Integrated pictorial mnemonics and stimulus fading: Teaching kindergartners letter sounds (original) (raw)

An investigation of factors associated with letter-sound knowledge at kindergarten entry

Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2014

Letter-sound knowledge is necessary for children to begin reading and writing, and kindergarteners who know only a few letter sounds are at risk for later reading difficulties. This study examines the letter-sound knowledge of 1197 first-time kindergarteners who were economically disadvantaged, in light of six hypotheses about letter-sound knowledge acquisition: (1) the letter-name structure effect hypothesis, (2) the letter-sound ambiguity hypothesis, (3) the letter-name knowledge hypothesis, (4) the own-name advantage hypothesis, and 5) the phonological awareness facilitation hypothesis, as well as the interactions between phonological awareness and letter-name structure. Results using threelevel multilevel modeling indicate that letter sounds have varying levels of difficulty and several letterand child-related factors are associated with naming a letter sound correctly. Implications for instruction are discussed.

Letter Knowledge, Phonological Processing, and Print Knowledge: Skill Development in Nonreading Preschool Children

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2006

Development of reading skills was examined in 4-year-old children from low-income homes attending a prekindergarten program. Fall to spring gains in letter identification were examined and compared with skills in phonological processing, rhyme detection, and environmental print, and with performance on a screening tool (Get Ready to Read). It was anticipated that participants might show slow skill development. However, the identification of a large group of children (n = 30) who made little or no gains in letter identification compared to their classmates (n = 27), whose gains averaged 7 letters, was not anticipated. Fall to spring gains in letter identification correlated with phonological processing, rhyme detection, environmental print, and Get Ready to Read! scores. Age and general cognitive skills influenced performance on some tasks. More knowledge of the characteristics of children who show the most variations in skill development may lead to insights on using classroom curriculum to focus on skill development.

The foundations of literacy: Learning the sounds of letters

Child …, 1998

Learning the sounds of letters is an important part of learning to read and spell. To explore the factors that make some letter-sound correspondences easier for children to learn than others, we first analyzed knowledge of letters' sounds (and names) by 660 children between 3 ½ and 7 ½ years old. A second study examined preschoolers' (mean age 4 years, 11 months) ability to learn various sound-letter mappings. Together, the results show that an important determinant of letter-sound knowledge is whether the sound occurs in the name of the letter and, if so, whether it is at the beginning or the end. The properties of the sound itself (consonant vs. vowel, sonorant vs. obstruent, stop vs. continuant) appear to have little or no influence on children's learning of basic letter-sound correspondences.

Letter names, letter sounds and phonological awareness: an examination of kindergarten children across letters and of letters across children

Reading and Writing, 2006

In this study 149 kindergarten children were assessed for knowledge of letter names and letter sounds, phonological awareness, and cognitive abilities. Through this it examined child and letter characteristics influencing the acquisition of alphabetic knowledge in a naturalistic context, the relationship between letter-sound knowledge and letter-name knowledge, and the prediction of Grade 1 phonological awareness and word identification from these variables. Knowledge of letter sounds was better for vowels and for letters with consonant-vowel names than for those with vowel-consonant names or names bearing little relationship to their sounds. However, there were anomalies within each category reflecting characteristics of the individual letters. Structural equation modelling showed that cognitive ability, comprising receptive vocabulary, non-verbal reasoning, rapid automatized naming of colours, and phonological memory significantly contributed to alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness. In turn, letter-name knowledge but not phonological awareness predicted letter-sound knowledge and subsequent reading skill.

Influence of Letter Sound Correspondence on Performance of English Reading in Early Childhood

2018

Letter sound correspondence is the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes). These connections between the sounds in words and the letters that are used to represent those sounds are referred to as letter sound correspondence. The effect of letter sound correspondence on performance of English reading is highlighted on basis of phonemic awareness and phonological awareness. The objective of this mixed method study was to examine the influence of learners' ability to correspond letters to their correct sounds on performance of English reading in Grade One. The geographical locale of the study was Keiyo Sub County. Stratified and random sampling techniques were used to select the 26 schools and 78 teachers. Fifty two (52) pupils of Grade One were selected (a boy and a girl) using simple random sampling and assessed. The instruments used were questionnaire for ECDE and Grade One teachers and an EGRA checklist for Grade One learner. Data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The research results rejected the null hypothesis which stated that there exists no significant relationship between a learner's ability to correspond letters with their correct sound and performance of English reading in Grade One. This was interpreted to mean that pupils need to be taught letter sound correspondences as it will improve their ability to read English. Given the importance of letter sounds in learning to read, this study recommends that preschool teachers be adequately prepared in phonemic and phonological awareness for sustainable development.

Literacy Intervention Strategies for Increasing Kindergarteners' Letter Sound Fluency and Word Recognition: A Proposed Intervention

International Journal For Research In Educational Studies ISSN: 2208-2115, 2020

This research sought to determine the effectiveness of the following proposed literacy intervention strategies: perfect match, fluency letter wheel, letter flash, familiar word readings, word relay, and fast match in increasing letter sound fluency and word recognition among kinder pupils enrolled in Manggolod Elementary School of Sta. Catalina District III. Forty-two (42) respondents were equally distributed among three groups based on their level of intelligence per academic grades from first to second quarter. The study utilized the standardized Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) as the tool in determining the pre-test and post-test performance of the kinder pupils. The researcher prepared 3 different intervention strategies for letter sound fluency and 3 different intervention strategies for word recognition and administered them to the pupils. To check on the effectiveness of the strategies, a post-test was conducted using EGRA. Results were statistically treated using percentage, weighted mean, t-test for independent data and t-test for dependent data. It was found out that pre-test and post-test performance of the kinder pupils in letter sound fluency and word recognition was generally within satisfactory level. Post-test performance in letter sound fluency and word recognition was also remarkable. There was a significant difference between their pre-test and post-test performance in letter sound fluency word recognition intervention activities. Hence, it is recommended that other schools would use the strategies proposed in this study so to compare the findings of this study.

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

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2009

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.

Acquisition of Letter Naming Knowledge, Phonological Awareness, and Spelling Knowledge of Kindergarten Children at Risk for Learning to Read

Child Development Research, 2018

This study measures letter naming, phonological awareness, and spelling knowledge in 2,100 kindergarten students attending 63 schools within a large, urban school district. Students were assessed across December, February, and May of the kindergarten year. Results found that, by May, 71.8% of students had attained full letter naming knowledge. Phonological awareness emerged more slowly with 48% of students able to reliably segment and blend phonemes in words. Spelling development, a measure of phonics knowledge, found that, by May, 71.8% of students were in the partial-alphabetic phase. A series of regression analyses revealed that by the end of kindergarten both letter naming and phonological awareness were significant predictors of spelling knowledge (b = .332 and .518 for LK and PA, resp.), explaining 52.7% of the variance.