Letter Sounds Research Articles

Linking the shapes of alphabet letters to their sounds: the case of Hebrew

Learning the sounds of letters is an important part of learning a writing system. Most previous studies of this process have examined English, focusing on variations in the phonetic iconicity of letter names as a reason why some letter sounds (such as that of b, where the sound is at the beginning of the letter's name) are easier to learn than others (such as that of w, where the sound is not in the name). The present study examined Hebrew, where variations in the phonetic iconicity of letter names are minimal. In a study of 391 Israeli children with a mean age of 5 years, 10 months, we used multilevel models to examine the factors that are associated with knowledge of letter sounds. One set of factors involved letter names: Children sometimes attributed to a letter a consonant-vowel sound consisting of the first phonemes of the letter's name. A second set of factors involved contrast: Children had difficulty when there was relatively little contrast in shape between one letter and others. Frequency was also important, encompassing both child-specific effects, such as a benefit for the first letter of a child's forename, and effects that held true across children, such as a benefit for the first letters of the alphabet. These factors reflect general properties of human learning.

Relations among reading skills and sub-skills and text-level reading proficiency in developing readers

Despite the recent attention to text reading fluency, few studies have studied the construct of oral reading rate and accuracy in connected text in a model that simultaneously examines many of the important variables in a multi-leveled fashion with young readers. Using Structural Equation Modeling, this study examined the measurement and structural relations of the rate and accuracy of variables important in early reading: phonemic blending, letter sounds, phonograms, decoding, single-word reading, reading comprehension, and text reading as well as reading comprehension among second grade readers. The effects from phonemic blending fluency and letter sound fluency to decoding were completely mediated by phonogram fluency, decoding fluency, single-word reading fluency, and reading comprehension had direct effects on the text reading fluency of the second grade students. Understanding the relationship among the many component skills of readers early in their reading development is important because a deficiency in any of the component skills has the potential to affect the development of other skills and, ultimately, the development of the child as a proficient reader.

Emergent literacy intervention appears effective for teaching sound letter correspondence and consonant–vowel–consonant spelling combinations to young children who use augmentative and alternative communication

This review provides a summary and appraisal commentary on the treatment review by Johnston, S. S., Davenport, L., Kanarowski, B., Rhodehouse, S., & McDonnell, A. P. (2009). Teaching sound letter correspondence and consonant-vowel-consonant combinations to your children who use augmentative and alternative communication. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 25, 123–135. Source of funding and disclosure of interest: No source of funding reported, and the original authors of this research report no conflicts of interest.

Congruency of auditory sounds and visual letters modulates mismatch negativity and P300 event-related potentials

A key determinant of skilled reading is the ability to integrate the orthographic and auditory forms of language. A number of prior studies have identified neural markers in adult readers corresponding to audio–visual integration of letters and their corresponding sounds. However, there remains some controversy as to the stage of processing at which this occurs. In the present study, we examined this issue using event-related potentials (ERPs), due to their sensitivity to the timing of perceptual and cognitive processes. Letter sounds were presented auditorily in an unattended mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm, which is argued to be indicative of auditory sensory memory. Concurrently, participants performed a visual letter identification task. On critical trials, the auditory stimulus was played concurrently with the visual letters. We observed significant MMNs both when the visual letter was congruent with the auditory stimulus, and when it was incongruent. However, the magnitude and scalp distribution of this effect was attenuated in incongruent trials. We also observed a later-going effect of congruency on P300 trials, marked by increased amplitudes and latencies for incongruent compared to congruent trials. The results suggest audiovisual integration of letters and sounds can and does occur during relatively early pre-attentive stages of sensory processing, and that these effects extend to later-going attentional phases of processing as well.

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.

The contributions of phonological awareness and letter-name knowledge to letter-sound acquisition—a cross-classified multilevel model approach.

In the present study, we investigated critical factors in letter-sound acquisition (i.e., letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness) with data from 653 English-speaking kindergartners in the beginning of the year. We examined (a) the contribution of phonological awareness to facilitating letter-sound acquisition from letter names and (b) the probabilities of letter-sound acquisition as a function of letter characteristics (i.e., consonant-vowel letters, vowe-consonant letters, letters with no sound cues, and vowel letters). The results show that letter-name knowledge had a large impact on letter-sound acquisition. Phonological awareness had a larger effect on letter-sound knowledge when letter names were known than when letter names were unknown. Furthermore, students were more likely to know the sounds of consonant-vowel letters (e.g., b and d) than vowel-consonant letters (e.g., l and m) and letters with no sound cues (e.g., h and y) when the letter name was known and phonological awareness was accounted for. Sounds were least likely to be known for letters with no sound cues, but reliable differences from other groups of letters depended on students' levels of phonological awareness and letter-name knowledge.

Multisensory conflict modulates the spread of visual attention across a multisensory object

Spatial attention to a visual stimulus that occurs synchronously with a task-irrelevant sound from a different location can lead to increased activity not only in the visual cortex, but also the auditory cortex, apparently reflecting the object-related spreading of attention across both space and modality (Busse et al., 2005). The processing of stimulus conflict, including multisensory stimulus conflict, is known to activate the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), but the interactive influence on the sensory cortices remains relatively unexamined. Here we used fMRI to examine whether the multisensory spread of visual attention across the sensory cortices previously observed will be modulated by whether there is conceptual or object-related conflict between the relevant visual and irrelevant auditory inputs. Subjects visually attended to one of two lateralized visual letter-streams while synchronously occurring, task-irrelevant, letter sounds were presented centrally, which could be either congruent or incongruent with the visual letters. We observed significant enhancements for incongruent versus congruent letter–sound combinations in the ACC and in the contralateral visual cortex when the visual component was attended, presumably reflecting the conflict detection and the need for boosted attention to the visual stimulus during incongruent trials. In the auditory cortices, activity increased bilaterally if the spatially discordant auditory stimulation was incongruent, but only in the left, language-dominant side when congruent. We conclude that a conflicting incongruent sound, even when task-irrelevant, distracts more strongly than a congruent one, leading to greater capture of attention. This greater capture of attention in turn results in increased activity in the auditory cortex.

Learning letter names and sounds: Effects of instruction, letter type, and phonological processing skill

Preschool-age children ( N = 58) were randomly assigned to receive instruction in letter names and sounds, letter sounds only, or numbers (control). Multilevel modeling was used to examine letter name and sound learning as a function of instructional condition and characteristics of both letters and children. Specifically, learning was examined in light of letter name structure, whether letter names included cues to their respective sounds, and children’s phonological processing skills. Consistent with past research, children receiving letter name and sound instruction were most likely to learn the sounds of letters whose names included cues to their sounds regardless of phonological processing skills. Only children with higher phonological skills showed a similar effect in the control condition. Practical implications are discussed.

The Development and Testing of Preschool Bahasa Malaysia Reading Intervention Module Using Multimedia

Presently many preschool children are still unable to identify letters or words hence leading to difficulties in normal writing and reading. As a result they need guidance and intervention in reading to overcome such difficulties. The main objective of the research was to test the reading intervention module (MIM) among preschoolers in Malaysia. The MIM was developed based upon module development approaches by Fitzgerald, Bauder and Werner (1992) and Scheafermeyer (1990). Additionally the research seek to examine the differences between the experimental and control group in the level of reading skills after using MIM. The test retest reliability of MIM was obtained with Alpha Cronbach 0.9357. The data were analyzed using by SPSS 12.0 version. A hundred preschool children from Bandar Tenggara, Johor were randomly selected as a sample. The pre-test data showed that most of the children experienced difficulties in letter-name, sound letter and reading words and they have different levels of reading abilities. The finding showed that the experimental group (mean=82.48) performed better than the control group (mean=59.36) after the post test. Preschool teachers who had conducted the experiments agreed that the MIM can be integrated in preschool teaching and learning.

Creative Teaching Methods for Developing Reading Literacy in Teaching Process

Reading a text is very important at any age in any sphere of life. Some children have serious problems in reading and sometimes they are encouraged to read more and faster in order to prove the quality of their reading skills, however, rate and understanding do not always correlate. Skills to understand and analyse the text are of primary importance in reading process. Usually the rst reading experience is acquired during elementary school when children master their basic reading skills and form their attitude to reading. Skills to understand the text is one of the basic requirements for successful study process. Understanding of the text and reading skills do not only mean relating the text to spoken words and merging letters in words; they also imply skills to understand, analyse and evaluate the written text. The aim of the study is to analyse creative teaching methods of reading literacy in pedagogical process and to make recommendations for adults to improve children’s reading skills. Materials and methods include an analysis of literature on pedagogy and psychology of Latvia and abroad. Literature analysis re€ects dierent methods that can be used in pedagogical process to train reading skills by exercising various activities and resources. Literacy and especially understanding of the text is directly in€uenced by the environment where the child lives and learns, as well as educational systems, traditions, opportunities and personal goals. The article analyses reading problems for individuals with dyslexia or reading disabilities. Children with dyslexia have di‚culties in understanding the correlation between the letter and the sound and merge letters together to form a word. These children need individual approach to training reading skills. Dierent strategies can be used to improve the understanding of the text and in that way raise literacy of children in general. The principle of creativity serves as a reliable basis of creative methods. There are dierent creative methods of teaching literacy which can be used in pedagogical process in order to train children reading skills by exercising dierent activities and resources. The main methods are “READS” method, “CAPS” method and “KWL” strategy.

Predicting reading growth with event-related potentials: Thinking differently about indexing “Responsiveness”

The purpose of this study was to determine if event-related potential (ERP) data collected during three reading-related tasks (Letter Sound Matching, Nonword Rhyming, and Nonword Reading) could be used to predict short-term reading growth on a curriculum-based measure of word identification fluency over 19 weeks in a sample of 29 first-grade children. Results indicate that ERP responses to the Letter Sound Matching task were predictive of reading change and remained so after controlling for two previously validated behavioral predictors of reading, Rapid Letter Naming and Segmenting. ERP data for the other tasks were not correlated with reading change. The potential for cognitive neuroscience to enhance current methods of indexing responsiveness in a response-to-intervention (RTI) model is discussed.

Initial letter sounds

The first stage of recognising initial letter sounds must be through hearing them, not the identification of the letter character to match the sound. This will come at a later developmental stage. The first objective should be to ensure that the children can hear, identify and repeat the sound correctly. Other important points to consider are developing the children's vocabulary so that they are able to identify objects that will be used in games and ensuring that the children encounter the activities in a relaxed, stimulating and fun way.

Early Reading Intervention: Responding to the Learning Needs of Young at-Risk English Language Learners

This study examined the effects of a supplemental early reading intervention on the beginning literacy skills of 12 kindergarten/first-grade urban English language learners (ELLs). The Early Reading Intervention (ERI; Simmons & Kame'enui, 2003) was the instructional intervention used with all students. A multiple-baseline design across students was used to investigate the effects of the instruction on phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF) and nonsense word fluency (NWF), as measured by the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2002). Data analyses showed that all students increased in the number of phonemes segmented and the number of letter sounds produced correctly. Gains were commensurate with the amount of instruction received.

Diamonds, Maidens, Widow Dido, and Cock-a-diddle-dow

References to Dido, lover of Aeneas, in the second act of Tempest have garnered much interpretation and speculation by readers and playgoers. Studieed the extensive use of images and themes from the Aeneid in the play and have shown especially how the love of Ferdinand and Miranda is partly parallel to, and partly reversal of, the ancient love story of Aeneas and the queen of Carthage, there may be another motive for Didos inclusion, motive related to system of wordplay involving shuffled repetitions of the sounds of letters and syllables. (2) As Russ McDonald has remarked in Shakespeare's Late Style, The notorious mystery surrounding Gonzalo's 'Widow Dido' has been examined in almost every conceivable context except, I think, that of aural identity, simple rhyme. (3) Although venturing bit beyond rhyme, this essay focuses on the name of as sound, and as alphabetical letters, situating the name within set of wordplay practices extending across the genres of drama, prose fiction, poetry, and folk ballad. It explores, therefore, an overlooked linguistic facet of Dido's multifaceted legacy. My argument begins with anagrammatical wordplay involved in commonplace associations between desirable women and jewels, and Dido's participation within that complex. I then consider as an emblem of love-induced madness and explore link between her name and the nonsense words in bawdy ballads. Finally, I maintain that utterances of widow Dido in Tempest echo the refrain to Come unto these yellow sands and therefore participate in Ariel's music, which is both alluring and cautionary. I. Diamonds Diamonds were hardly common material objects in late medieval and early modern England, yet in language and literature they gathered about them an array of cultural implications. Everyday speakers linked them, of course, with wealth and treasure, but also with innocence and virginity, and the writers of romances used them to symbolize the idealized, unalloyed beauty of the chaste females who were the objects of their heroes' quests. Players on the London stage in the time of Shakespeare invoked them to mark the role of the eminently desirable woman. following lines, spoken by Savourwit in Thomas Middleton's No Wit/Help Like Woman's, exemplify the figure: Do not wise men and great often bestow Ten thousand pound in jewels that lie by 'em? If so, what can lie by man More than virgin? If none more precious, Why should the pillow of fool be graced With that brave spirits which dearness have embraced?--And then perhaps, ere the third spring come on, Sends home your cracked, the beauty gone, And--more to know her, 'cause you shall not doubt her--A number of poor sparks twinkling about her. (1.219-28) (4) He tells us that virgin is treasure so that she should be reserved for great men, who, presumably, will appreciate her, not for fools who will debase her and eventually abandon her to overuse among the common multitude (poor sparks), her own light and value greatly diminished. phrase cracked transfers the reference from the young woman herself to her maidenhead. In the sexual innuendo of the period, diamond jewel, or precious stone might refer to either female or male sexual parts. (5) Yet leading lady did not have to be maiden to be pure and radiant, and valued as diamond. In Middleton's Women, Beware Women the most matchless jewel Bianca, the sixteen-year-old wife of Leantio, must be cased up from all men's eyes (1.1.162, 170). When the lust-filled Duke of Florence sends messenger to invite Bianca to banquet, her husband tells her to withdraw, because she is a gem no stranger's eye must see, / Howe'er thou please now to look dull on me (3.1.175-76). (6) Looking and seeing are intimately linked with the diamond-like woman, not only because she is beautiful, but because sight is linked with fire through popular optical theory, and in keeping with such theory, both fire and chaste women, like diamonds, are light-giving or radiant. …

Name writing and letter knowledge in preschoolers: Incongruities in skills and the usefulness of name writing as a developmental indicator

In this study, 114 preschoolers ( M age = 53 months) completed a battery of literacy assessments to explore the interplay between name writing and letter knowledge in early literacy learners. Name writing was significantly related to children's letter knowledge, and the relationships were moderate to high. However, many children exhibited an incongruity in name writing and name-specific letter-recognition skills (i.e., they could write their names but not recognize the letters in their names, or recognize the letters in their names but not write them). When these two groups were contrasted statistically, the children with superior name-specific letter recognition (but poorer name writing scores) had significantly higher letter knowledge scores than the children with superior name writing scores (but poor name-specific letter-recognition scores). Writing one's name, in itself, did not appear to correspond to a literacy advantage. Thus, with regard to the recommendation that name writing be used as a literacy assessment tool in preschool, the results from this study suggest that name writing should be used as a measure of mechanical skill only and should not be used as a means to assess children's conceptual knowledge (of letter names, letter sounds, or the alphabetic principle).

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.

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.

Letter names and sounds: their implications for the phonetisation process

Our aim was to analyse the impact of the characteristics of words used in spelling programmes and the nature of instructional guidelines on the evolution from grapho-perceptive writing to phonetic writing in preschool children. The participants were 50 5-year-old children, divided in five equivalent groups in intelligence, phonological skills and spelling. All the children knew the vowels and the consonants B, D, P, R, T, V, F, M and C, but didn’t use them on spelling. Their spelling was evaluated in a pre and post-test with 36 words beginning with the consonants known. In-between they underwent a writing programme designed to lead them to use the letters P and T to represent the initial phonemes of words. The groups differed on the kind of words used on training (words whose initial syllable matches the name of the initial letter—Exp. G1 and Exp. G2—versus words whose initial syllable is similar to the sound of the initial letter—Exp. G3 and Exp. G4). They also differed on the instruction used in order to lead them to think about the relations between the initial phoneme of words and the initial consonant (instructions designed to make the children think about letter names—Exp. G1 and Exp. G3—versus instructions designed to make the children think about letter sounds—Exp. G2 and Exp. G4). The 5th was a control group. All the children evolved to syllabic phonetisations spellings. There are no differences between groups at the number of total phonetisations but we found some differences between groups at the quality of the phonetisations.

Can emphasising cognitive development improve academic achievement?

Background: Children ordinarily begin their formal education at the age when the great majority of them are capable of understanding the role of addition and subtraction in changing number. In determining critical differences they can apply the oddity principle – the first pure abstraction that children ever develop – understanding that when all but one item are alike on some dimension, it is the relation between items, not their absolute qualities, which determines which belongs to a different set, i.e. is ‘odd’. They are also capable of inserting items into a unidimensional series, a form of abstraction which develops a bit later. Children slow to develop such abilities often experience difficulty understanding classroom instruction in the first year of school. Purpose: The purpose of the research was to teach children oddity, insertions and conservation and compare their subsequent literacy and numeracy with that of children taught literacy and numeracy directly. All children develop oddity, insertions and conservation through unstructured interaction with the environment, but some do so belatedly, after patterns of school failure have been established. Is it worthwhile to spend classroom time teaching these thinking abilities? This research was designed to test whether teaching them produced better academic achievement than equal time spent teaching academic material. Programme: Teachers can use a wide variety of common objects to teach in an efficient and structured way the abstractions 5 year olds ordinarily learn less efficiently in their daily lives. This method, called a learning set approach, is easily applied by teachers or assistants without the need for special training. Sample: The participants were culturally diverse 5 year olds, generally of low socio-economic status, enrolled in five urban schools. Students from 25 classrooms were screened to determine whether they already understood the concepts which were to be taught. The final sample had 82 boys and 74 girls. Fifty-two were Hispanic/Latino, 36 African American, 33 White US born, 21 Mideastern, 7 East African, 3 Asian Indian, 2 West African, and 2 East Asian. Design and methods: In an experimental design, the children were randomly assigned to one experimental and three control groups. The former were taught number conservation, the oddity principle, and how to insert objects into a series. One control group was taught numeracy: recognition and identification of numbers, counting by 1s, 5s, or 10s, and other aspects of numeracy. Another control group was taught literacy: upper and lower case letters, letter sounds, rhyming and blending. A third control group was taught social studies: family structure and activities, the major senses and body parts, community resources, mapping and citizenship. The instruction was conducted from October through February. In May and June, the children were tested on oddity, insertions, number conservation, literacy and numeracy. Numeracy was measured with the Woodcock-Johnson III and literacy with the Stanford early school achievement test. Research instruments were used to measure the cognitive concepts. Results: The children taught the three thinking abilities outscored the control children on tests of these concepts. They surpassed the literacy control group in numeracy and matched it in literacy, surpassed the numeracy group in literacy while matching it in numeracy, and surpassed the social studies group in both. Conclusions: Small group lessons on the oddity principle, insertions into series and number conservation may benefit kindergartners who lack these concepts. Mastery of these abstractions may enable them to understand academic subject matter which they would otherwise have difficulty comprehending.

Small Group Computer-Assisted Instruction With SMART Board Technology

This investigation examined the effectiveness of teaching letter sounds in a small group arrangement using computer-assisted instruction with SMART Board technology and a 3s constant time delay procedure to three students with learning disabilities. A multiple probe design across letter sound sets and replicated across students evaluate the effectiveness of the program and students' acquisition of other students' letter sounds through observational learning. In addition, students were assessed on their acquisition of incidental information presented in the instructive feedback statements following correct responses to target and nontarget stimuli. Results indicate that (a) the program was effective in teaching letter sounds to three students and (b) students acquired some letter sounds targeted for other students and incidental information (letter names) presented in the instructive feedback statements for their own and other group members' target stimuli. Findings are discussed in terms of presenting small group instruction through interactive white board technology.