Evaluating the Impact of the delivery of Synthetic Phonics Teaching on the Acquisition of Upper and Lowercase Recognition Skills of Omani Third Graders

Letter name knowledge is regarded as being among the soundest indicators of later reading skill and an imperfectly established alphabetic knowledge is a well-known predictor of future reading challenges. Hence, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a synthetic approach to phonics, specifically Jolly Phonics (JP), to determine its contribution to Omani third graders’ acquisition of uppercase (UC) and lowercase (LC) recognition. The study sample consisted of 117 Omani male and female third graders in two cycle one schools in Al-Dhahira Governorate in the Sultanate of Oman during the academic year 2019/2020. The study employed a quantitative descriptive research design, in which data was collected using an UC and LC letter recognition test. The findings revealed that the although the third graders in this study’s sample have on average achieved the JP programme’s objective in terms of UC and LC letter recognition skills, not all students have achieved the minimum required level in this literacy skill; whereby 43.6% of the students were below the minimum required level and the remaining 56.4% of students were at or above the minimum required level. Besides, there was a statistically significant difference between third graders’ scores in UC letter recognition and LC recognition in favour of UC letters. The study concluded with a set of recommendations for the MOE and English teachers, in order to develop the delivery of synthetic phonics teaching as a literacy-enhancing approach, namely JP, in the Omani context. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this study is important for being the first to evaluate the impact of the delivery of synthetic phonics teaching (i.e. JP programme) on the acquisition of upper and lowercase recognition skills among Omani EFL third graders since the programme’s implementation in 2014.

Alphabetic Knowledge and Phonological Awareness : A comparison between Malaysian Preschool Children from Public and Private Kindergartens

Alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness are essential skills in learning to read. This research examined the level of acquisition on alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness among 60 preschoolers from private and public preschools in Kuching, Sarawak. The mean age of the children was 5.58. The children were administered letter name and sound knowledge, and letter naming fluency tests to examine their alphabetic knowledge; Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing and Yopp-Singer Phoneme Segmentation Test to examine their phonological awareness. Higher achievement in alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness was found among preschoolers from private preschools compared to those from public preschools. This study discusses the implications for practice and the ways teachers could explicitly foster alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness skills in the classroom. Keywords: learning to read, alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness, preschool children.

Investigating the comprehension iceberg: Developing empirical benchmarks for early-grade reading in agglutinating African languages

Background: Reading development in agglutinating African languages is a relatively under-researched area. While numerous studies highlight the low comprehension levels among learners reading in African languages in South Africa, little has been done to probe beneath this ‘comprehension iceberg’ in terms of decoding skills.Aim: As a tentative step towards benchmarking in African languages, we analyse the sub-components of reading across three languages (Northern Sotho, Xitsonga and isiZulu), to better understand the nature of alphabetic knowledge, word reading and fluency in these languages, how these relate to one another, and how accuracy and speed relate to comprehension.Setting: Data was obtained from 785 Grade 3 learners across three African languages in three provinces in South Africa.Methods: The early grade reading assessment (EGRA) framework was adapted to the written features of the three languages to assess letter-sounds, single-word reading, non-word reading, oral reading fluency (ORF) and oral comprehension.Results: We present results on fluency, accuracy and comprehension and their interrelationships in these morphologically rich languages. While differences emerged between the conjunctive and disjunctive orthographies, strong relations occurred across the languages between letter-sound knowledge and word reading, word reading and oral reading fluency, and ORF and reading comprehension. Results suggest minimum thresholds of accuracy and ORF in each language, below which it is virtually impossible to read for meaning.Conclusion: There is a strong need for language-specific norms and benchmarks for African languages. Preliminary minimum decoding thresholds for comprehension found in these three languages serve as a move in that direction.

L1 Language Experience and English Phonological Awareness of Chinese College Students

This study investigates the roles of two kinds of L1 language experience—early spoken language acquired before literacy and used as home language as well as Pinyin alphabetic knowledge—in Chinese college students’ phonological awareness (PA) in English. PA is critical to the improvement of language skills in either L1 or L2. Research on contributing factors for PA performance can provide language teachers with guidance on enhancing their students’ PA. A questionnaire was conducted to examine 408 adult participants’ home language. A Mandarin PA test, which included syllable differentiation, onset oddity, rhyme oddity and tone identification, was used to assess their Pinyin alphabetic knowledge. An English PA test was carried out to assess three levels of PA (syllable, onset-rhyme and phoneme) across four tasks (oddity, segmentation, blending and substitution). Results show that 1) these two kinds of L1 language experience exerted significant effects on adult learners’ PA in English; 2) the effects were modified by both level of PA and difficulty of task; and 3) the effects appeared weak due possibly to adult learners’ higher English proficiency. These results underscore the necessity to consider the impact of L1 language experience in both researching and training Chinese learners’ PA in English.

Facilitadores del proceso de aprendizaje de la escritura en las primeras edades

<p>The study of learning to write in the early ages has been the subject of much research in recent years. We now know that in the languages of alphabetic writing like ours, learning to write requires both alphabetical knowledge and the awareness of the phonological structure of speech, with the development of spoken language a necessary skill for language learning written. However, few studies have been conducted in order to understand the linkages between these skills and the initial learning to write. The purpose of this study was to examine whether programs that integrate the promotion of oral language along with the development of phonological processing skills and knowledge alphabetical effectiveness of the learning process of writing is favored. A quasi-experimental comparison group design with pretest and posttest measures was used. The study involved 403 students from different public and private schools aged between 5 and 6 years. The results weigh the potential value of the program and support the development of teaching models that provide access to the alphabetic knowledge from new educational perspectives on learning that facilitates writing system.</p>

The Construct and Predictive Validity of a Dynamic Assessment of Young Children Learning to Read: Implications for RTI Frameworks

The purpose of this study was to examine the construct and predictive validity of a dynamic assessment (DA) of decoding learning. Students ( N = 318) were assessed in the fall of first grade on an array of instruments that were given in hopes of forecasting responsiveness to reading instruction. These instruments included DA as well as one-point-in-time (static) measures of early alphabetic knowledge, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonemic awareness, oral vocabulary, listening comprehension, attentive behavior, and hyperactive or impulsive behavior. An IQ test was administered in spring of second grade. Measures of reading outcomes administered in spring of first grade were accuracy and fluency of word identification skills and reading comprehension. Factor analysis using principal axis factor extraction indicated that DA loaded on a first factor that also included language abilities and IQ, which the authors refer to as the “language, IQ, and DA” factor. It was relatively distinct from two additional factors: (a) “speeded alphabetic knowledge and RAN” and (b) “task-oriented behavior.” A three-level (children nested within classroom; classrooms nested within school) random intercept model with fixed effects predictors suggested that DA differed from word attack in predicting future reading skill and that DA was a significant predictor of responsiveness to instruction, contributing unique variance to end-of-first-grade word identification and reading comprehension beyond that explained by other well-established predictors of reading development.