Morag Stuart

Getting ready for reading: Early phoneme awareness and phonics teaching improves reading and spelling in inner-city second language learners

Background. Previous studies demonstrate that phoneme awareness training, particularly when combined with letter-sound teaching, results in improved reading and spelling development. Aims. This study seeks to extend previous findings by (a) including children learning English as a second language, who have typically been excluded from previous studies; (b) providing training for whole classes, rather than small groups; (c) using a commercially available programme; and (d) giving minimal training to teachers administering the programme. Sample. Two groups (N = 112) of 5-year-olds, 96 of whom were learning English as a second language, were enrolled into either the experimental (phoneme awareness and phonics) programme or the control programme, which took a more holistic approach based on Holdaways (1979) use of Big Books. Method. Children were pretested on measures of spoken and written language, phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge, prior to a 12-week intervention using either the experimental or control programme. Children were post-tested on all measures immediately after intervention, and again one year later. Results. The experimental programme accelerated childrens acquisition of phoneme awareness and of phonics knowledge, and their ability to apply these in reading and writing. In the year following intervention both groups made comparable progress in most areas; however, at the end of this year the experimental group were still significantly ahead in phoneme awareness and phonics knowledge, and on standardised and experimental tests of reading and spelling. Conclusions. Early concentration on teaching phoneme awareness and phonics can radically improve reading and spelling standards in inner city second language learners.

Children's printed word database: Continuities and changes over time in children's early reading vocabulary

In this paper we introduce a comprehensive database of the vocabulary in reading materials used by 5 - 9 year old children in the UK. The database is available on-line http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/cpwd and allows researchers into early reading development the possibility of rigorous control over critical characteristics of experimental stimuli such as word frequency, regularity and length, frequency of grapheme-phoneme correspondences, orthographic and phonological neighbourhoods etc. The on-line database is also a resource that can be used by practitioners with interests in literacy development and literacy instruction. It can be used to obtain characteristics for a user-generated list of words, or else to generate a list of words according to constraints specified by the user. Here we present an overview of the construction of the database, the materials entered into it, the survey of schools by which we obtained information about the books that were most likely to be used by children in each age group, and the search features available on the database website. We also discuss certain characteristics of the Vocabulary itself and compare these with those reported in an earlier non-representative database reported in Stuart, Dixon, Masterson and Gray (2003). We then present a detailed analysis of the characteristics of Vocabulary in books used in the Reception year, against the background of recent recommendations for change in the early teaching of reading. Finally, we present data showing that the database is indeed already proving a useful resource for both practitioners and researchers.

Spongelike acquisition of sight vocabulary in beginning readers

We report two training studies designed to investigate the relation between phonological awareness, sound-to-letter mapping knowledge, and printed word learning in novice five-year-old readers. Effects of visual memory and of teaching methods are also explored. In our first study, novice five-year-old readers able to segment initial phonemes and with good knowledge of mappings between sounds and letters learned words more easily from repeated exposure to texts. Results suggested that visual memory influenced word learning in non-segmenting but not in segmenting children. Spelling regularity did not affect ease of learning. Nouns were easier to learn than function words. In the second study, although phonological awareness and sound-to-letter mapping knowledge still exerted a significant influence, all novice five-year-olds were able to learn words more easily if these were taught out-of-context singly on flashcards. Results support the view that mental representations of printed words are more easily formed by beginners who are able to match at least some of the phonological segments detected in the spoken word to letters in the printed word.

Getting ready for reading: a follow-up study of inner city second language learners at the end of Key Stage 1.

BACKGROUND A previous study (Stuart, 1999) showed that early phoneme awareness and phonics teaching improved reading and spelling ability in inner-city schoolchildren in Key Stage 1, most of whom were learning English as a second language. AIMS The present study, a follow-up of these children at the end of Key Stage 1, addresses four main questions: (1) Are these improvements maintained to the end of Key Stage 1? (2) Are different patterns of cognitive process evident in the word recognition skills of phonics trained versus untrained children? (3) Do the phonics trained children now also show a significant advantage in reading comprehension? (4) Are there differences in amount of reading, in self-concept as readers and in oral vocabulary development between phonics trained and untrained children? Relationships between reading and spelling ages and Key Stage 1 SATs levels are also explored. SAMPLE Data are reported from 101 seven-year-olds (85 of whom were second language learners) remaining from the original 112 children reported on previously. METHOD Children were tested on four standardized tests of reading, spelling and vocabulary, and on a further six experimental tests of phoneme segmentation, grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge, regular, exception and nonword reading, author recognition and reading self-concept. RESULTS Lasting influences of early phoneme awareness and phonics teaching on phoneme awareness, grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge, word reading and spelling were found. Part of the previously untrained group had now received structured phonics teaching, and were therefore treated as a third (late trained) group. Early and late-trained groups showed similar levels of attainment and similar cognitive processing patterns, which were different from the untrained group. However, there were no influences of training on reading comprehension, self-concept or oral vocabulary. CONCLUSIONS Early phoneme awareness and phonics training efficiently accelerates the word recognition and spelling skills of first and second language learners alike. However, this is not sufficient to bootstrap the development of language comprehension in the second language learners. Further research is needed into the kinds of language teaching that will best develop their oral and written language comprehension.

Children's early reading vocabulary: Description and word frequency lists

BACKGROUND When constructing stimuli for experimental investigations of cognitive processes in early reading development, researchers have to rely on adult or American childrens word frequency counts, as no such counts exist for English children. AIM The present paper introduces a database of childrens early reading vocabulary, for use by researchers and teachers. SAMPLE Texts from 685 books from reading schemes and story books read by 5-7 year-old children were used in the construction of the database. METHOD All words from the 685 books were typed or scanned into an Oracle database. RESULTS The resulting up-to-date word frequency list of early print exposure in the UK is available in two forms from a website address given in this paper. This allows access to one list of the words ordered alphabetically and one list of the words ordered by frequency. We also briefly address some fundamental issues underlying early reading vocabulary (e.g., that it is heavily skewed towards low frequencies). Other characteristics of the vocabulary are then discussed. CONCLUSIONS We hope the word frequency lists will be of use to researchers seeking to control word frequency, and to teachers interested in the vocabulary to which young children are exposed in their reading material.

The Relationship between Phonological Awareness and the Development of Orthographic Representations.

A training study was conducted to investigatethe relationship between phoneme segmentationability and the development of orthographicrepresentations. Five-year-old children withvarying degrees of phoneme segmentationability were taught to read ten new words byrepeated presentation of the words onflashcards. It was found that those childrenwho were most well equipped to perform phonemesegmentation tasks acquired this new readingvocabulary significantly faster than those whowere less phonemically aware. A series ofpost-tests was implemented to discover thenature of the internal orthographicrepresentations which the children had createdfor the words learned. The results of thesepost-tests demonstrated that the children whowere most phonemically aware had alsointernalised the most detailed orthographicrepresentations, despite needing fewerlearning trials. Salient letters fororthographic storage were predictable from thechildrens phoneme segmentation abilities. This paper provides strong support for thethesis that phonemic awareness is related toorthographic storage as well as alphabeticreading techniques.

The effects of rime‐ and phoneme‐based teaching delivered by Learning Support Assistants

This paper evaluates three word-level teaching programmes delivered by trained Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) for Year 1 children ‘at risk’ of reading difficulties. Rime-based, phoneme-based, and ‘mixed’ (rime and phoneme-based) interventions were contrasted with controls receiving only the National Literacy Strategy. Phonological onset-rime and phoneme manipulation, spelling, and word and non-word reading were measured before and after the nine-week intervention. High rime neighbourhood (HRn) non-words (e.g. ‘dat’– with many real word rime neighbours) and low rime neighbourhood (LRn) non-words (e.g. ‘tav’ with few real word neighbours) were used to evaluate onset-rime- or grapheme-phoneme-based decoding strategies. Results showed greater phonological onset-rime skills, letter-sound knowledge and non-word reading skills in all LSA-taught intervention groups. There was no difference between the HRn and LRn non-words. The only reliable difference between the intervention groups was an advantage in phoneme blending for the rime-taught group. It was concluded that LSAs can enhance literacy development for 6-year-old poor readers. There appears to be no simple association between rime- or phoneme-based teaching intervention and changes in the size of unit used by children following interventions.

Supporting early oral language skills for English language learners in inner city preschool provision.

BACKGROUND A significant number of children now enter formal education in England with reduced levels of proficiency in oral language. Children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and who are English language learners (ELL) are at risk of limited oral language skills in English which impacts on later educational achievement. AIMS This paper reports the development of a theoretically motivated oral language intervention, Talking Time, designed to meet the needs of preschool children with poor language skills in typical preschool provision. SAMPLE One hundred and forty-two 4-year-old children attending three inner city preschools in a disadvantaged area of London, England. METHOD This is a quasi-experimental intervention study comparing children exposed to Talking Time with children exposed to a contrast intervention and children receiving the statutory early years curriculum. Measures were taken of both targeted and non-targeted language and cognitive skills. RESULTS Data were analysed for the ELL. The intervention had a significant effect on vocabulary, oral comprehension, and sentence repetition but not narrative skills. As predicted, there were no effects on the skills which were not targeted. CONCLUSIONS Regular evidence-based oral language interactions can make significant improvements in childrens oral language. There is a need to examine the efficacy of more intensive interventions to raise language skills to allow learners to access the curriculum.

Visual processing deficits in children with slow RAN performance

Two groups of 8- to 10-year-olds differing in rapid automatized naming speed but matched for age, verbal and nonverbal ability, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and visual acuity participated in four experiments investigating early visual processing. As low RAN children had significantly slower simple reaction times (SRT) this was entered as a covariate in all subsequent data analyses. Low RAN children were significantly slower to make same/different judgments to simple visual features, non-nameable letter-like forms and letters, with difference in SRT controlled. Speed differences to letter-like forms and letters disappeared once RTs to simple visual features were controlled. We conclude that slow RAN children have difficulty in discriminating simple visual features that cannot be explained in terms of a more general speed of processing deficit, a deficit in making same/different judgments, or to differences in word reading ability.

Constructing fictional stories: a study of story narratives by children with autistic spectrum disorder.

Children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are reported to have difficulties with narrative language but little is known about how this affects their production of fictional stories. In this study, we aimed to establish whether fictional narratives of children with ASD differed from those of typically developing children and if performance was commensurate with levels of oral language. Fictional stories produced by 27 high functioning children with ASD, aged 11-14 yrs, were compared with those of language and age matched groups of typically developing children. Differences were found between the children with ASD and comparison groups in structural, evaluative and global features of their stories indicating specific difficulties with this form of narrative. Stories of the ASD group were shorter and contained fewer causal statements than those of both comparison groups and sentences were less grammatically complex than those of the age match but not the language match group. In global measures, the stories of the ASD group were impoverished relative to both comparison groups. The results are discussed in relation to cognitive theories of autism and language development.