Phonetic segmentation in prereaders: effect of corrective information

Abstract This study is focused on the capacity of preliterate children to learn explicit phonetic segmentation. In Experiment 1, subjects were induced through examples to delete the initial consonant in consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) utterances. Performance was very poor at the beginning of the test but large improvements were observed in 5-year-olds when corrective feedback was provided. Four-year-olds did not on the average show a similar effect of feedback, but when tested again in Experiment 2 with a free segmentation procedure the majority proved capable of decomposing CVC syllables into smaller units and also displayed significant transfer from the earlier experience. In Experiment 3, fresh groups of children, aged four and five, were tested for either initial or final consonant deletion with immediate feedback. Improvements were observed at both ages and for both manipulations, although performance on initial consonant deletion was poorer than on final consonant deletion. Most children as young as 4 years can thus learn new segmentation games quite rapidly. The finding is discussed in relation to the notion that phonetic analysis is an important stumbling block in reading acquisition.

[1]  Jesus Alegria Iscoa,et al.  Le développement de l'habileté de l'analyse phonétique consciente de la parole et l'apprentissage de la lecture , 1979 .

[2]  David T. Hakes,et al.  The development of metalinguistic abilities in children , 1980 .

[3]  D. Share,et al.  Sources of Individual Differences in Reading Acquisition. , 1984 .

[4]  V. J. Skjelfjord.  Teaching Children to Segment Spoken Words as an Aid in Learning to Read , 1976 .

[5]  Dolores Perin,et al.  Phonemic segmentation and spelling , 1983 .

[6]  Paul Bertelson,et al.  Accelerating the development of phonetic segmentation skills in kindergartners , 1982 .

[7]  Auditory perception of rhyming in kindergarten children. , 1973, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[8]  I. Liberman,et al.  1. Segmentation of the spoken word and reading acquisition , 1973 .

[9]  J. Morais,et al.  Segmentation Abilities of Dyslexics and Normal Readers , 1984, Perceptual and motor skills.

[10]  J. A. Helfgott,et al.  Phonemic segmentation and blending skills of kindergarten children: Implications for beginning reading acquisition , 1976 .

[11]  Anthony F. Jorm,et al.  An invited article: Phonological recoding and reading acquisition , 1983, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[12]  Children's discrimination of rhyme. , 1974, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[13]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Intelligence, Cognitive Skills, and Early Reading Progress. , 1984 .

[14]  P. Bertelson,et al.  Does awareness of speech as a sequence of phones arise spontaneously? , 1979, Cognition.

[15]  C. Read.  Pre-School Children's Knowledge of English Phonology. , 1971 .

[16]  P. Bryant,et al.  Categorizing sounds and learning to read—a causal connection , 1983, Nature.

[17]  D. Routh,et al.  Reading disability, phonemic analysis, and dysphonetic spelling: A follow‐up study , 1983 .

[18]  Isabelle Y. Liberman,et al.  Speech, the Alphabet, and Teaching to Read. , 1976 .

[19]  Nancy K. Lewkowicz.  Phonemic Awareness Training: What to Teach and How To Teach It. , 1980 .

[20]  P. E. BRYANT,et al.  Phonetic analysis capacity and learning to read (reply) , 1985, Nature.

[21]  P. Bryant,et al.  Difficulties in auditory organisation as a possible cause of reading backwardness , 1978, Nature.

[22]  Ingvar Lundberg,et al.  Reading and spelling skills in the first school years predicted from phonemic awareness skills in kindergarten , 1980 .

[23]  Barbara J. Fox,et al.  Phonemic Analysis and Synthesis as Word-Attack Skills. , 1976 .

[24]  Margit Torneus,et al.  Phonological Awareness and Reading: A Chicken and Egg Problem?. , 1984 .

[25]  Jerome Rosner,et al.  Auditory Analysis Training with Prereaders. , 1974 .

[26]  R. Treiman,et al.  Common phoneme and overall similarity relations among spoken syllables: Their use by children and adults , 1982, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[27]  Joan H. Cantor,et al.  Rhyme recognition and phonemic perception in young children , 1981 .

[28]  D. Bruce,et al.  THE ANALYSIS OF WORD SOUNDS BY YOUNG CHILDREN , 1964 .

[29]  Jerome Rosner,et al.  The Auditory Analysis Test , 1971 .

[30]  L. E. Zhurova,et al.  The Development of Analysis of Words into Their Sounds by Preschool Children , 1963 .

[31]  R. Treiman,et al.  Phonemic-analysis training helps children benefit from spelling-sound rules , 1983, Memory & cognition.

[32]  José Morais,et al.  Phonetic analysis of speech and memory codes in beginning readers , 1982, Memory & cognition.

[33]  K. Stanovich.  Individual Differences in the Cognitive Processes of Reading , 1982, Journal of learning disabilities.

[34]  D. Shankweiler,et al.  Explicit Syllable and Phoneme Segmentation in the Young Child , 1974 .

[35]  R. Campbell,et al.  Phonological Dyslexia and Dysgraphia in a Highly Literate Subject: A Developmental Case with Associated Deficits of Phonemic Processing and Awareness , 1985, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[36]  D. Routh,et al.  Phonemic analysis and severe reading disability in children , 1980, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[37]  G. Marsh,et al.  Training Preschool Children to Recognize Phonemes in Words. , 1977 .

[38]  Barbara Fox,et al.  Analyzing spoken language into words, syllables, and phonomes: A developmental study , 1975 .

[39]  D. Goldstein,et al.  Cognitive-Linguistic Functioning and Learning to Read in Preschoolers. , 1976 .

[40]  C A Fowler,et al.  On Interpreting the Error Pattern in Beginning Reading , 1977, Language and speech.

[41]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Assessing phonological awareness in kindergarten children: Issues of task comparability , 1984 .

[42]  Barbara J. Fox,et al.  Phonemic analysis and synthesis as word attack skills: Revisited. , 1984 .

[43]  Isabelle Y. Liberman,et al.  Misreading: A search for causes. , 1972 .

[44]  D. G. MacKay.  The structure of words and syllables: Evidence from errors in speech , 1972 .

[45]  Rebecca Treiman,et al.  The structure of spoken syllables: Evidence from novel word games , 1983, Cognition.

[46]  R. Calfee,et al.  Acoustic-phonetic skills and reading--kindergarten through twelfth grade. , 1973, Journal of educational psychology.