Letter-sound Correspondences Research Articles

Use of a fixed array appears more effective than gradually introducing distractors when teaching sound–letter correspondence to two children with autism

ed from: Johnston, S. S., Buchanan, S., & Davenport, L. (2009). Comparison of fixed and gradual array when teaching sound–letter correspondence to two children with autism who use AAC. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 25, 136–144. Source of funding and disclosure of interest: No funding sources reported; no conflicts of interest by the authors of the original study reported.

Early orthographic influences on phonemic awareness tasks: Evidence from a preschool training study

Experienced readers show influences of orthographic knowledge on tasks ostensibly tapping phonemic awareness. Here we draw on data from an experimental training study to demonstrate that even preschoolers show influences of their emerging orthographic abilities in such tasks. A total of 40 children were taught some letter–sound correspondences but not others. A selective effect of this training was found on their phonemic awareness task performance for the trained items. These findings point to the multidetermined nature of performance on tasks normally considered as measuring phonemic awareness and have implications for theories of the role of phonemic awareness in reading acquisition.

Learning to read and spell in Persian: A cross-sectional study from Grades 1 to 4.

We investigated the reading and spelling development of 140 Persian children attending Grades 1-4 in Iran. Persian has very consistent letter-sound correspondences, but it varies in transparency because 3 of its 6 vowel phonemes are not marked with letters. Persian also varies in spelling consistency because 6 phonemes have more than one orthographic representation. We tested whether lexicality effects-an advantage of words over nonwords-would be affected be reading transparency and spelling consistency. We found that children became more efficient readers and spellers across grades, with the greatest growth occurring between Grades 1 and 2. For reading, lexicality effects were present with transparent words starting in Grade 2, but lexicality effects with opaque words were not yet present in Grade 4. As expected, the size of transparency effects for reading decreased across grades. For spelling, however, there was no lexicality effect for either consistent or inconsistent words. Moreover, consistency effects were large and did not decrease systematically across grades. Most interesting from a developmental perspective was the finding that both reading transparency and spelling polygraphy affected reading as well as spelling in Grades 1 and 2, but the word characteristics had differential effects as a function of literacy task in Grades 3 and 4. This pattern highlights the vulnerability of children's representations and processes during the early phases of acquisition as well as the rapidity with which representations and processes become specialized as a function of the literacy task at hand.

Through the magnifying glass: Underlying literacy deficits and remediation potential in Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Interactions among psycholinguistic deficits and literacy difficulties in childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) have been inadequately studied. Comparisons with other disorders (Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and phonological dyslexia) and the possibility of reading remediation in CAS warrant further research. This case study describes the speech, language, cognitive, and literacy deficits and therapy gains in a girl aged 11;6 with severe CAS and borderline IQ. A comprehensive assessment of literacy-related cognitive skills, including phonological memory and working memory capacity, language, speech production and reading skills, was administered. Treatment from 6;0 to 11;6 targeted speech sounds, oral sequencing, phonological awareness (PA), speech-print connections, syllabic structure, and real and non-word decoding. Phonological memory was similar to that of children with SLI, but working memory was significantly worse. Unlike children with phonological dyslexia, our participant demonstrated relative strength in letter-sound correspondence rules. Despite deficits, she made progress in literacy with intensive long-term intervention. Results suggest that the underlying cognitive-linguistic profile of children with CAS may differ from those of children with SLI or dyslexia. Our results also show that long-term intensive intervention promotes acquisition of adequate literacy skills even in a child with a severe motor speech disorder and borderline IQ.

Using simultaneous prompting to teach sounds and blending skills to students with moderate intellectual disabilities

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of simultaneous prompting on acquisition of letter-sound correspondences and blending skills of previously taught words for three elementary students with moderate intellectual disabilities, and to measure generalization of those skills to untaught words. The three students were first taught to read five nouns using sight-word instruction. After acquisition of the five words the students were taught letter-sound correspondences and to blend the sounds in order to apply word-analysis skills. All the students demonstrated application of letter-sound correspondences and blending skills to read the five sight words and the untaught, generalization words. This study took place across two partial academic school years and therefore provides regression and recoupment data for the students.

Why Elementary Teachers Might Be Inadequately Prepared to Teach Reading

Several national reports have suggested the usefulness of systematic, explicit, synthetic phonics instruction based on English word structure along with wide reading of quality literature for supporting development in early reading instruction. Other studies have indicated, however, that many in-service teachers are not knowledgeable in the basic concepts of the English language. They may be well versed in children’s literature but not know how to address the basic building blocks of language and reading. The authors hypothesized that one of the reasons for this situation is that many instructors responsible for training future elementary teachers are not familiar with the concepts of the linguistic features of English language. This hypothesis was tested by administering a survey of language concepts to 78 instructors. The results showed that even though teacher educators were familiar with syllabic knowledge, they performed poorly on concepts relating to morphemes and phonemes. In a second study, 40 instructors were interviewed about best practices in teaching components and subskills of reading. Eighty percent of instructors defined phonological awareness as letter-sound correspondence. They also did not mention synthetic phonics as a desirable method to use for beginning reading instruction, particularly for students at risk for reading difficulties. In conclusion, providing professional development experiences related to language concepts to instructors could provide them the necessary knowledge of language concepts related to early literacy instruction, which they could then integrate into their preservice reading courses.

The genesis of reading ability: What helps children learn letter–sound correspondences?

Knowledge of letter–sound correspondences underpins successful reading acquisition, and yet little is known about how young children acquire this knowledge and what prior information they bring to the learning process. In this study, we used an experimental training design to examine whether either prior letter awareness or prior phonemic awareness directly assists preliterate children in subsequently learning letter–sound correspondences. Here 76 preschoolers received 6 weeks of training in either letter awareness, phonemic awareness, or control tasks and then received a further 6 weeks of training in either letter–sound correspondences or control tasks. There was limited evidence that prior training in either phoneme or letter awareness directly assisted learning of letter–sound correspondences, although phonemically trained children appeared to show some advantage on recognition tasks. Overall, the data suggest that there is little value in training preschoolers in either letter forms or sounds in isolation in advance of providing instruction on the links between the two.

The importance of morphological awareness in Korean–English biliteracy acquisition

This study examined the importance of morphological awareness in Korean–English biliteracy acquisition. English is an opaque orthographic system, in which letters and sounds have indirect correspondences. Korean Hangul, on the other hand, is a transparent orthographic system where there are direct letter-sound correspondences. Sixty-five children from Grades 2 to 4 were tested on a set of comparable Korean and English tasks tapping into oral vocabulary, phonemic awareness, morphological awareness, real word reading, and passage reading comprehension. Results showed that morphological awareness explained a significant amount of variance in word reading and reading comprehension within both Korean Hangul and English, suggesting that morphological awareness is important not only in an opaque orthography but also in a transparent orthography. Furthermore, morphological awareness in one language uniquely predicted a significant amount of variance in reading real words in the other language, suggesting that morphological awareness facilitates word reading across different orthographies.

Teaching Sound Letter Correspondence and Consonant-Vowel-Consonant Combinations to Young Children who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

The purpose of this study was to provide a preliminary examination of an intervention strategy designed to teach sound-letter correspondence and spelling of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) combinations to young children who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). A multiple baseline probe design across behaviors was used to assess the effects of the intervention on the percentage of correct responses provided by two participants on the target skills during free-choice play activities in the literacy center of inclusive classrooms. The results of this study provide preliminary support for the use of the intervention strategy within inclusive classrooms.

Comparison of Fixed and Gradual Array When Teaching Sound-Letter Correspondence to Two Children with Autism who Use AAC

The purpose of this study was to compare two conditions for teaching two children with autism (ages 4;10 and 5;4) who used Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to point to the printed letter that corresponded to the spoken letter sounds of /t/ and /m/. In one condition (gradual array), the printed letter was first presented in isolation and then distracter letters were gradually introduced. In the other condition (fixed array), the printed letter was immediately presented in combination with seven distracter letters. Using an alternating treatment design, results revealed that the fixed array condition resulted in a faster rate of acquisition of target skills for both participants. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Orthographic Interference and the Teaching of British Pronunciation to Turkish Learners

This article is the report of an investigation of pronunciation difficulties of Turkish speakers/learners of English which are due to differences in the sound-letter representations in the orthographies of the two languages, namely called “ortographic interference”. These difficulties are different in nature than those arising from differences in the sound sysytems of Turkish and English. While Turkish orthography is to a large extent phonemic, i.e. employing a one-to-one letter-sound correspondence (with few exceptions such as k - kâr- ? - yegane- gavur, etc.), English orthography, on the other hand, represents 46 sounds of the spoken language with 102 single or group of letters in the written language. Such actual difficulties arising from the differences in the orthographic sound-letter represenatations of Turkish and English are classified, evaluated, and their sources are explained through a detailed phonetic analysis as applied to research methods of “contarstive analysis” and “error analysis”, which are effective approaches in the field of Applied Linguistics and Foreign Language Learning. For different categories of difficulties, corrective exercises are recommended for the teaching and learning of English pronunciation to Turkish students.

Phonological processing deficits and the acquisition of the alphabetic principle in a severely delayed reader: a case study

At the end of first grade, TM did not know the alphabet and could read no words. He could not tap syllables in words, had difficulty producing rhyming words and retrieving the phonological representations of words, and he could not discriminate many phoneme contrasts. He learned letter-sound correspondences first for single-consonant onsets and then later for the final consonant in a word but had difficulty with letter-sound associations for vowels. TM's ability to select a printed word to match a spoken word on the basis of the initial or final letter and sound was interpreted as evidence of Ehri's phonetic-cue reading. Using the Glass Analysis method, the authors taught TM to read and he became an independent reader. We discuss how his phonological processing deficits contributed to his reading difficulties.

The Efficacy of Computer-Assisted Instruction for Advancing Literacy Skills in Kindergarten Children

We examined the benefits of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) as a supplement to a phonics-based reading curriculum for kindergartners in an urban public school system. The CAI program provides systematic exercises in phonological awareness and letter–sound correspondences. Comparisons were made between children in classes receiving a sufficient amount of CAI support and children in matched classes taught by the same teacher but without CAI. The treatment and control groups did not differ on pretest measures of preliteracy skills. There were, however, significant differences between groups on posttest measures of phonological awareness skills particularly for students with the lowest pretest scores.

Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction for Individuals Who Require Augmentative and Alternative Communication: A Case Study of a Student with Multiple Disabilities

Literacy skills provide numerous benefits to individuals who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), including new opportunities for education, work, and social interaction. Literacy skills also have a powerful impact on communication and language development. This paper describes the components of effective evidence-based literacy instruction, including skills to target for instruction, effective instructional procedures to teach these skills, and adaptations to accommodate the needs of individuals with significant speech, motor, and other disabilities. The paper also presents a case study that describes ongoing intervention with an 8-year-old girl with multiple disabilities who required AAC. Evidence-based instruction was provided in phonologic awareness, letter-sound correspondences, decoding, sight-word recognition, reading connected text, reading comprehension skills, and early writing and keyboarding skills. During the 16 months of intervention, a total of 55 hours of instruction, the student acquired 20 letter-sound correspondences, learned to use decoding and sight-word skills to read 60 words, and began to read simple texts both in shared reading activities and independently. She also began to type simple short messages and stories using spelling approximations. The acquisition of these new literacy skills resulted in increased educational opportunities for the learner and also enhanced her language and communication skills.

Spanish-speaking children’s spelling errors with English vowel sounds that are represented by different graphemes in English and Spanish words

Vowels in Spanish have direct one-to-one letter-sound correspondences, whereas vowels in English usually have multiple spellings. For native Spanish-speaking children learning to spell in English, this transition from a shallow to a deep orthography could potentially cause difficulties. We examined whether the spelling of English vowel sounds was particularly difficult for native Spanish-speaking children, and whether the errors are consistent with Spanish orthographic rules. Twenty-six native Spanish-speaking and 53 native English-speaking children in grades 2 and 3 were given real-word and pseudoword spelling tasks in English that included words containing four vowels that have different spellings between Spanish and English. Results supported our hypothesis—native Spanish-speaking children committed significantly more vowel spelling errors that were consistent with Spanish orthography. The number of vowel spelling errors not consistent with Spanish orthography did not differ between the two language groups. These findings suggest that orthographic properties of the children’s native language influence their learning to spell in a second language. Educational implications address how knowledge of this cross language influence can aide teachers in improving spelling instruction.

Treatment for anomia in Chinese using an ortho‐phonological cueing method

Background: Anomia therapies can be broadly categorised into semantically based and word‐form based. Comparable treatment outcomes of these different approaches have been reported. Law, Wong, Sung, and Hon (2006a) have recently applied semantic feature analysis (Boyle & Coelho, 1995) on three Chinese anomic speakers and found treatment progress limited to those with relatively mild semantic deficits. Hence the present study explored alternative approaches to manage naming problems. Despite the challenges to the use of cueing that stem from the characteristics of the Chinese script—i.e., the lack of mapping between sub‐character components and phonemes—an intervention was designed in which participants were trained to associate objects with letters representing the initial consonants of the target names, from which phonological cues were generated to assist in word retrieval. Aims: This study evaluated the effectiveness of an ortho‐phonological therapy for Chinese anomia. Given its function of strengthening semantic and phonological representations, the therapy was predicted to have item‐specific treatment effects. Methods & Procedures: Four Cantonese‐speaking anomic individuals participated in the study. Two were hypothesised to have disrupted access from semantics to phonology, whereas the other two suffer additional impairment to semantic processing and phonological output. A multiple baseline design was adopted, consisting of pre‐treatment training in which participants learned to generate CV syllables in response to letter cues, then a baseline, one or two treatment phases, and a maintenance phase. A cueing hierarchy was used during therapy, which began with a letter cue, followed by the provision of increasing phonological information if the participant continuously failed to retrieve the target name. Outcomes & Results: All participants benefited from the intervention and could maintain treatment gains for at least 1 month. Item‐specific improvement was observed for two participants, whereas the third patient also made progress on some of the untrained items that shared the same initials as the treated stimuli, and treatment generalisation of the fourth patient further extended to items with initial consonants different from the trained items. Different levels of facility in employing letter–sound correspondence during naming and executive problem‐solving skills were argued to have contributed to discrepant treatment outcomes. Conclusions: The ortho‐phonological therapy is a viable option for rehabilitating anomia in Chinese. It has the potential for being a naming strategy that may result in general improvement in word retrieval. Our findings echo the view in recent studies that urges investigation into the role of non‐linguistic cognitive abilities in predicting treatment outcomes.

The role of visual discrimination in the learning-to-read process

Two studies were conducted to evaluate the extent to which visual discrimination (VisD) skills play a role in developing letter identification abilities, which are essential in learning to read. Results from a correlational analysis of 73 4- and 5-year-olds revealed a significant association between VisD and letter identification abilities, which was not moderated by estimated nonverbal or verbal abilities or lexical access. Stronger VisD abilities also were positively associated with better phonemic awareness skills, presumably because of the association between letter knowledge and phonemic skills, or letter-sound correspondence. A pilot study explored the benefit of visual discrimination training of letter-like forms to letter learning for a subset of 28 children with below average lowercase letter identification abilities. Only letter-name training significantly impacted lowercase letter identification; visual discrimination training did not further enhance performance. Implications for theory and applications to interventions aimed at children at risk for reading delays are discussed.

Kurz-, mittel- und längerfristige Effekte eines Trainings in phonologischer Bewusstheit und in Buchstaben-Laut-Korrespondenz auf die phonologische Bewusstheit und die Lese- und Rechtschreibleistung

The present study intended to evaluate the short-, middle and long-term effects of preschool training in phonological awareness and letter-sound correspondence, conducted in Swiss dialect in Swiss kindergartens, on the basis of the outcome variables phonological awareness and reading and spelling competence. From a total sample of 109 children with complete datasets over all measurement points, a paired sample of 26 children each from the experimental and from the control group was selected for statistical analyses. Evaluated on the one hand were the short- middle and longer-term effects of the training on the development of the phonological awareness, while on the other, the average reading and spelling competencies and the percentage of reading-and-spelling disabled children in the training and in the control group were compared for the 1st and 2nd grades. Effects of the training on phonological awareness could be documented up to the beginning of the 1st grade. The average reading and spelling competencies did not differ be-tween the groups, whereas the percentage of spelling-disabled children was markedly reduced in the training group. As a whole, the results are seen as a confirmation of the efficacy of the training in the primary prevention of reading and writing disorders.

Early Literacy Measures for Improving Student Reading Achievement: Translating Research Into Practice

The importance of early literacy instruction and its role in later reading proficiency is well established; however, measures and procedures to screen and monitor proficiency in the area of early literacy are less well researched. The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the technical adequacy and validity of early curriculum-based literacy measures, Letter–Sound Correspondence, Onset Phoneme Identification, and Phoneme Segmentation, developed for use within the problem-solving model in the Minneapolis Public Schools and (b) describe the district-wide implementation of these measures. In general, these measures were found to have adequate reliability and validity, have moderate to moderately high correlations with criterion measures (oral reading, report cards), and be sensitive to growth across the school year. A case study of how these measures are used for screening and progress monitoring to improve reading achievement within 1 school is included. Limitations and future directions are also presented.

Language Structure Knowledge of Preservice Teachers: Connecting Speech to Print

This study investigated the efficacy of an instructional training module focused on alphabetic principle, more specifically, the speech sounds of English on letter-sound knowledge of preservice teachers enrolled in elementary or special education teacher certification programs. In addition, this study examined preservice teachers' ability to apply and generalize their letter-sound knowledge. The training module, a video tutorial and online study guide, was completed in 2 to 6 hours over one week by preservice teachers. Following instruction, preservice teachers increased oral and written letter-sound correspondence knowledge as well as their ability to apply this knowledge to tasks requiring letter-sound analysis. Statistically significant increases were not observed on tasks requiring preservice teachers to generalize their knowledge to analyzing child letter-sound production errors. The instructional training module described in this study provides an efficient and effective model for delivering language structure content to preservice teachers but might be even further enhanced with provision of additional opportunities for practice.