Using a within-subjects design, researchers compared 183 kindergartners' ability to blend words segmented in four different ways. On digitized video, a researcher portraying the fictitious “Cluella” pronounced 40 consonant-vowel-consonant words for participants to blend. She gave 10 words in phoneme segments with a loud schwa added to consonants, 10 in phoneme segments minimizing any schwa voicing, 10 in onset-rime chunks, and 10 in body-coda chunks. Participants were significantly more successful blending body-coda chunks than blending onsetrime chunks. They also were significantly more successful blending phonemes with added schwa than without. We apply these results to suggest procedures for providing optimal scaffolds for helping children learn to identify words.
References
1.
AdamsM. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2.
BeckI. L. (2006). Making sense of phonics: The hows and whys. New York: Guilford.
3.
BondG. L.DykstraR. (1967). The cooperative research program in first-grade reading in instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 5–142.
4.
ByrneB.Fielding-BarnsleyR. (1989). Phonemic awareness and letter knowledge in the child's acquisition of the alphabetic principle. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 313–321.
5.
ByrneB.Fielding-BarnsleyR. (1990). Acquiring the alphabetic principle: A case for teaching recognition of phoneme identity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 805–812.
6.
CampbellD. T.StanleyJ. C. (1966). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research. Chicago: Rand McNally.
7.
CarnineD. W.SilbertJ.Kame'enuiE. J.TarverS. G. (2004). Direction instruction reading (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
8.
CarrollJ. B.DaviesP.RichmanB. (1971). The American Heritage word frequency book. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin.
9.
CassadyJ. C.SmithL. L. (2004). Acquisition of blending skills: Comparisons among body-coda, onset-rime, and phoneme blending tasks. Reading Psychology, 25, 261–272.
10.
Castiglioni-SpaltenM. L.EhriL. C. (2003). Phonemic awareness instruction: Contribution of articulatory segmentation to novice beginners' reading and spelling. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7, 25–52.
11.
ClayM. M. (2002). An observation survey of early literacy achievement (2nd ed.). Auckland, New Zealand; Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
12.
EhriL. C. (1990). Development of the ability to read words. In BarrR.KamilM. L.MosenthalP.PearsonP. D. (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research, Vol. 2, (pp. 383–417). New York: Longman.
13.
EhriL. C. (1998). Grapheme-phoneme knowledge is essential for learning to read words in English. In MetsalaJ. L.EhriL. C. (Eds.), Word recognition in beginning literacy (pp. 3–40). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
14.
EhriL. C.NunesS. R.WillowsD. M.SchusterB. V.Yaghoub-ZadehZ.ShanahanT. (2001). Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel's meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 250–287.
15.
EhriL. C.RobbinsC. (1992). Beginners need some decoding skill to read words by analogy. Reading Research Quarterly, 27, 12–26.
16.
EhriL. C.SofferA. G. (1999). Graphophonemic awareness: Development in elementary students. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3, 1–30.
17.
EldredgeJ. L. (2005). Teach decoding: Why and how. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
18.
GaskinsI. W. (1999). A multidimensional reading program. The Reading Teacher, 53(2), 162–164.
19.
GibsonE. J.LevinH. (1975). The psychology of reading. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
20.
GleitmanL. R.RozinP. (1973). Teaching reading by use of a syllabary. Reading Research Quarterly, 8, 447–483.
21.
GoswamiU. (1998). The role of analogies in the development of word recognition. In MetsalaJ. L.EhriL. C. (Eds.), Word Recognition in Beginning Literacy (pp. 41–63). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
22.
LibermanI. Y.LibermanA. M. (1992). Whole language versus code emphasis: Underlying assumptions and their implications for reading instruction. In GoughP. B.EhriL. C.TreimanR. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 343–366). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
23.
MurrayB. A. (1998). Gaining alphabetic insight: Is phoneme manipulation skill or identity knowledge causal?Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 461–475.
24.
MurrayB. A. (2006). A phoneme-direct model for learning phoneme awareness. In StahlK. A.McKennaM. C. (Eds.), Reading research into practice (pp. 114–125). New York: Guilford.
25.
MurrayB. A.BrabhamE. G.VillaumeS. K.VealM. (2002, December). The effect of three segmentation options on ease of blending for prealphabetic and partial alphabetic readers). Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, Miami, FL.
26.
MurrayB. A.SmithK. A.MurrayG. G. (2000). The test of phoneme identities: Predicting alphabetic insight in prealphabetic readers. Journal of Literacy Research, 32, 421–447.
27.
PerfettiC. A.BeckI.BellL. C.HughesC. (1987). Phonemic knowledge and learning to read are reciprocal: A longitudinal study of first grade children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 33, 283–319.
28.
ReitsmaP. (1983). Printed word learning in beginning readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 36, 321–339.
29.
TreimanR. (1985). Onsets and rimes as units of spoken syllables: Evidence from children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 39, 161–181.
30.
TreimanR. (1987, April). Levels of Phonological awareness. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC.
31.
WallachM. A.WallachL. (1979). Helping disadvantaged children learn to read by teaching them phoneme identification skills. In ResnickL. B.WeaverP. A. (Eds.), Theory and practice of early reading, Vol. 3 (pp. 197–215). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
