Letter-sound Knowledge Research Articles

Literacy and Phonological Skills in Oral Deaf Children and Hearing Children With a History of Dyslexia

AbstractOral deaf children and hearing children with dyslexia both experience literacy challenges, although their reasons differ. The authors explored the problems underlying poor literacy in each group and drew implications for reading interventions. Data were collected using standardized literacy and phonological measures from 69 severe‐to‐profoundly prelingually deaf children ages 10 and 11 years, all communicating with spoken language, and compared with equivalent data from 20 hearing children with a history of dyslexia matched on reading ability. Children were given a large battery of tasks assessing word and nonword reading, spelling, vocabulary, and reading‐related skills, including letter sound knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automated naming, and verbal short‐term memory. Striking similarities were observed for word reading, nonword reading, and spelling across groups, and associations between the measures and reading‐related skills were similar. However, differences between the two groups emerged in the strength of association between literacy and vocabulary. Regression analyses confirmed vocabulary as a key predictor of literacy in the oral deaf group. These results suggest that not only children with a history of dyslexia but also oral deaf children who struggle with reading should receive specialist literacy support. Reading interventions for oral deaf children should target phonological and language skills within a fully integrated approach.

Contrasting Explicit With Implicit Measures of Children's Representations: The Case of Segmental Phonology

AbstractCurrent theories of phonological development make contrasting predictions about the role of vocabulary growth and orthographic knowledge in the emergence of segmental phonological representations. Testing these predictions in children is made difficult by the metacognitive nature of tasks used to assess phonological representations. In this study, we used novel tasks to measure the sensitivity of 88 children (3 years 2 months–5 years 7 months) to phonological segments, without requiring them to have any explicit awareness of the sounds in words. We contrasted these measures with measures requiring explicit segmental analysis of word forms. Results showed that, although explicit segmental analysis is related to letter–sound knowledge, tasks measuring implicit segmental sensitivity provide evidence of segmental phonology related to vocabulary growth and not mediated by orthography. Findings highlight the importance of tapping into the structure of children's phonological representations using tasks that minimize the requirement for explicit awareness.

Speech difficulties at school entry are a significant risk factor for later reading difficulties

This study examined the relationship between speech difficulties at school entry and problems learning to read. We test the hypothesis that phonological skills explain the relationship between speech and reading difficulties. Speech skills were assessed in a large (N = 569) unselected sample of 5-year old children just after school entry. Children also completed a wide range of tasks measuring oral language (expressive vocabulary, receptive grammar and listening comprehension), reading and reading-related skills (single word reading, letter-sound knowledge, phoneme awareness, rapid automatized naming) and non-verbal IQ. Assessments were repeated six months later. Speech difficulties were identified in 6.88% of children. Speech difficulties were associated with poorer non-verbal IQ, oral language and reading relative to children without speech difficulties. A mediation model demonstrated that the relationship between speech difficulties and later reading was entirely mediated by phoneme awareness. Speech difficulties at school entry are related to problems in acquiring phoneme awareness which in turn are associated with problems in learning to read. Clinically, our results imply that any child who has a speech difficulty at school entry should be assessed and monitored for broader oral language difficulties and for delays in reading development with a view to providing early intervention to ameliorate such difficulties.

Spelling in Children With Cochlear Implants: Evidence of Underlying Processing Differences.

This study compared the spelling skills and sub-skills of young children with cochlear implants (CIs) who use spoken language only (n = 14) with those of a same-aged typically hearing (TH) control group (n = 30). Spelling accuracy was assessed using irregular and nonsense word stimuli. Error and regression analyses were conducted to provide insight into the phonological and orthographic spelling strategies used by each group. Results indicated that children with CIs were as accurate as the TH group. However, misspellings made by the CI group were less phonologically plausible, and while nonword spelling accuracy was related to letter-sound knowledge for the TH group, the same relationship was non-significant for the CI group. Hence, despite demonstrating a similar degree of overall spelling success to TH children, children with CIs appeared to apply phonics skills less effectively.

Phonics training for English-speaking poor readers.

The reading skills of 16% of children fall below the mean range for their age, and 5% of children have significant and severe reading problems. Phonics training is one of the most common reading treatments used with poor readers, particularly children. To measure the effect of phonics training and explore the impact of various factors, such as training duration and training group size, that might moderate the effect of phonics training on literacy-related skills in English-speaking poor readers. We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, 12 other databases, and three trials registers up to May 2018. We also searched reference lists of included studies and contacted experts in the field to identify additional studies. We included studies that used randomisation, quasi-randomisation, or minimisation to allocate participants to a phonics intervention group (phonics training only or phonics training plus one other literacy-related skill) or a control group (no training or non-literacy training). Participants were English-speaking poor readers with word reading one standard deviation below the appropriate level for their age (children, adolescents, and adults) or one grade or year below the appropriate level (children only), for no known reason. Participants had no known comorbid developmental disorder, or physical, neurological, or emotional problem. We used standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane. We included 14 studies with 923 participants in this review. Studies took place in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA. Six of the 14 included studies were funded by government agencies and one was funded by a university grant. The rest were funded by charitable foundations or trusts. Each study compared phonics training alone, or in conjunction with one other reading-related skill, to either no training (i.e. treatment as usual) or alterative training (e.g. maths). Participants were English-speaking children or adolescents, of low and middle socioeconomic status, whose reading was one year, one grade, or one standard deviation below the level expected for their age or grade for no known reason. Phonics training varied between studies in intensity (up to four hours per week), duration (up to seven months), training group size (individual and small groups), and delivery (human and computer). We measured the effect of phonics training on seven primary outcomes (mixed/regular word reading accuracy, non-word reading accuracy, irregular word reading accuracy, mixed/regular word reading fluency, non-word reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling). We judged all studies to be at low risk of bias for most risk criteria, and used the GRADE approach to assess the quality of the evidence.There was low-quality evidence that phonics training may have improved poor readers' accuracy for reading real and novel words that follow the letter-sound rules (standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.51, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.13 to 0.90; 11 studies, 701 participants), and their accuracy for reading words that did not follow these rules (SMD 0.67, 95% CI 0.26 to 1.07; 10 studies, 682 participants). There was moderate-quality evidence that phonics training probably improved English-speaking poor readers' fluency for reading words that followed the letter-sounds rules (SMD 0.45, 95% CI 0.19 to 0.72; 4 studies, 224 participants), and non-word reading fluency (SMD 0.39, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.68; 3 studies, 188 participants), as well as their accuracy for reading words that did not follow these rules (SMD 0.84, 95% CI 0.30 to 1.39; 4 studies, 294 participants). In addition, there was low-quality evidence that phonics training may have improved poor readers' spelling (SMD 0.47, 95% CI -0.07 to 1.01; 3 studies, 158 participants), but only slightly improve their reading comprehension (SMD 0.28, 95% CI -0.07 to 0.62; 5 studies, 343 participants). Phonics training appears to be effective for improving literacy-related skills, particularly reading fluency of words and non-words, and accuracy of reading irregular words. More studies are needed to improve the precision of outcomes, including word and non-word reading accuracy, reading comprehension, spelling, letter-sound knowledge, and phonological output. More data are also needed to determine if phonics training in English-speaking poor readers is moderated by factors such as training type, intensity, duration, group size, or administrator.

Libros en Mano: Phonological Awareness Intervention in Children’s Native Languages

The growing diversity in schools in the United States resulting from the rising number of English learners (ELs) has put more pressure on both children and teachers. Teachers are faced with the challenge of meeting the educational needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners, including the unique needs of CLD children with academic delays or disabilities. As early as preschool, many ELs are performing academically lower than their monolingual peers in literacy, and the gap can be even greater for ELs identified as having a delay or disability. However, providing explicit phonological awareness interventions in the child’s native language may help improve English reading outcomes and mediate the negative effects on reading achievement attributed to limited English proficiency. This intervention study looked at how a phonologically based emergent literacy intervention provided in Spanish to four EL preschoolers affected their emergent literacy and phonological awareness outcomes in English and Spanish. All of the children increased their overall emergent literacy and phonological awareness skills in both English and Spanish. The findings indicated that all four children showed some increase in English phonological awareness skills in both syllable segmentation and letter sound knowledge, while sound isolation and sound segmentation demonstrated mixed results across participants.

Gifted and learning-disabled: A study of strengths and weaknesses in higher-order processing

ABSTRACTStudents who exhibit giftedness alongside a learning disability (GLD) often display asynchronous academic development, and a combination of strengths that mask areas of struggle. Early identification and intervention may offset students experiencing low self-confidence and motivation, ineffective self-efficacy, or a loss of love for learning (Reis, McGuire, & Neu, 2000). It is essential to understand the unique patterns of strengths and weaknesses that gifted students (GTs) with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) display in order to develop interventions that leverage strengths while targeting weaknesses. In this study, we compared GLDs’ performances to those of GTs and SLDs on the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Third Edition (KTEA-3). While GTs outperform GLDs and GLDs outperform the SLDs across all of the academic subtests, the analysis of the academic error scores indicate GLDs only differ from GTs for basic phonic decoding and math calculation. GLDs had fewer errors than SLDs across all error scores with the exceptions of intermediate letter-sound knowledge, basic phonic decoding, and addition. Consequently, GLDs have a unique profile of errors that indicates that their ability to decode is comparable to the SLD sample, and their error patterns in other areas suggest academic difficulties.

Effects of reading and spelling predictors before and after school entry: Evidence from a German longitudinal study

Previous studies indicate that the effectiveness of reading and spelling predictors in transparent orthographies is affected by the onset of literacy training at school entry. In this longitudinal study with 65 German speaking children, the effects of literacy predictors on reading and spelling abilities were compared before and after school entry. Phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, and rapid naming were assessed before and after school entry. In addition, reading and spelling abilities were assessed at the end of first grade. Path model analyses showed that letter sound knowledge before school entry predicted reading and spelling at the end of first grade, while rapid naming after school entry predicted reading but not spelling abilities. This study shows that the onset of schooling influences the predictability of early literacy predictors and indicates that with the onset of formal literacy education, predictors representing automaticity in serial processing increase in significance for reading abilities.

Preschool predictors of reading ability in the first year of schooling in children with ASD.

A high percentage of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show elevated challenges in learning to read. We investigated longitudinal predictors of reading skills in 41 children diagnosed with ASD. All children completed measures of precursor literacy skills at the age of 4-5 years, including phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, rapid automatic naming, name writing, and phonological memory (digit span), along with measures of word- and passage-level reading skills in their first year of formal schooling. Nonverbal cognition and letter sound knowledge accounted for 53.4% of the variance in regular single word reading at school age, with letter sound knowledge a significant individual predictor. Overall, 18 children showed reading ability scores in the average range on a standardized test of passage-level reading ability, whereas 23 children performed below expectations. These groups differed significantly on all precursor literacy measures (at ages 4-5), except autism symptoms based on parent report. Group membership was significantly predicted by preschool receptive vocabulary, name writing, and rapid automatic naming, with high sensitivity and specificity. These results are discussed in reference to the literature describing early literacy predictors for typically developing children, highlighting key areas for future intervention and support. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1332-1344. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Children with autism are at increased risk of persistent reading difficulties. We examined whether preschool reading-related skills linked to later reading ability. Performance on the following three tasks administered at preschool predicted children who showed early reading success versus below expectations in their first year of school: vocabulary, name writing, and rapid naming of familiar objects and shapes. These results can inform future interventions.

Effectiveness of Preschool-Wide Teacher-Implemented Phoneme Awareness and Letter-Sound Knowledge Instruction on Code-Based School-Entry Reading Readiness

This study investigated the effect of preschool-wide, teacher-implemented, phoneme-focused phonological awareness (PA) and letter-sound knowledge (LSK) instruction, on raising code-based school-entry reading readiness for children with Spoken Language Difficulties (SLD) and Typical Development (TD), when supported by weekly coaching by trainee speech-language pathologists. A total of 90 4-year-old children participated, whereby 50 children, inclusive of 13 children with SLD, received 10 weeks of preschool-wide, teacher-delivered, phoneme-focused PA and LSK instruction. In all, 40 children, inclusive of 10 children with SLD, continued with the usual preschool program. Post-instruction, children in the experimental condition performed significantly higher in phoneme awareness, LSK, and early decoding compared with control children. Children with SLD in the experimental condition performed significantly higher in phoneme awareness and LSK, but not in early decoding, compared with control children with SLD. Overall, preschool-wide, teacher-implemented, phoneme-focused PA and LSK instruction can support code-based reading readiness skills for children with SLD and TD.

Contributions of the Components of Phonemic Awareness to Letter-Sound Knowledge With Kindergarten Students in High-Poverty Urban Elementary Schools

Phonemic awareness (PA) includes rhyming, phoneme isolation, blending, and segmenting, but the relative importance of each component is unclear, especially for students from high-poverty areas. The current study examined the relationship between components of PA and an early literacy measure among 192 kindergarten students from high-poverty urban elementary schools. A researcher assessed the students using the Quick Phonemic Awareness Assessment and a measure of letter-sound knowledge (LSK). The results showed that PA was highly correlated with LSK. Initial phoneme isolation, blending, and segmenting contributed significant variance to LSK, but rhyming did not. The data supported the Quick Phonemic Awareness Assessment as a measure of PA among an urban population but questioned the importance of rhyming as a predictive component of PA.

GraphoLearn India: The Effectiveness of a Computer-Assisted Reading Intervention in Supporting Struggling Readers of English.

India, a country with a population of more than 1.3 billion individuals, houses the world’s second largest educational system. Despite this, 100 of millions of individuals in India are still illiterate. As English medium education sweeps the country, many are forced to learn in a language which is foreign to them. Those living in poverty further struggle to learn English as it tends to be a language which they have no prior exposure to and no support at home for. Low-quality schools and poor instructional methods further exacerbate the problem. Without access to quality education, these individuals continue to struggle and are ultimately never given the chance to break the cycle of poverty. The aim of this study was to determine whether GraphoLearn, a computer-assisted reading tool, could be used to support the English reading skills of struggling readers in India. Participants were 7-year-old, grade 3 students (N = 30), who were attending an English-medium public school in Ahmedabad, India. English was not a native language for any of the students and all were reading at a level below that of Grade 1 despite having attended school for 2 years. Half of the students played GraphoLearn (n = 16) while the other half played a control math game (n = 14) for 20–30 min a day, over a period of 8 weeks. GraphoLearn led to significant improvements in children’s letter-sound knowledge, a critical factor in early reading development. Overall, the study opens doors for GraphoLearn as a potential intervention to support struggling readers of English in India, including those who are learning a non-native language and coming from at-risk backgrounds.

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.

초등 1학년 발달성 난독 아동의 낱말 해독, 음운인식, 빠른 이름대기, 자소 지식*

This study aims to compare the word decoding skills, phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN) skills, and letter knowledge of first graders with developmental dyslexia (DD) and those who were typically developing (TD). Eighteen children with DD and eighteen TD children, matched by nonverbal intelligence and discourse ability, participated in the study. Word decoding of Korean language-based reading assessment(<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B27">Pae <italic>et al.,</italic> 2015</xref>) was conducted. Phoneme-grapheme correspondent words were analyzed according to whether the word has meaning, whether the syllable has a final consonant, and the position of the grapheme in the syllable. Letter knowledge asked about the names and sounds of 12 consonants and 6 vowels. The children’s PA of word, syllable, body-coda, and phoneme blending was tested. Object and letter RAN was measured in seconds. The decoding difficulty of non-words was more noticeable in the DD group than in the TD one. The TD children read the syllable initial and syllable final position with 99% correctness. Children with DD read with 80% and 82% correctness, respectively. In addition, the DD group had more difficulty in decoding words with two patchims when compared with the TD one. The DD group read only 57% of words with two patchims correctly, while the TD one read 91% correctly. There were significant differences in body-coda PA, phoneme level PA, letter RAN, object RAN, and letter-sound knowledge between the two groups. This study confirms the existence of Korean developmental dyslexics, and the urgent need for the inclusion of a Korean-specific phonics approach in the education system.

The Relationship Between Speech, Language, and Phonological Awareness in Preschool-Age Children With Developmental Disabilities.

A number of intrinsic factors, including expressive speech skills, have been suggested to place children with developmental disabilities at risk for limited development of reading skills. This study examines the relationship between these factors, speech ability, and children's phonological awareness skills. A nonexperimental study design was used to examine the relationship between intrinsic skills of speech, language, print, and letter-sound knowledge to phonological awareness in 42 children with developmental disabilities between the ages of 48 and 69 months. Hierarchical multiple regression was done to determine if speech ability accounted for a unique amount of variance in phonological awareness skill beyond what would be expected by developmental skills inclusive of receptive language and print and letter-sound knowledge. A range of skill in all areas of direct assessment was found. Children with limited speech were found to have emerging skills in print knowledge, letter-sound knowledge, and phonological awareness. Speech ability did not predict a significant amount of variance in phonological awareness beyond what would be expected by developmental skills of receptive language and print and letter-sound knowledge. Children with limited speech ability were found to have receptive language and letter-sound knowledge that supported the development of phonological awareness skills. This study provides implications for practitioners and researchers concerning the factors related to early reading development in children with limited speech ability and developmental disabilities.

Preliteracy impairments in children with neurofibromatosis type 1.

This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the preliteracy abilities of young children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and to identify which of these abilities best predicted conventional literacy (spelling). Forty-two children with NF1 (23 males, 19 females; mean age [SD] 5y 6mo [6mo]) were compared with 32 unaffected children (15 males, 17 females; mean age [SD] 5y 4mo [6mo]). All children completed a comprehensive cognitive assessment including measures of phonological processing (phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid automatic naming) and letter-sound knowledge. Children with NF1 performed significantly poorer than the comparison group across all cognitive and preliteracy domains, with specific weaknesses evident in phonological awareness (F1,68 =14.13, p<0.001, partial η2 =0.17), phonological memory (F1,68 =13.87, p<0.001, partial η2 =0.17), and letter-sound knowledge (F1,71 =5.65, p=0.020, partial η2 =0.07). Within the group with NF1 group, over a third of children demonstrated impairment in at least one phonological processing domain and the risk of phonological impairment was 5.60 times that of unaffected children. Children's letter-sound knowledge was the strongest predictor of conventional literacy (spelling). This study establishes that preliteracy deficits are present and detectable in young children with NF1. As a result of the high incidence of preliteracy impairment, we recommend screening phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge to identify risk of future learning disorders. Young children with neurofibromatosis type 1 are at elevated risk of preliteracy deficits. The most affected domains are phonological awareness and phonological memory. Letter-sound knowledge is the strongest predictor of conventional literacy (spelling).

Gender Gaps in Letter-Sound Knowledge Persist Across the First School Year.

Literacy is the cornerstone of a primary school education and enables the intellectual and social development of young children. Letter-sound knowledge has been identified as critical for developing proficiency in reading. This study explored the development of letter-sound knowledge in relation to gender during the first year of primary school. 485 Norwegian children aged 5–6 years completed assessment of letter-sound knowledge, i.e., uppercase letters- name; uppercase letter -sound; lowercase letters- name; lowercase letter-sound. The children were tested in the beginning, middle, and end of their first school year. The results revealed a clear gender difference in all four variables in favor of the girls which were relatively constant over time. Implications for understanding the role of gender and letter-sound knowledge for later reading performance are discussed.

Literacy programs efficacy for developing children’s early reading skills in familiar language in Zambia

This study investigated the comparative efficacy of a phonics-based reading program and a language experience approach based literacy program to develop reading skills among Zambian early childhood school learners. The learners (n = 1 986; Grade 2 level; females = 50.1%) took either the phonics-based reading program (n = 1 593) or the alternative language experience approach based program (n = 393). They were all assessed for reading skills utilising the Early Grade Reading Assessment test (EGRA) in four languages (Cinyanja, Icibemba, Kiikaonde, and Silozi). Results suggest that learners in phonics-based literacy program were significantly better in letter-sound knowledge in all the four languages. Additionally, they were significantly better in reading skills (non-word reading, oral passage reading, and reading comprehension), yet only in Icibemba and Silozi, as compared to those who took the alternative program. Results reveal that children in the Primary Literacy Program (PLP) had significantly better performance in most reading skills than in the Primary Reading Program (PRP). However, the effect sizes were small or medium. The high floor effect in all reading-related measures is an indication that by following either PRP or the recently implemented PLP, most children do not acquire basic reading skill of the transparently written language they are familiar with. Instruction of the sounds of letters requires special attention where digital training tools (such as GraphoGame) may provide the most effective help to both teachers and children.

Children with dyslexia show a reduced processing benefit from bimodal speech information compared to their typically developing peers

During information processing, individuals benefit from bimodally presented input, as has been demonstrated for speech perception (i.e., printed letters and speech sounds) or the perception of emotional expressions (i.e., facial expression and voice tuning). While typically developing individuals show this bimodal benefit, school children with dyslexia do not. Currently, it is unknown whether the bimodal processing deficit in dyslexia also occurs for visual-auditory speech processing that is independent of reading and spelling acquisition (i.e., no letter-sound knowledge is required). Here, we tested school children with and without spelling problems on their bimodal perception of video-recorded mouth movements pronouncing syllables. We analyzed the event-related potential Mismatch Response (MMR) to visual-auditory speech information and compared this response to the MMR to monomodal speech information (i.e., auditory-only, visual-only). We found a reduced MMR with later onset to visual-auditory speech information in children with spelling problems compared to children without spelling problems. Moreover, when comparing bimodal and monomodal speech perception, we found that children without spelling problems showed significantly larger responses in the visual-auditory experiment compared to the visual-only response, whereas children with spelling problems did not. Our results suggest that children with dyslexia exhibit general difficulties in bimodal speech perception independently of letter-speech sound knowledge, as apparent in altered bimodal speech perception and lacking benefit from bimodal information. This general deficit in children with dyslexia may underlie the previously reported reduced bimodal benefit for letter-speech sound combinations and similar findings in emotion perception.

First and foreign language early reading abilities: The influence of musical perception

There is a growing body of literature that recognises how music perception affects first-language learning, but much less is known about its influence on foreign-language reading skills. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of music perception abilities on the acquisition of some foreign early reading skills based on their transference from first language. Data for this study were collected from 63 Spanish-speaking English-language learners studying second grade of primary school. We used a music perception test and the Early Grade Reading Assessment battery, which measures early reading skills in both languages. A mediation analysis using structural equation modelling was performed, integrating music perception and letter-sound knowledge, initial sound identification, and familiar word and pseudoword reading in Spanish and English. This research provides new insights into how music perception affects early reading skills in both languages. These findings indicate a transfer of music perception abilities to first-language alphabetic principle, phonemic awareness and word recognition skills that affect foreign language early reading abilities.