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The Impact of Phonemic Awareness Instruction on Taiwanese Learners’
Spelling Development
Yu-Cian Chen
Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics
Providence University, Taiwan
Introduction
Phonemic
awareness
Reading
Spelling
Phonemic awareness is one of
the predictors for future
performance in reading and
spelling (Gillon, 2003).
This study
Phonemic awareness
instruction implemented in
language teaching in order to
develop students’ knowledge of
the spelling system in English.
Purpose
To examine the effectiveness of
phonemic awareness
instruction on Taiwanese
students’ spelling development.
Rationale
Phonemic awareness is the
ability to segment oral speech
into its component speech
sounds, or phonemes (Walpole
& McKenna, 2004).
Learning to blend phonemes
with letters helps children read
words, and learning to segment
sounds with letters helps them
spell words(Armbruster, et al.,
2003).
Method
Participants
12 elementary school students in
the third-grade classroom
Phonemic awareness instruction
Three weeks instruction on
segmentation and blending tasks
Phoneme segmentation tasks:
game activities were used for
practicing the segmentation of
the words.
Phoneme blending tasks:
Children combine individual
sounds to form words in
blending tasks.
Pretest and Posttest
Assessing Phonemic Awareness
Phoneme segmentation task
involves pronouncing individual
phonemes in words (e.g., The
word cat is said /c//a/t/)
Phoneme blending skill was
measured by the sound-blending
task (e.g., The word /b//i//g/ is
said big)
Spelling test
The test was constructed using
words presented in the lessons,
including CVC words (e.g., dog,
bed, lid), and words with
digraphs (e.g., chick, lunch, fish).
Results
Figure 4.1 pretest and posttest
The ability to segment words into
phonemes was improved
(M=15.75; M=19.58).
The result of blending tasks
between pretest and posttest was
similar (M=28.08; M=27.92).
With the progress in phoneme
segmentation tasks (M=15.75; M=
19.58), the result showed growth
in spelling development (M=5.33;
M= 6.92).
There was a strong possibility that
students have developed explicit
awareness of words’ phonological
structure; hence, they were able
to relate the sounds and letters
when taking spelling test.
Research questions
Conclusion
To what extent does phonemic
awareness instruction improve
phoneme segmentation?
To what extent does phonemic
awareness instruction improve
phoneme blending?
To what extent does phonemic
awareness instruction promote
spelling development?
Phonemic awareness instruction
taught children to manipulate
phonemes by using the letters of
the alphabet. Children segment
the phonemes of a word to invent
spelling and they assign letters to
represent its sounds.