Annotated Bibliography
Adams, M.J., Forman, B.R., Lundberg, I., and Beeler, T. (1998). Phonemic awareness in young children: A classroom curriculum. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company.
This book is intended to be used as a classroom curriculum to enhance the development of phonemic awareness of preschool and early elementary students. The book defines phonemic awareness and provides the reader with information on both phonemic awareness research and the structure of language. The chapters containing activities are prefaced with background information of the activities' role in stimulating the phonological development of young children. The final chapter on assessment provides information on procedures for group screening of phonological awareness and on using the results of the screening to inform instruction. Among the materials included in the appendixes are: suggested schedules for kindergarten and grade one, a list of resources, an annotated bibliography of rhyming stories, and poems, finger plays, jingles, and chants.
Armbuster, B.B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J. (2001). Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read. Jessup, MD: National Institute for Literacy.
After reviewing over 100,000 studies, the National Reading Panel (NRP) closely examined scientific research studies that addressed one or more reading skills and whose results could be generated to larger populations of students. Additionally, the NRP thoroughly examined each study for its quality and effectiveness of results. From this research they compiled a very “user-friendly” guide for teachers that focuses on the building blocks of early literacy education. This (57) page booklet contains chapters on: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency instruction, vocabulary, and text comprehension. This “must have” document for teachers can be obtained at no cost by calling 1-800-228-8813. A parent brochure is also available.
Ball, E. W. & Blachman, B. A. (1991). Does phoneme awareness training in kindergarten make a difference in early word recognition and developmental spelling? Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 49-66.
Blachman, B. A. (2000) Phonological awareness. In. M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.). Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III (pp 483-502). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
In this chapter, the author defines phonological awareness and the critical role that it plays in the development of young children's reading ability. Through the examination of numerous studies, the author concludes that explicit training in phonological awareness in kindergarten plays an important role in the reading and spelling achievement of students in grades one and two. The author suggests that explicit instruction in phonological awareness helps students to make connections between sound segments and letters. Phonological awareness instruction is most effective when presented to kindergarten students. Engaging activities that promote the development of this important skill include: word games, opportunities to connect speech to print while reading and opportunities to write.
Blanchard, P. S. (2000). Phonological awareness instruction to prevent reading failure: A study of the benefits of commercially produced phonics software to phonological awareness instruction. Reading and Communication Skills (CSO13983). ED441228.
Blevins, W. (1997). Phonemic awareness activities for early reading success. New York: Scholastic Professional Books.
This engaging, easy to read book clearly defines phonemic awareness and delineates the five basic types of phonemic awareness tasks: the ability to hear rhymes and alliteration, the ability to do oddity tasks, the ability to blend words and split syllables, the ability to orally segment words and the ability to do phonemic manipulation tasks. A scope and sequence chart offers a twenty week plan for second semester kindergarten instruction. The activities included in the text are designed to be child-centered and engaging. The book contains reproducible pages for the construction of classroom games and manipulatives. The author has included a bibliography of professional resources and quotes from prominent researchers. Wiley Blevin's Phonemic Awareness Songs and Rhymes (1999) by the same publisher is a nice accompaniment to this text.
Boucugnani-Whitehead, L.; and others. (1996). The expanding role of school psychologists: Planning, designing, implementing, and evaluating a program to prevent early reading failure. Reading and Communication Skills (CSO12778). ED406646.
Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1991). Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness to young children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 451-455.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new program designed to train preschool students in phonological awareness. The authors posed the question, once the principle of phoneme identity is acquired for some phonemes, would it spread to other sounds? In this article the researchers describe in detail a twelve week program that trained preschoolers in phonemic awareness. Descriptions of the program include pre- and posttesting, the design of the program, and the description of the training provided to students over a twelve week period. A discussion of the findings indicates that students can be trained in phonemic awareness and that once phoneme identity becomes a stable construct preschoolers can judge phoneme identity for sounds other than the ones they have been taught.
Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1993). Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness to young children. A 1-year follow-up. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 104-111. (First follow-up to Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991)
In this article, the researchers follow up a study which evaluated a program to instruct preschoolers in phonemic awareness. The researchers sought the answer to the question, do children who enter elementary school understanding the principle of phoneme identity show an advantage in reading and spelling at the end of their first year of schooling. The researchers administered six tests to each subject formerly in the experimental or control group. They included tests of phoneme identity, phoneme elision, alphabet knowledge , word identification, pseudoword identification, and spelling. Analysis of their findings suggests that heightened phonemic awareness enhances the literacy development of first year elementary school students, particularly in the areas of reading real words and pseudowords and spelling.
Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1995). Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness to young children: A 2- and 3-year follow-up and a new preschool trial. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 488-503 (second follow-up to Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991)
Castle, J.M., Riach, J., & Nicholson, T. (1994). Getting off to a better start in reading and spelling: The effects of phonemic awareness instruction within a whole language program. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 350-359.
Cunningham, J. W., Cunningham, P. M., Hoffman, J. V., and Yopp, H. K. (1998). Phonemic awareness and the teaching of reading: A position statement from the board of directors of the International Reading Association. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
In this position paper, the authors define phonemic awareness. They offer a brief review of the research on the topic over the last fifty years. The authors acknowledge the important role that phonemic awareness plays in predicting the potential for reading achievement in young learners. They suggest that phonemic awareness plays an important role in the spelling development of young children. Finally, the authors make five poignant suggestions that facilitate the development of phonemic awareness and promote the development of reading skills.
Davidson, M., & Jenkins, J. (1994). Effects of phonemic processes on word reading and spelling. Journal of Educational Research, 87, 148-157.
This experiment examined the role that training in specific phonemic awareness processes played in the development of beginning word reading and spelling skills of kindergarten students. The researchers sought to test the effectiveness of the phonemic awareness skills of segmenting, blending, and segmenting/blending. They wished to assess whether students' transfer to word reading could be facilitated by showing children at the time of transfer how the phonemic skill is applied. Students were pretested and divided into four matched groups. The treatments included segmentation instruction, blending instruction, and segmentation and blending instruction. A control group of students had stories read to them while the others received their treatments. After 8-10 weeks of instruction (10 minutes/day), the groups were posttested. Findings revealed that those students receiving training in segmenting and blending and segmenting only, out-performed the other students in tests of spelling and word reading. Although there is a need for further research, the implications of this experiment suggest that the phonemic awareness skill of segmentation appears to play an important role in beginning reading and spelling.
Ehri, L., & Wilce, L. (1987b). Does learning to spell help beginners learn to read words? Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 48-65.
Ehri, L. et al (2000). Phonemic awareness instruction. Report of the National Reading Panel,
2-9 – 2-86.
In this meta-analysis on phonemic awareness, the National Reading Panel examined over 169 pieces of research in an attempt to determine the effectiveness of phonemic awareness training in facilitating early reading achievement. The panel sought to determine which students could be most effectively served by explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and hoped to uncover successful practices for classroom application. In this report, the terms and tasks involved with phonemic awareness are clearly defined. The panel reaches consensus that when measured in kindergarten, phonemic awareness is one of two key predictors of a student's potential reading achievement. The conclusions regarding phonemic awareness reached as a result of this meta-analysis include:
· it can be taught
· it facilitates reading, writing, and spelling achievement
· various forms of phoneme manipulation can be taught (identifying, segmenting, blending, deleting, and manipulating onset and rime)
· it is as essential to teach phonemic awareness as it is to teach letters
· 20 hours of phonemic awareness training proved to effect the most gains with regard to students' reading, writing, and spelling achievement.
Eldredge, J.L. & Baird, J.E. (1996). Phonemic awareness training works better than whole language instruction for teaching first graders how to write. Journal of Reading, Research, and Remediation, 35, 193-208.
In this study, the researchers posed three questions regarding the comparison of the writing skills of students in a structured class (who were explicitly taught phonemic awareness) and the children in a class who were learning how to write following a whole language approach. The first question asked how would the groups compare with regard to the number of words written, the number of difficult words written, the number of communication units, and the general quality of the writing. Next, they posed which group of children would produce writing pieces that contained fewer misspelled words. Finally, they wondered would the emphasis on phonemic awareness and phonics interfere with the quality of writing of the children in the structured group. The results of this study produced two major findings. First, the children in the structured group produced writing samples superior to those in the holistic group. Second, the researchers discovered that the students in the structured group wrote more words in compositions and produced more misspellings. From this study the researchers concluded that explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principle facilitates students' writing achievement.
Ericson, L. & Juliebo, M.F. (1998). The phonological awareness handbook for kindergarten and primary teachers. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
This “teacher-friendly” text is a practical and comprehensive classroom guide for explicitly and systematically enhancing the phonological development of young children. This eight chapter book suggests a scope and sequence for the teaching of phonological awareness skills. Additionally, it provides both diagnostic measures and measures for monitoring progress. The authors have included a variety of engaging lesson plans to be used at school. It also contains letters to parents with suggestions as to how they can facilitate their youngster's phonological development at home.
Gaskins, I.W., Ehri, L.C., Cress, C., O'Hara, C., & Donnelly, K. (1997). Procedures for word learning: Making discoveries about words. The Reading Teacher, 50 (4), 312-327.
In this article, the authors examine how to assist struggling readers who are having difficulty recognizing words by training them to become “word detectives”. The work began as an attempt to assist beginning readers who were having difficulty segmenting words into phonemes. Prior research by one of the authors demonstrated that students learn to read words four ways: by sight, through decoding, in context, and by analogy. Through training that involved the use of key words, students were taught to understand how to analyze words, through teacher modeling, guided practice, and self-assessment. The explicit training with the spelling patterns of the key words taught the students how to become skilled at identifying new words by making analogies between the familiar key word and the new words encountered in their reading.
Goswami, U. (2000). Phonological and lexical process. In. M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.). Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III (pp 251-284). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
In this chapter, the author draws parallels between phonological development and lexical development. The findings cited in this chapter offer important implications for the parents and teachers of young children. The author presents a continuum for the development of phonological awareness in young children, which progresses from syllabic awareness to onset-rime awareness, and finally to phonemic awareness. In this chapter the author reaches two important conclusions: that there exists a link between a child's phonological awareness and his/her progress in learning to read; and students who perform well on tasks of phonological awareness are those who have had language and literacy rich backgrounds. Based on these conclusions, the author advocates that exposure to good language models, reciting nursery rhymes, singing songs, playing rhyming word games and engaging in the reading and shared reading of books with rhyme, rhythm, and predictable text are the means by which a child begins to develop a mental lexicon and the capacity to attend to sound and print, and later to map sound to print and print to sound.
Griffith, P.L. & Olson, M.W. (1992). Phonemic awareness helps beginning readers break the code. The Reading Teacher, 45 (7), 516-523.
In this article on phonemic awareness, the authors define phonemic awareness and set forth a sequence for teaching phonemic awareness based on the level of difficulty of a particular skill. The authors suggest that first children be taught to rhyme. They suggest blending and the segmenting of syllables (onset and rime) for the second stage of development. When the students have achieved competence in the first two areas, they are ready to attempt the more difficult task of phoneme segmentation. Additionally, the authors explain the important role that phonemic awareness plays in the early reading process. Griffith and Olson offered suggestions for classroom activities that facilitate the development of phonemic awareness skills and assessment practices.
International Reading Association and the National Association for the Education of Young Children. (1998). Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for young children. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
This position paper addresses the period of early literacy development from birth to the age of eight. The report describes the concrete types of literacy activities in which very young children need to be engaged in order to provide them with rich social, cultural, and academic experiences to enhance their development of prior knowledge. The report stresses that teachers of young children need to have a strong background in the areas of language acquisition (including ESL) and early literacy development, including both reading and writing. The position paper provides a detailed continuum of the developmental phases of early literacy skills. Additionally, the report makes suggestions as to optimal class size for young learners, the number of books needed to ensure that children are exposed to a print rich environment and recommends a practical protocol to be used regarding the administration of standardized tests.
Iversen, S. & Tunmer, W. E. (1993). Phonological processing skills and the Reading Recovery Program. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 112-126.
Juel, C. (1988). Learning to read and write: A longitudinal study of 54 children from first through fourth grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80 (4), 437-447.
This study by Connie Juel followed the literacy development of 54 children from first through fourth grade. The study sought to find answers to the following questions: Do the same children remain poor readers year after year?, What factors seem to keep poor readers from improving?, and What factors seem to keep poor writers from improving? The study found that children who entered first grade lacking in phonemic awareness skills became poor readers and that by the end of fourth grade they had not attained the level of decoding skill as good second grade readers. The poor readers tended to read less in and out of school and tended to become poor writers. In discussing her findings, Juel suggests the importance for increased phonemic awareness training in preschools, kindergartens, and first grade.
Lie, A. (1991). Effects of a training program for stimulating skills in word analysis in first grade children. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 234-250.
Lunberg, I., Frost, J., & Petersen, O. (1988). Effects of extensive program for stimulating phonological awareness in preschool children. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 263-284.
McGuinness, D., McGuinness, C., & Donohue, J. (1995). Phonological training and the alphabet principle: Evidence for reciprocal causality. Reading Research Quarterly, 30, 830-852.
Moustafa, M. (1997). Beyond traditional phonics: Research discoveries and reading instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
In this book on beginning reading instruction, Margaret Moustafa makes three important points about helping children use their knowledge of spoken sounds to pronounce unfamiliar words in print. First, she advocates teaching children to make analogies between familiar print and new words encountered when reading. Next, she states that students should receive explicit instruction in onsets and rimes to assist them in reading unfamiliar words. Finally, she believes that by teaching children to recognize a plethora of words in print, their ability to make analogies to unfamiliar print words increases. Moustafa is an advocate of teaching letter-sound correspondences as part of whole to part phonics instruction. This book is a must read for teachers of young children.
Moustafa, M. & Maldonado-Colon, E. (1999). Whole-to-parts phonics instruction: Building on what children know to help them know more. The Reading Teacher, 52 (5) 448-457.
In this article the authors review the research on how beginning readers both English and Spanish speaking, acquire knowledge of conventional alphabetic writing. Additionally, they present implications for classroom practice by suggesting activities that provide for the explicit, systematic, and extensive teaching of letter-sound correspondences that are embedded in context and meaningful. The authors advocate the whole-to-parts teaching of phonics through the use of rich, engaging children's literature, poetry, songs, etc. They strongly advocate the use of shared reading as a starting point. Furthermore, the authors advocate that through shared reading and intensive attention to print students develop the ability to make phonic generalizations. By strategic use of these generalizations students are able to read new words through the use of analogies.
Murray, B. (1998). Gaining alphabetic insight: Is phoneme manipulation skill or identity knowledge causal? Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 461-475.
The article describes a double-blind teaching experiment of forty-eight kindergarten students who were randomly assigned to three instructional groups: phoneme identity, phoneme manipulation, and language experience. The researcher sought to explore two questions: Do students acquire more knowledge about the phonemic structure of words through direct instruction regarding phoneme identities or through language experience?, and, Does either phoneme manipulation or phoneme identity more effectively enhance a student's ability to use the alphabet to decode? The participants in this study were instructed in a carefully planned series of lessons for 15-20 minutes per day for 15 school days. Posttest results revealed that phoneme identity and phoneme manipulation are both valuable types of instruction. Manipulation, the blending and segmenting of sounds helps beginning readers to make progress in sequential decoding, while instruction in phoneme identity helps students gain insight into alphabetic writing. Implications for instruction are offered.
Richgels, D.J., Poremba, K.J., & McGee, L.M. (1996). Kindergarteners talk about print: Phonemic awareness in meaningful contexts. The Reading Teacher, 49 (8), 632-641.
In this article, the authors respond to the challenge of providing explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness to kindergarten students in a manner that is developmentally appropriate, engaging, and holistically embedded in classroom literacy practices. The authors review the body of research that espouses that proficiency in phonemic awareness is critical to successful reading, writing and spelling achievement. The authors advocate providing students with ample opportunities to become engaged with print and to share with one another what they know. Activities such as What Can You Show Us, Uncle Wally's Letter, and Chicken Soup with Rice, contain the four key elements of preparation, previewing, student demonstrations, and applications. Each of these activities provides opportunities for students to practice linguistic awareness and attend to print in a manner that is meaningful, motivating, and engaging.
Troia, Gary A. (1999). Phonological awareness intervention research: A critical review of the experimental methodology. Reading Research Quarterly, 34, (1), 28-52.
In this study the researcher examined studies of phonological awareness training programs for the purpose of evaluating their methodological quality. Thirty-nine studies, representing nine countries from four continents were examined. Each study had to meet four criteria: published in a peer-reviewed journal, have an experimental and a control group, provide training in phonological awareness independent of phonics instruction, and have been conducted over an extended period of time. This study not only chronicles its own methodology, study of internal and external validity, and discussion of findings concluded from each study, but also provides a framework of evaluative criteria to be considered when reading research. Thus, the references are classified according to how they met the criteria for internal and external validity and methodological rigor.
Wilson, R. M., Hall, M. A., Leu, D. J. Jr., & Kinzer, C. K. (1984). Phonics, phonemic awareness, and word analysis for teachers: An interactive tutorial. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
This interactive tutorial designed to be used by teachers has an easy to follow format. The authors provide clear definitions of the terms: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. This tutorial reviews the topics of word analysis, phonological/phonemic awareness, onset and rime, vowels, context, sight words, developmental spelling patterns, morphemic and structural analysis, using the dictionary, and posttesting. This tutorial would work well used as a supplementary text as part of teacher education. Additionally, it could also serve as a practical classroom resource.
Yopp, H.K. (1995). A test for assessing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading Teacher, 49 (1), 20-29.
This article describes the Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation. The test, designed to be used with kindergarten students, has been proven to be an effective instrument in measuring students' phonemic awareness and assists in identifying those students who have the potential to experience difficulty with beginning reading and spelling instruction. The test, which can be administered in 5-10 minutes, measures the ability of a child to articulate the sounds spoken in words in their correct order. As part of the test procedure, the students are trained with three practice items. Those students who score well on the test are those who have a solid foundation in phonemic awareness. Those who experience difficulty with the test items should be deemed “at risk” readers, and be offered phonemic awareness intervention immediately.
Yopp, H.K. & Yopp, R.H. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54 (2), 130-143.
In this article the authors address the topics of phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, and metalinguistic awareness. Additionally, they clearly define the terms of auditory discrimination, phonetics, phonics, phoneme, and phoneme awareness. The authors offer suggestions as to how explicit, child-centered training in phonemic awareness can be incorporated into the literacy programs of preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classrooms. The authors recommend pieces of children's literature that can be used to engage and instruct students with various types of sound manipulation activities (matching, isolation, substitution, blending, segmentation, and deletion) for syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes. The authors encourage the explicit instruction of phonemic awareness skills in a linguistically rich classroom environment.