The ABCs of the ABCs: The Development of Letter-Name and Letter-Sound Knowledge

The development of letter-sound (lS) and letter-name (LN) knowledge and associations with other reading skills differed in 91 children followed from the beginning of kindergarten through the middle of first grade: Previous LN predicted both subsequent LN and LS, but previous LS predicted only subsequent LS. Correlations of LN and LS within each testing time were modest, and both were substantially correlated with alphabet ordering across time. Both LS and LN contributed unique variance in predicting subsequent reading-related skills. Children\u27s knowledge of letter sounds was dependent upon corresponding letter names, supporting Treiman et al.\u27s (1994) letter-name hypothesis. Results suggest that alphabet knowledge consists of both LN and LS, which have different developmental patterns

There must be a better way - The case against the New Zealand Literacy Strategy and some examples of how we can help students who fall by the wayside

Literate cultural capital is a phrase used to describe the literacy knowledge and skills children have on school entry (Prochnow, Tunmer & Arrow, 2015; Tunmer & Nicholson, 2011). Literacy knowledge and skills include oral language, vocabulary, an awareness of how books operate, letter name knowledge, letter sound knowledge, phonological awareness, and invented spelling (Prochnow, Tunmer & Arrow, 2015). Children who commence school with a good level of literate cultural capital are advantaged and are more likely to develop age-appropriate reading skills as they progress through school compared to children who commence school with little literate cultural capital

The development of reading tests for use in a regularly spelled language.

Data are presented on the development of tests of reading skill in rural Tanzanian primary school pupils. Instruction in these schools is in Kiswahili, a regularly spelt language. Using a translation of a standard reading test, children could read aloud all words once they had learnt sound-letter correspondences, regardless of comprehension. In addition, children can appear to pass traditional comprehension tasks by decoding only some of the words. Three graded tests were developed which allow testing of children who either have only some letter knowledge, can read single words, or are proficient readers. The tests require children to both decode and understand the reading material in order to achieve high scores. The tests correlated well with scores on other educational achievement tests, and showed age and school grade differences. It is suggested that these tests are useful measures of reading development in a regularly spelt language. Adaptation to English and validation against standardised instruments is planned

Onset and phoneme awareness and its relationship to letter knowledge in German-speaking preschool children

This is the authors' post-print version of an article published in Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica© 2014. The definitive version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000368228Objectives: The aim was to explore whether word initial onset awareness is acquired before phoneme awareness and whether onset complexity influences performance on identification tasks. In addition, the relationship between onset and phoneme awareness and letter knowledge was investigated. Method: In this study 22 monolingual German-speaking preschool children aged 5;00 – 5;11 were tested. Onset, phoneme identification, and letter knowledge tasks were administered. The children were presented with pictures of word pairs. Both words in each pair shared a single consonant onset, a two consonant onset cluster or the first consonant of a consonant cluster. The children were asked to pronounce the shared sound(s). Additionally, they were asked to name all 26 upper-case letters. Results: Onset awareness tasks were significantly easier to complete than phoneme awareness tasks. However, no influence of onset complexity on onset awareness performance was found. Moreover, letter knowledge correlated with all phonological awareness tasks. Conclusions: The results corroborate that phoneme awareness develops already at preschool age irrespective of explicit literacy tuition. Nevertheless, letter knowledge is closely related and should be linked to onset/phoneme awareness tasks

First grade reading materials of high interest level for children from the ages of seven through twelve.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

10 Key Reading Practices for All Elementary Schools With Strong Evidence of Effectiveness From High-Quality Research

The third installment of MCPER's new "10 Key" series, this document distills the latest research findings into 10 easy-to-follow recommendations that states, school districts, and schools can use to improve elementary students' reading outcomes. Also included are descriptions of what students should know and be able to do at the elementary grade levels.Educatio

Phonics: assessment and tracking guidance

"Systematic daily phonics teaching is a key element of the CLLD [Communication, Language and Literacy Development] approach to the teaching of early literacy. These guidance materials will support teachers and practitioners in making judgements about children's progress through phonic phases. Guidance and suggested possible links between Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) scale points and Assessing Pupils' Progress (APP) guidelines are also given." - National Strategies website

Age and schooling effects on early literacy and phoneme awareness

Previous research on age and schooling effects is largely restricted to studies of children who begin formal schooling from the age of 6 and the measures of phoneme awareness used have typically lacked sensitivity for beginning readers. Our study addresses these issues by testing children aged 4-6 (first two years of formal schooling in the UK) on a sensitive dynamic measure of phoneme awareness and tests of early literacy. There were significant effects of both age and schooling on dynamic and static measures of phoneme awareness, word reading, spelling and letter-name knowledge but no significant age × time interactions. This indicates that older children within this age group generally outperform their younger classmates (although they do not make faster progress), and that this advantage is developed prior to the start of school

Intervention procedures for increasing preschool children's interest in and knowledge about reading

Pages numbered 2-50Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-49)Supported in part by the National Institute of Education under contract no. NIE-400-81-003