Research Summary
Early
Literacy
Ukrainetz, T. A., Cooney, M. H., Dyer,
S. K., Kysar, A. J., & Harris, T. J. (2000). An
investigation into teaching phonemic awareness through
shared reading and writing. (Early Childhood Research
Quarterly, 15(3), 331-355.)
Background
The National Association for the Education of Young
Children/International Reading Association
(NAEYC/IRA;1998) position statement states that
conventional training in phonemic awareness is not
appropriate for young children. Instead, they suggest
that systematic instruction in phonemic awareness is
beneficial for children after they learned some letter
names, shapes, and sounds and can apply what they learn
to reading. NAEYC further states that many children will
learn phonemic awareness as a consequence of learning to
read.
McGee and Purcell-Gates (1997) state that the way
phonemic awareness is typically taught does not reflect
principles of emergent literacy followed in many early
childhood education classrooms.
By itself, reading to children does not produce very
large gains. According to the authors, "despite
overwhelming support for reading to children, the
observed effects are, on the whole, disappointingly small
and variable (Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994)."
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects
of teaching phonemic awareness in a way more consistent
with the principles of emergent literacy. Phonemic
awareness training was embedded in meaningful text
activities with 5 and 6 year old children in mixed
ability groupings. The authors employed a group
experimental design and addressed the following research
questions:
1. Can five and six year old children learn
phonemic awareness in a naturalistic context?
2. Can children with lower literacy abilities learn
phonemic awareness in a naturalistic context?
3. Can children learn both easier and more
difficult phonemic awareness tasks within the same
teaching session?
4. Will children show increased interest in
literacy activities as demonstrated through parent
report?
The authors describe this study as a first attempt to
teach phonemic awareness in ways more consistent with the
principles of emergent literacy, i.e., skills were
embedded into meaningful reading activities, instruction
was matched to individual child knowledge, and
instructors provided opportunities for self-directed
learning.
Participants
36 children age 5:0 to 6:5 from four early childhood
programs; 12 children were identified as having lower
literacy skills based on a combination of letter-name
knowledge, first sound awareness, and teacher
concerns.
Treatment
Phonemic awareness was taught three times per week in
30-minute sessions in quiet areas of childcare centers.
Each group consisted of two students with higher literacy
levels and one student with a lower literacy level.
Instructors were master's degree students in
speech-language pathology. Instructors alternated between
two types of activities: (a) twice-weekly activities
involving conversations during book reading; and (b)
once-weekly activities involving conversations during
writing.
Results
Four types of phonemic awareness skills (first sound
identification, last sound identification, sound
segmentation, and sound deletion) were tested using an
informal, 10-item test for each skill.
Results showed positive gains for students in the
treatment group that were significantly above the gains
of students in the control group. Positive effects were
seen for children of lower literacy levels as well as for
higher achieving students. Students in the treatment
group made greatest gains on last sound identification
and sound segmentation tasks.
Instructors were successful at targeting several
different phonemic awareness skills in a single session
and students in the treatment group demonstrated a
greater interest in literacy activities, as demonstrated
by parent report.
