Does Phoneme Awareness Training in Kindergarten Make a Difference in Early Word Recognition and Developmental Spelling?
Link to article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/747731
Overview: Students in Grade 1 and above who are having difficulty hearing the individual sounds (phonemes) in words and writing the corresponding letters to make the words. These students may score below benchmark in AIMSweb Letter Sound Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, Nonsense Word Fluency, R-CBM, or another phonics assessment (i.e. CORE Phonics) or Spelling Inventory. Materials: laminated sound box mats (see attached—cut apart on the dotted line), dry erase markers, eraser (or the attached sound box worksheets may be used) Recommended Duration and Frequency: Students should advance to the next word list when s/he can write the letters in sound boxes to correctly spell words a variety of words on a list with 95% accuracy overall for at least 3 consecutive days. Monitor the student’s progress once a week or twice monthly using the AIMSweb Nonsense Word Fluency or R-CBM. When the child’s score is at the benchmark/target for 3 consecutive monitors and teacher observation confirms the skill has been transferred to classroom work, the intervention may be discontinued.
Steps for Intervention:
1. Select an appropriate word list to use with the student. The lists get progressively harder, so choose one based on the student’s beginning skill level for this task. (See attached for word lists.) You do not need to teach words in the order they are listed, but make sure the student experiences a wide variety of words from the list you are using.
2. Give each student a laminated Sound Box Mat (attached) that is appropriate for the list being used, a dry erase marker, and an eraser (or use the attached sound box worksheets). If you are starting with 2-phoneme words, use the 2-box mat or the 2-box worksheet, etc.
3. Pronounce a word from your list slowly. Each sound should be stretched so the student hears the individual sounds (i.e. sssssssss-oooooooo).
4. Have the student repeat the word, counting on his/her fingers the number of sounds s/he hears in the word. If needed, use your fingers to count the sounds for the student.
5. Have the student repeat the word again, phoneme by phoneme, and write the letter corresponding to each phoneme heard in a box from left to right. (You may demonstrate the writing of letters in boxes for a couple words, if the child doesn’t understand.)
6. Record student’s progress on the attached sheet by listing a percentage of words boxed correctly. A word is boxed correctly when the student can spell a word correctly without help, placing one letter (or letter combination) representing a phoneme in each box.
7. When a student has achieved at least 95% accuracy for at least 3 consecutive days on a variety of words (a mixture of vowels or vowel combinations) from one list, begin working on the next word list. Sample: Example: “duck” - /d/, /u/, /k/ d u ck
The Study: 90 students from three urban public schools in the U.S. were randomly assigned to one of three groups.
Group 1: Received training in segmenting words into phonemes, as well as training in correspondences between letter names and letter sounds (phoneme awareness group).
Group 2: Received only the training in letter names and letter sounds (language activities group).
Group 3: Received no intervention (control group)
Participants in the study were selected from the total enrollment (N = 151) of six kindergarten classrooms in three schools in NY.
Duration: 7-week intervention, 20 minutes 4X a week
Phoneme Awareness Group:
Groups of five, for 20 minutes, four times each week over a period of 7 weeks. Each 20-minute segmentation training session contained three components:
Step 1- (a) say-it-and-move-it activities
Step 2- (b) other segmentation-related activities,
Step 3-(c) letter-name and letter-sound training
Language activities group:
The children in this condition also met in groups of five and spent 20 minutes, four times a week, for 7 weeks participating in a variety of language activities
Step 1-general vocabulary development
Step 2- listening to stories
Step 3- learning semantic categorization
Step 4- Letter and Sound review
Results:
Overview: Students in Grade 1 and above who are having difficulty hearing the individual sounds (phonemes) in words and writing the corresponding letters to make the words. These students may score below benchmark in AIMSweb Letter Sound Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, Nonsense Word Fluency, R-CBM, or another phonics assessment (i.e. CORE Phonics) or Spelling Inventory. Materials: laminated sound box mats (see attached—cut apart on the dotted line), dry erase markers, eraser (or the attached sound box worksheets may be used) Recommended Duration and Frequency: Students should advance to the next word list when s/he can write the letters in sound boxes to correctly spell words a variety of words on a list with 95% accuracy overall for at least 3 consecutive days. Monitor the student’s progress once a week or twice monthly using the AIMSweb Nonsense Word Fluency or R-CBM. When the child’s score is at the benchmark/target for 3 consecutive monitors and teacher observation confirms the skill has been transferred to classroom work, the intervention may be discontinued.
Steps for Intervention:
1. Select an appropriate word list to use with the student. The lists get progressively harder, so choose one based on the student’s beginning skill level for this task. (See attached for word lists.) You do not need to teach words in the order they are listed, but make sure the student experiences a wide variety of words from the list you are using.
2. Give each student a laminated Sound Box Mat (attached) that is appropriate for the list being used, a dry erase marker, and an eraser (or use the attached sound box worksheets). If you are starting with 2-phoneme words, use the 2-box mat or the 2-box worksheet, etc.
3. Pronounce a word from your list slowly. Each sound should be stretched so the student hears the individual sounds (i.e. sssssssss-oooooooo).
4. Have the student repeat the word, counting on his/her fingers the number of sounds s/he hears in the word. If needed, use your fingers to count the sounds for the student.
5. Have the student repeat the word again, phoneme by phoneme, and write the letter corresponding to each phoneme heard in a box from left to right. (You may demonstrate the writing of letters in boxes for a couple words, if the child doesn’t understand.)
6. Record student’s progress on the attached sheet by listing a percentage of words boxed correctly. A word is boxed correctly when the student can spell a word correctly without help, placing one letter (or letter combination) representing a phoneme in each box.
7. When a student has achieved at least 95% accuracy for at least 3 consecutive days on a variety of words (a mixture of vowels or vowel combinations) from one list, begin working on the next word list. Sample: Example: “duck” - /d/, /u/, /k/ d u ck
The Study: 90 students from three urban public schools in the U.S. were randomly assigned to one of three groups.
Group 1: Received training in segmenting words into phonemes, as well as training in correspondences between letter names and letter sounds (phoneme awareness group).
Group 2: Received only the training in letter names and letter sounds (language activities group).
Group 3: Received no intervention (control group)
Participants in the study were selected from the total enrollment (N = 151) of six kindergarten classrooms in three schools in NY.
Duration: 7-week intervention, 20 minutes 4X a week
Phoneme Awareness Group:
Groups of five, for 20 minutes, four times each week over a period of 7 weeks. Each 20-minute segmentation training session contained three components:
Step 1- (a) say-it-and-move-it activities
Step 2- (b) other segmentation-related activities,
Step 3-(c) letter-name and letter-sound training
Language activities group:
The children in this condition also met in groups of five and spent 20 minutes, four times a week, for 7 weeks participating in a variety of language activities
Step 1-general vocabulary development
Step 2- listening to stories
Step 3- learning semantic categorization
Step 4- Letter and Sound review
Results:
- Results indicated that phoneme awareness instruction, combined with instruction connecting the phonemic segments to alphabet letters, significantly improved the early reading and spelling skills of the children in the phoneme awareness group.
- Instruction in letter names and letter sounds alone did not significantly improve the segmentation skills, the early reading skills, or the spelling skills of the kindergarten children who participated in the language activities group, as compared with the control group.
The Effect of Tier 2 Intervention for Phonemic Awareness in a Response-to Intervention Model in Low-Income Preschool Classrooms
Link to article: The effect of Tier 2 intervention for phonemic awareness in a response-to-intervention model in low-income preschool classrooms - PubMed (nih.gov)
Purpose: This study assessed the effectiveness of a Tier 2 intervention that was designed to increase the phonemic awareness skills of low-income preschoolers who were enrolled in Early Reading First classrooms
Participants/Method: 34 preschoolers participated in a multiple baseline across participants treatment design. Tier 2 intervention for beginning sound awareness was provided twice weekly in small groups over 6 weeks by trained teachers and speech language pathologists (SLPs)
a 6-week block of an experimental explicit emergent literacy intervention followed by a 6-week block of a comparison intervention. The second order was the opposite, with a 6-week block of the comparison intervention followed by a 6-week block of the explicit emergent literacy intervention
Intervention:
The intervention scripts were created by the authors in consultation with the other interventionists and TERFP staff. See appendix B
Step 1: teaching objective
Step 2: anticipatory set
Step 3: purpose
Step 4: input
Step 5: modeling
Step 6: checking for understanding
Step 7: guided practice
Step 8: closure.
Duration: Tier 2 intervention sessions were scheduled two times per week (not consecutive days) for 6 weeks; 20-25 minutes per session
Results: The intervention was successful for 71% of the children, as indicated by medium to large effect sizes. Comparisons between children who did and did not qualify for intervention suggest that Tier 2 intervention helped narrow the gap in beginning sound awareness that had begun to emerge before treatment.
Purpose: This study assessed the effectiveness of a Tier 2 intervention that was designed to increase the phonemic awareness skills of low-income preschoolers who were enrolled in Early Reading First classrooms
Participants/Method: 34 preschoolers participated in a multiple baseline across participants treatment design. Tier 2 intervention for beginning sound awareness was provided twice weekly in small groups over 6 weeks by trained teachers and speech language pathologists (SLPs)
a 6-week block of an experimental explicit emergent literacy intervention followed by a 6-week block of a comparison intervention. The second order was the opposite, with a 6-week block of the comparison intervention followed by a 6-week block of the explicit emergent literacy intervention
Intervention:
The intervention scripts were created by the authors in consultation with the other interventionists and TERFP staff. See appendix B
Step 1: teaching objective
Step 2: anticipatory set
Step 3: purpose
Step 4: input
Step 5: modeling
Step 6: checking for understanding
Step 7: guided practice
Step 8: closure.
Duration: Tier 2 intervention sessions were scheduled two times per week (not consecutive days) for 6 weeks; 20-25 minutes per session
Results: The intervention was successful for 71% of the children, as indicated by medium to large effect sizes. Comparisons between children who did and did not qualify for intervention suggest that Tier 2 intervention helped narrow the gap in beginning sound awareness that had begun to emerge before treatment.