The Power of Letters: Inducing Understanding of the Alphabetic Principle in Pre-Literate Children.

369 Pages·2012·13.73 MB·English

The Power of Letters:
Inducing Understanding of the Alphabetic Principle in
Pre-Literate Children.
Elizabeth Virginie Poole
Institute of Education
University of London
A dissertation submitted for the degree of Ph.D.
July 2001
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Abstract.
This thesis attempts to draw together two distinct perspectives on literacy acquisition,
an educational perspective and a psychological perspective. Written English has a
complex orthography that has motivated academics since the 15th century to devise
'definitive' teaching methods. Throughout much of the 20th century two influential and
mutually exclusive teaching approaches dominated literacy acquisition, i.e. ~whole
language' and 'phonics'.
Recently, empirical psychological investigation has opened a new debate into the
cognitive underpinning required for successful literacy acquisition. A developfT\ental
psychological approach argues that literacy development should capitalise on children's
naturally developing phonological awareness that generally progresses from large units
of sound such as rhyme and syllables to small units of sound, such as phonemes.
Conversely, an instructional psychological approach proposes that, irrespective of
children's naturally developing ability, it is the phoneme and its correspondence with its
visual counterpart, the grapheme, that needs to be brought to children's attention from
the earliest stages of learning about written language.
It will be argued from an educational perspective, that the whole language appro~ch is
sub-optimal for induction into an alphabetic script and most phonics approaches ta~e too
long to be effective, are too decontextualised, or require too much apparatus.
In line with the small unit approach in psychology, it is proposed that the starting point
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for literacy acquisition is to focus pre-literate children's attention on the English
grapheme-phoneme correspondences that can be blended and segmented into
phonetically pronounceable words. This proposal was investigated in an interv~ntion
study over a period of 8 weeks for 10 minutes a day, in a whole early-years class s~tting
and an error free entertaining environment.
Results showed that this significantly improved initial literacy acquisition for less
advantaged children, suggesting that an early induction into the alphabetic principle
provides children with "a framework for setting up a written language recognitio,n and
production system sufficient to drive the development of a self-teaching mechanism"
(Share, 1995; Stuart, 2000).
The practical implications of this finding have particular significance for the NLS, which
proposes a later start and a two-year structured programme of phonics teaching.
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For my granddaughter
Katherine Alexandra Poole
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, my heartfelt thanks go to Dr Morag Stuart, who guided me through
the PhD process with patient and careful supervision. Without her intellectual support I
would not have gained the insights necessary to achieve my ambition to carry out this
study. Her expertise with written language and her teaching skill has enabled me to
structure my thoughts and attempt to express them in a coherent manner. Her support
through this great mental adventure, the steepest learning curve of my life, has been
invaluable.
My thanks go to all the children who took part in this study, those who enthusiastically
participated in the intervention and all the children who willingly persevered through
numerous testing sessions. Thanks also to the head teachers and class teachers of both
schools, who were so helpful throughout this study.
My thanks go also, to my family and friends, whose confident expectation that I would
achieve my goal to write this thesis spurred me on through the most challenging
moments.
Last, but certainly not least, my thanks go to my husband, Tony, with whom I have had
many great adventures over the last 38 years but who has supported and encouraged me
to 'go it alone' on this one.
Contents 4
Introduction and Overview of the Literature 17
The educational perspective. 17
The psychological perspective. 19
The purpose of this study. 20
Chapter 1. 21
The Source of Current Teaching Methods: An Historical Review. 21
Writing in English. 21
The Teaching of Written Language. 23
The ABC in the Middle-Ages in England. 23
The alphabetic method. 24
A radical top-down approach. 24
The alphabetic principle: The phonic power of letters. 25
A phonetic alphabet for written English? 27
Whole word - look and say. 28
Mix and match teaching methods. 30
The 'battle of the methods'. 31
Putting 400 year-old ideas into practice. 31
Chapter 2. 32
The Battle of the Teaching Methods. A Critical Appraisal. 32
32
Overview.
Part 1. Whole Language. 34
35
Language.
35
Learning.
35
The role of teachers.
A view of the school curriculum. 35
35
Key ideas.
Cueing systems. 36
Goodman's argument against phonics. 37
Writing. 38
Spelling. 38
Dialect. 39
Advice to teachers. 39
Miscue analysis. 40
Setting the framework for 'Whole Language Theory'. 40
Appliance of science. 41
44
Teaching reading.
45
Clues.
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Skilled readers. 46
Eye fixations. 47
Speed readers. 48
Smith's strategies for word recognition for beginning readers. 51
Skipping. 51
Guessing. 52
Sounding out. 54
Critical summary. 57
Putting whole language into practice. 59
Miscue analysis. 59
Ben. 59
Three year remedial study. 60
The Apprenticeship Approach. 63
Apprentice readers? 63
Key ideas. The five propositions. 66
Critical summary. 71
Part 2. Phonics. 72
An informal induction of the alphabetic principle. 73
Orthography. 74
Critical age. 74
Contri bution. 75
Grapheme-phoneme correspondences, skills and drills. 75
Key ideas. 76
Forty-four speech sounds. 76
A problem for this approach. 77
Contribution. 78
Postscript. 78
Phonic sight habits. 78
Key ideas. 79
First stage. 82
Second stage. 82
Remedial outcomes. 83
Differences in approach. 84
Problems for Programmed Reading Kit. 86
Contribution. 87
Postscript. 87
Conclusion. 89
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Chapter 3. 91
PA & Literacy Development: A Psychological Perspective. 91
Introduction. 91
The Origins of the Theory of Phonological Awareness. 91
Phonological awareness in the U.S.S.R. 91
Phoneme awareness - crucial to literacy development. 92
In genesiS the genuine structure of mental functions is revealed. 92
Contribution to psychology. 93
Phonological awareness in the U.S.A. 93
Phonological awareness and reading. 94
Contribution to psychology. 95
A New Debate. 96
Developmental v. Instructional. 96
Developmental perspective. 97
Instructional perspective. 98
Which comes first, phoneme awareness or the alphabetic principle? 99
Overview. 99
Older poor readers v. younger normal readers. 99
Illiterate v. literate Portuguese. 100
Chinese logographic script v. pinyin. 103
Japanese 'kana' v. English alphabet. 103
Summary. 104
Is there a causal connection between PA and literacy acquisition? 106
Overview. 106
Methodological quality. 106
Conclusion. 108
Diversity of PA studies. 109
Analysis of studies. 110
A more detailed appraisal. 112
Review of key seminal studies: PA in the absence of alphabetic letters. 112
A longitudinal correlational study. Sweden. (Lundberg et ai, 1980) 112
A longitudinal correlational study. Britain. (Bradley & Bryant, 1983) 114
Summary. 116
PA through analysis of spelling patterns. (Bradley & Bryant, 1985) 116
Summary of Results. 117
Including a letters only condition. (Blachman, 1089) 118
A phonetic training study for implicit and explicit PA. (Cunningham, 1990) 119
The study. 120
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Outcome for phoneme awareness. 120
Outcome for reading. 121
The relation between phonemic awareness and reading achievement. 121
Conclusion. 124
Sound categorisation, incidental letter. (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1987) 124
The intervention study. 125
Reclassification of the data. 127
Summary. 128
Final conclusions. 129
What level of PA facilitates word recognition? 130
Lexical analogy theory with a basis of onset and rime. (Goswami, 1980's) 130
Overview of theory. 130
Development of theory. 131
Alternative views. 137
Ehri, (1992, 1995) 137
Stuart & Coltheart, (1988) 138
Rime awareness v. phonemic awareness. 138
The role of the clue word in analogy. 139
An empirical investigation of Goswami's model. 140
Experiment 1. 143
Resu Its. 144
Conclusions for Experiment 1. 145
Experiment 2. 145
Results. 146
Final Conclusions. 146
Summary. 149
Literacy development: Grapheme-phoneme correspondences. 150
Overview. 150
Tower Hamlets, 'Getting Ready for Reading'. (Stuart, 1999) 151
Summary. 155
Phonics in Scottish schools. (Johnston & Watson, 1997) 156
Summary. 159
Phonics v. onset & rime training. (Robinson, 1998) 159
Results. 160
Summary. 161
Final summary. 162
The proposed model of literacy acquisition. 163
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Chapter 4. 166
Baseline Measures. 166
Overview of baseline and outcome measures. 166
Parti ci pants. 168
Baseline measures. 169
Control measures 169
Oral language ability. 169
Non-verbal ability. 171
Auditory discrimination. 172
Phonological awareness. 173
Phonological memory tests. 174
Visual memory. 176
Alphabetic knowledge. 177
Mathematical ability. 178
Experimental measures. 178
Phoneme awareness. 178
Phonic knowledge. 179
Reading measures. 180
Writing measures. 182
Order of baseline measures. 182
Summary of baseline results and profile of 3.5 year-old children. 183
The results of the baseline control measures. 187
Oral language. 187
Non-verbal ability. 189
Auditory perception. 189
Phonological awareness. 191
Phonological memory. 191
Visual memory. 193
Alphabetic knowledge. 194
Number skills. 196
The results of the experimental measures. 197
Phoneme awareness. 197
Phonic knowledge. 198
Reading. 198
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Chapter 5 200
The Intervention Study. 200
The schools. 200
The nurseries. 200
Experimental 200
Control. 202
Intervention design. 203
The control nursery's reading development approach. 204
Intervention paradigm for experimental school. 206
Materials. 208
Typical intervention procedure; the second week. 210
Final session. 214
Immediate post-tests. 215
Letter name recognition and recall. 215
Letter sound recognition and recall. 217
Conclusion. 218
Chapter 6. 220
End of the Nursery Year. 220
Control measures. 220
Oral language. 222
Auditory discrimination and attention. 223
Phonological awareness. 224
Phonological memory. 225
Word repetition. 225
Non-word repetition. 228
Digit span. 230
Visual memory. 231
Alphabet knowledge. 233
Letter name recognition. 234
Letter name recall. 235
Bas number skills. 236
Discussion of the cognitive abilities of less advantaged children. 237
Phonological memory measurement in relation to vocabulary development. 237
Word repetition. 237
Non-word repetition. 239
Visual memory and its role in reading development. 241
Letter name recognition frequencies. 243
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Experimental measures. 244
Phoneme awareness. 246
Initial phoneme identification. 246
Phoneme segmentation. 247
Phonic knowledge. 247
Letter sound recognition. 247
Letter sound recall. 249
Write sounds. 252
Reading. 252
Concepts about print. 252
Item analysis of concepts about print. 253
General knowledge about books. 253
General knowledge about print. 254
Detailed knowledge about words and print conventions 255
BAS Reading Test. 256
Young's Reading Test. 256
Read regular and irregular words. 256
Read non-words. 257
Writing. 257
Summary. 257
Chapter 7. 259
One Year On. 259
Control measures. 261
Oral language. 261
BPVS 261
Morphological awareness. 262
Auditory discrimination and attention. 262
Phonological awareness. 263
Rhyme detection. 263
Phonological memory. 265
Word repetition. 265
Non-word repetition. 265
Digit span. 266
Visual memory. 268
Alphabet knowledge. 269
Letter name recognition. 269
Letter name recall. 270
BAS number skills. 271