Teaching Phonics in the Context of Children’s Literature or Spelling: Influences on First-Grade Reading, Spelling, and Writing and Fifth-Grade Comprehension
Purpose: The focus of the present study was to compare the effects of phonics instruction in these two contexts on reading, spelling, and writing.
Participants: 56 children enrolled in two first-grade classrooms were included in the study (initially 61)
Instruction was designed in light of a three-part model of decoding that recognized the necessary
(a) segmenting of individual graphemes in reading and segmenting of individual phonemes in spelling
(b) conversion from grapheme to phoneme in word decoding and conversion from phoneme to grapheme in spelling, and
(c) blending phonemes to obtain a word pronunciation for lexical access during reading (literature group) and to check a match between a written word and a stored word pronunciation when spelling (spelling group).
Intervention Steps: (See table on pg.695)
1. Introduces letter
2. “Letter stands for.” student repeat, Teacher introduces story excerpt
“While I am reading, listen for /sound/.”
3. Teacher reads excerpt. “You read with me.” “Listen for /sound/.”
4. Teacher reads excerpt slowly. “Raise your hand when you hear /sound/.” Teacher underlines target letters in word in excerpt. Teacher reads excerpt again with students chorally
5. “Listen for /sound/.” “If hear /sound/ at beginning, show your blue card.”
6.Children pronounce word as teacher shows word on card
Duration: Instruction in the two groups was equated for (a) the length of the lessons (15–20 min)
In each group, children participated in 44 lessons on 23 letter–sound correspondences and encountered 8 exemplar words in each lesson for a total exposure to 368 words over the course of instruction
Results: There was no significant difference between groups on comprehension scores at the end of first grade, but by the end of fifth grade, the spelling-context group scored significantly higher than the literature-context group on the standardized comprehension test.
Participants: 56 children enrolled in two first-grade classrooms were included in the study (initially 61)
Instruction was designed in light of a three-part model of decoding that recognized the necessary
(a) segmenting of individual graphemes in reading and segmenting of individual phonemes in spelling
(b) conversion from grapheme to phoneme in word decoding and conversion from phoneme to grapheme in spelling, and
(c) blending phonemes to obtain a word pronunciation for lexical access during reading (literature group) and to check a match between a written word and a stored word pronunciation when spelling (spelling group).
Intervention Steps: (See table on pg.695)
1. Introduces letter
2. “Letter stands for.” student repeat, Teacher introduces story excerpt
“While I am reading, listen for /sound/.”
3. Teacher reads excerpt. “You read with me.” “Listen for /sound/.”
4. Teacher reads excerpt slowly. “Raise your hand when you hear /sound/.” Teacher underlines target letters in word in excerpt. Teacher reads excerpt again with students chorally
5. “Listen for /sound/.” “If hear /sound/ at beginning, show your blue card.”
6.Children pronounce word as teacher shows word on card
Duration: Instruction in the two groups was equated for (a) the length of the lessons (15–20 min)
In each group, children participated in 44 lessons on 23 letter–sound correspondences and encountered 8 exemplar words in each lesson for a total exposure to 368 words over the course of instruction
Results: There was no significant difference between groups on comprehension scores at the end of first grade, but by the end of fifth grade, the spelling-context group scored significantly higher than the literature-context group on the standardized comprehension test.
Acquisition and Generalization of Word Decoding in Students with Reading Disabilities by Integrating Vowel Pattern Analysis and Children's Literature
Link to article: Acquisition and Generalization of Word Decoding in Students with Reading Disabilities by Integrating Vowel Pattern Analysis and Children's Literature on JSTOR
Purpose: This study investigated the effects of a reading intervention that integrated vowel pattern analysis and children's literature on the word decoding performance of second graders with reading disabilities
Participants: Five students (three boys; two girls) with reading disabilities
Intervention Steps:
1) First, the teacher read the story.
2) Second, students were asked to join the teacher as she read the story again (choral reading).
3) Finally, individual students who volunteered read short segments of the story aloud
The instruction consisted of two components:
15 days for the "Magic e" vowel pattern, 11 days for "Double Vowels", and 5 days for "Closed Vowels
Results: All 5 second graders demonstrated substantial gains in their ability to decode words with the 3 vowel patterns. The students increased their accuracy reading words in isolation, as well as in context. In addition, all students increased their decoding accuracy of both novel and nonsense generalization words. These increases in decoding accuracy were maintained during follow-up observations.
The results of this study demonstrate that students with reading disabilities benefited from a reading intervention that integrated teaching strategies based on vowel pattern analysis and children's literature. All five students substantially increased their word reading accuracy after the intervention was implemented, and their accuracy generally became much more stable. Positive changes were seen on all three vowel patterns that were targeted during the instruction for the training words in isolation and in context.
Purpose: This study investigated the effects of a reading intervention that integrated vowel pattern analysis and children's literature on the word decoding performance of second graders with reading disabilities
Participants: Five students (three boys; two girls) with reading disabilities
Intervention Steps:
1) First, the teacher read the story.
2) Second, students were asked to join the teacher as she read the story again (choral reading).
3) Finally, individual students who volunteered read short segments of the story aloud
The instruction consisted of two components:
- shared reading of children's literature (i.e., meaning-based activities with Big Books),
- explicit phonics instruction using vowel patterns (i.e., code-based instruction of syllable types). The time allocated for instruction was divided evenly between these two components (i.e., 20 minutes for meaning-based activities, followed by 20 minutes for the code-based activities).
15 days for the "Magic e" vowel pattern, 11 days for "Double Vowels", and 5 days for "Closed Vowels
Results: All 5 second graders demonstrated substantial gains in their ability to decode words with the 3 vowel patterns. The students increased their accuracy reading words in isolation, as well as in context. In addition, all students increased their decoding accuracy of both novel and nonsense generalization words. These increases in decoding accuracy were maintained during follow-up observations.
The results of this study demonstrate that students with reading disabilities benefited from a reading intervention that integrated teaching strategies based on vowel pattern analysis and children's literature. All five students substantially increased their word reading accuracy after the intervention was implemented, and their accuracy generally became much more stable. Positive changes were seen on all three vowel patterns that were targeted during the instruction for the training words in isolation and in context.