonological awareness, and systematic phonics, in a sample of second-graders (N = 26) instructed in German as L2. Based on prior evidence concerning (1) literacy acquisition in L2 and (2) effects of literacy development on oral language abilities, we expected significant training effects on children’s literacy skills and vocabulary knowledge. The children of the training group worked through the program during school lessons, 20 min per day, for a period of 8 weeks. The controls continued to receive standard classroom instruction. German tests of phonological awareness, reading, spelling, and vocabulary were performed at three time points (pretest, immediate posttest, and follow-up after 9 weeks). Analyses confirmed that improvements in phonological awareness, spelling, and vocabulary between pretest and posttest were stronger in the training group when compared to the controls. For spelling and vocabulary, these effects were still significant at follow-up. Effect sizes were medium to high. For the reading measures, no group differences were found. In sum, the results yield further evidence for the effectiveness of phonics-based literacy instruction in L2 learners, and for the beneficial effects of basic literacy skills on novel word learning.

The effectiveness of adaptive versus non‐adaptive learning with digital educational games

AbstractFor the training of academic skills, digital educational games with integrated adaptivity are promising. Adaptive games are considered superior to non‐adaptive games, because they constantly assess children's performance, and accordingly adapt the difficulty of the tasks corresponding to the children's individual level. However, empirical evidence with regard to the effectivity of adaptive compared to non‐adaptive games is limited. A study was conducted with 191 children from the third year of Kinder garten who were enrolled in one of three conditions, that is, playing an adaptive version of the reading game (RG), a non‐adaptive version of the RG or training with pen‐and‐paper exercises. In all three conditions, children trained emergent reading (phonological awareness and letter knowledge) once a week for 30 min over a period of 5 weeks. Children's performance on cognitive (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, reading fluency) and non‐cognitive (motivation, self‐concept) factors was assessed. Results revealed a significant improvement in phonological awareness and letter knowledge in all conditions. However, no differences between the conditions were observed with respect to children's improvement on phonological awareness and letter knowledge or on their post‐test scores for reading fluency. With regard to motivation and self‐concept, again, no differences in these non‐cognitive factors were observed across conditions.

Cross-Language Transfer of Phonological Awareness and Letter Knowledge: Causal Evidence and Nature of Transfer

ABSTRACTUsing a randomized control trial, this study examined the causal evidence of cross-language transfer of phonological awareness and letter knowledge (names and sounds) using data from multilingual 1st-grade children (N = 322) in Kenya. Children in the treatment condition received an 8-week instruction on phonological awareness and letter knowledge in Kiswahili. The comparison group received business-as-usual classroom instruction. Children in the treatment condition showed greater improvement in phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge in Kiswahili and English (positive transfer; effect sizes from .37 to .95), whereas a negative effect was found in letter-name knowledge (interference; effect size, g = .27). No effects were found in reading, nor did the results vary by moderators (e.g., Kiswahili vocabulary). Path analyses revealed divergent patterns of results for different outcomes. Results provide causal evidence for cross-language transfer of phonological awareness and letter knowledge and offer important theoretical and practical implications.

Moving Beyond Phonological Awareness: The Role of Phonological Awareness Skills in Arabic Reading Development.

In the current research we investigate the role of early phonological awareness skills on reading development in diglossic Arabic. Two-hundred and six Arabic speaking first graders, composed of 25 at-linguistic risk pupils (LR group) and 181 normally developing readers, representing the found heterogeneity in the classroom participated in this study. For this purpose, phonological training program was developed where we followed the pupils' development in both phonological awareness skills and reading development in second grade. As indicated by the study results, higher achievements in phonological awareness measures was noted among HG group in first grade. After Training, significant improvement in phonological awareness was noted among both groups, where LR group was able to close the gaps in phonological awareness skills with HG group. When examining the relationship between phonological awareness and reading performance, moderate positive correlation was found within HG group whereas strong positive relationship was encountered with the LR group. Despite the progress in phonological awareness skills and its strong relationship with reading, LR group showed lower reading performance when compared to HG group. The study results are discussed in relation to its scientific and didactic implications on Arabic reading acquisition.

Visuomotor integration and inhibitory control compensate for each other in school readiness.

Visuomotor integration (VMI), or the ability to copy designs, and 2 measures of executive function were examined in a predominantly low-income, typically developing sample of children (n = 467, mean age 4.2 years) from 5 U.S. states. In regression models controlling for age and demographic variables, we tested the interaction between visuomotor integration (design copying) and inhibitory control (pencil-tap) or verbal working memory (digit span) on 4 directly assessed academic skills and teacher-reported approaches to learning. Compared with children with both poor visuomotor integration and low inhibitory control, those on the higher end of the continuum in at least 1 of these 2 skills performed better across several dependent variables. This compensatory pattern was evident for longitudinal improvement in print knowledge on the Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL), with similar though marginally significant findings for improvement in phonological awareness (TOPEL) and teacher-rated approaches to learning on the Preschool Learning Behaviors Scale (PLBS). Of note, the same compensatory pattern emerged for concurrently measured receptive vocabulary on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), expressive vocabulary on the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ), TOPEL phonological awareness, and teacher-rated approaches to learning. The consistent pattern of results suggests that strong visuomotor integration skills are an important part of school readiness, and merit further study.

Does spelling instruction make students better spellers, readers, and writers? A meta-analytic review

Despite the importance of spelling for both writing and reading, there is considerable disagreement regarding how spelling skills are best acquired. During this and virtually all of the last century, some scholars have argued that spelling should not be directly or formally taught as such instruction is not effective or efficient. We conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies to address these claims. The corpus of 53 studies in this review included 6,037 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and yielded 58 effect sizes (ESs) that were used to answer eight research questions concerning the impact of formally teaching spelling on spelling, phonological awareness, reading, and writing performance. An average weighted ES was calculated for each question and the quality of included studies was systematically evaluated. Results provided strong and consistent support for teaching spelling, as it improved spelling performance when compared to no/unrelated instruction (ES = 0.54) or informal/incidental approaches to improving spelling performance (ES = 0.43). Increasing the amount of formal spelling instruction also proved beneficial (ES = 0.70). Gains in spelling were maintained over time (ES = 0.53) and generalized to spelling when writing (ES = 0.94). Improvements in phonological awareness (ES = 0.51) and reading skills (ES = 0.44) were also found. The positive outcomes associated with formal spelling instruction were generally consistent, regardless of students’ grade level or literacy skills.

A Tale of Two Studies on Auditory Training in Children: A Response to the Claim that ‘Discrimination Training of Phonemic Contrasts Enhances Phonological Processing in Mainstream School Children’ by Moore, Rosenberg and Coleman (2005)

In a previous article, Moore, Rosenberg and Coleman (Brain and Language, 2005, 94, 72-85) reported evidence for significant improvements in phonological awareness in mainstream children following 6 h of exposure to a commercially available phoneme discrimination training programme, but not in a control group. In a follow-up study, we failed to replicate this finding, despite using an almost identical training programme (Halliday, Taylor, Millward, & Moore, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2012, 55, 168-181). This paper directly compares the methods and the results of the two studies, in an effort to explain the discrepant findings. It reports that the trained group in Moore et al. (2005) showed significantly greater improvements in phonological awareness following training than the trained group in Halliday et al. (2012). However, the control group in Halliday et al. (2012) showed significantly greater improvements in phonological awareness than the control group in Moore et al. (2005). The paper concludes that differences in the randomization, blinding, experimenter familiarity and treatment of trained and control groups contributed to the different outcomes of the two studies. The results indicate that a plethora of factors can contribute to training effects and highlight the importance of well-designed randomized controlled trials in assessing the efficacy of a given intervention. © 2014 The Authors. Dyslexia published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Phonological skills and ability to perceive auditorily the structure of a word at the level of a single phoneme at ages 2–6

The present study is the first part of a longitudinal research project investigating whether children become more aware of phonemes or rhyming when they learn letters or letter sounds or even begin to read, and if so how. For the present paper, the phonological awareness of young children aged 2–6 years was analyzed, particularly their auditory knowledge of the phonemic structure of words as well as their knowledge of rhyme. Altogether, 110 children from Finnish day-care centres performed seven phonological tasks and a vocabulary size test. The results showed a clear age-dependent improvement in phonological awareness. Blending words of phonemes, separating rhyming words from each other and correcting words by substituting the wrong phoneme with the right one were found to be easier tasks for 2- to 5-year-old children than producing rhymes, twisting words or detecting an initial letter.

E-books effectiveness in promoting phonological awareness and concept about print: A comparison between children at risk for learning disabilities and typically developing kindergarteners

Despite the young child’s increasing access to electronic books and the evidence indicating it’s effectiveness for promoting emergent literacy, research among young children at risk for learning disabilities is only just beginning. Motivated by this challenge, the study reported here compared the effect of an educational e-book on improvements in Phonological Awareness (PA) and Concept About Print (CAP) among 136 pre-school-aged children at risk for learning disabilities (ALD) and typically developing children (TD). The findings indicated improved performance by both experimental groups, but especially ALD children in the area of CAP. These results are explained by the effectiveness of the multimedia e-book especially for ALD. Implications are discussed.

Effectiveness of an integrated phonological awareness approach for children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS)

This study investigated the effectiveness of an integrated phonological awareness approach for children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Change in speech, phonological awareness, letter knowledge, word decoding, and spelling skills were examined. A controlled multiple single-subject design was employed. Twelve children aged 4—7 years with CAS participated in two 6-week intervention blocks (2 sessions per week), separated by a 6-week withdrawal block. Nine children with CAS made significant gains in their production of target speech sounds and these demonstrated transfer of skills to connected speech for at least one speech target. Eight children showed significant gains in at least one target phoneme awareness skill, and these children demonstrated transfer of skills to novel phoneme awareness tasks. As a group the children with CAS demonstrated improvement in phonological awareness, letter knowledge, word decoding, and spelling ability. An integrated phonological awareness programme was an effective method of simultaneously improving speech, phoneme awareness, word decoding, and spelling ability for some children with CAS.

A randomized controlled trial study of the ABRACADABRA reading intervention program in grade 1.

This study reports a randomized controlled trial evaluation of a computer-based balanced literacy intervention, ABRACADABRA (http://grover.concordia.calabralversionl/abracadabra.html).Children (N = 144) in Grade I were exposed either to computer activities for word analysis, text comprehension, and fluency, alongside shared stories (experimental groups), or to balanced literacy approaches delivered by their classroom teachers (control group). Two computer-based interventions-a phoneme-based synthetic phonics method and a rime-based analytic phonics method-were contrasted. Children were taught 4 times per week for 12 weeks in small groups. There were significant improvements in letter knowledge in the analytic phonics program and significant improvements in phonological awareness, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension at immediate posttest and in phonological awareness and reading fluency at a delayed posttest in the synthetic phonics program. Effect size analyses confirmed that both interventions had a significant impact on literacy at both posttests.

Using embedded words to kick-start phonological awareness in a seven-year-old child with persistent phonological difficulties

This study aimed to determine if using embedded words in a speech and language intervention could help a seven-year-old boy with persistent phonological difficulties to segment words into syllables. Single subject research design was carried out with pre and post intervention assessments. Intervention consisted of twelve, 60 minute, individual speech and language therapy sessions over a six-week period. Assessment prior to the onset of therapy showed that the participant had no awareness of linguistic units at syllable, onset/rime or phoneme level. The intervention consisted of an identification task where short words, like gate, were embedded in longer words, like alligator. The results showed that there were significant improvements in syllable segmentation at the end of therapy and this improvement was maintained after a period of 3 months during which time no speech and language therapy was given. There were additional signi ficant improvements in phonological awareness at the onset/rime level and significant improvements in word finding ability. Conclusions are that more research is needed on the effectiveness of interventions for children who have persistent difficulties with the phonologically-based aspects of speech, language and literacy.

Interactions with talking books: phonological awareness affects boys' use of talking books

Abstract Framed by current concerns about boys' attainment in literacy, this paper investigates the potential of talking books software to support the literacy development of male beginning readers. The study primarily considered whether typically developing boys who showed lower levels of attainment in phonological awareness would show a greater degree of improvement in phonological awareness or a change in reading strategy, following a talking books intervention, than boys who were demonstrating higher levels of phonological awareness. It also examined whether the boys' phonological awareness attainment would affect how they used the software to support their attempts at reading, both in terms of their interactions with the computer and the types of speech feedback that they selected. The analysis also considered whether there was any association between the nature of the boys' teaching and learning interactions with the computer and any changes in their reading strategies from pre‐ to post‐test. The findings suggest that the use of the talking books software was particularly beneficial for boys who initially showed lower phonological proficiency, and that the boys in this study utilised the talking books software adaptively depending on their phonological proficiency. Moreover, there was evidence that contact with the talking books affected the reading strategies of the boys who had higher phonological awareness. There was also evidence of an association between the way in which the boys interacted with the software and changes in their reading strategy between pre‐ and post‐test.

Discrimination training of phonemic contrasts enhances phonological processing in mainstream school children

Auditory perceptual learning has been proposed as effective for remediating impaired language and for enhancing normal language development. We examined the effect of phonemic contrast discrimination training on the discrimination of whole words and on phonological awareness in 8- to 10-year-old mainstream school children. Eleven phonemic contrast continua were synthesised using linear interpolation coding from real speaker endpoints. Thirty children were pre-tested on the Word Discrimination Test (WDT) and the Phonological Assessment Battery (PhAB). Eighteen then trained for 12 × 30 min sessions over 4 weeks using an adaptive three interval two alternative phonemic matching task. The remaining children participated in regular classroom activities. In Post-testing, trained children significantly increased their age-equivalent scores on both the WDT and PhAB by about 2 years. For the PhAB, no improvement was found in the controls. Enhanced performance in the trained children was maintained in a delayed test 5–6 weeks following training. Enhancements on the trained discriminations were weak and variable. The results indicate a dramatic improvement in phonological awareness following phonemic discrimination training without matching perceptual learning.

Efeitos do treino de consciência fonológica em crianças com baixo nível sócio-econômico

Um treino de consciência fonológica e de correspondências grafo-fonêmicas foi aplicado a crianças de nível sócio-econômico (NSE) baixo, alunas de Primeira Série do ensino fundamental de uma escola pública. Foram avaliados os efeitos sobre habilidades metafonológicas, leitura, escrita, conhecimento de letras, memória de trabalho e acesso léxico à memória de longo-prazo. O grupo experimental, com escore inicial em consciência fonológica abaixo da média, foi comparado a dois grupos controle, um com escore abaixo da média, e outro acima. Após 27 sessões de treino de 30 minutos cada, o grupo experimental apresentou ganhos em consciência fonológica, leitura e ditado de palavras e pseudopalavras, e conhecimento de letras. O estudo demonstra que é possível tratar atrasos em consciência fonológica, em leitura e escrita de crianças com NSE baixo, usando o mesmo procedimento de treino que já havia tido sucesso em crianças de NSE médio.