Multicomponent Linguistic Awareness Intervention for At-Risk Kindergarteners

Abstract

This study investigated the feasibility of multicomponent linguistic awareness intervention on early literacy skills in at-risk kindergarteners. Seventeen students, including native Spanish-speaking English language learners (n = 10) and native English speakers (n = 7), participated in a 6-week small-group therapy program, for a total of 12 intervention hours. Students received therapy in one of the following: phonological awareness and letter knowledge; morphological awareness; or a three-pronged intervention that addressed all three areas. Students demonstrated moderate to large gains in word reading (d = 1.79-2.19), phonological awareness (d = 0.73-1.59), morphological awareness (d = 0.57-3.96), and morphological spelling (d = 0.77-3.0). Analyses revealed no significant differences based on the type of intervention received. These results provide preliminary evidence for the feasibility of three-pronged linguistic awareness instruction for kindergarten students at risk for later reading difficulties, including English language learners, in intensive intervention programs.

The effects of morphology instruction on literacy outcomes for children in English-speaking countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…In previous reviews, Bowers et al (2010) and Goodwin and Ahn (2013) found evidence of larger effects for younger learners. This finding was not replicated in our analysis, and in fact, there were only three eligible study reports assessing the effectiveness of morphology instruction in beginning readers (up to two years of formal schooling completed; Apel & Diehm, 2014;Filippini et al, 2012;Zoski & Erickson, 2017)…”

Morpheme-Based Instruction in Kindergarten

“…The intervention described in this teaching tip helped a group of at‐risk kindergarten students, including English learners, to make large gains in their MA, word reading, and spelling after a total of 12 hours of intervention (four days a week for six weeks; Zoski & Erickson, ). Teachers could repeat this instructional sequence with the books suggested in Table or incorporate some of these ideas into parts of their existing literacy intervention.…”

“…Importantly, efforts to target MA can improve reading, MA, and PA outcomes for kindergarten students who are at risk for developing later reading disabilities (Apel, Brimo, Diehm, & Apel, ; Zoski & Erickson, ). MA instruction also supports older students with identified reading disabilities (Wolter & Dilworth, ) and students who are English learners (Filippini, Gerber, & Leafstedt, ).…”

“…In this teaching tip, we describe an approach to MA intervention that led to important gains in reading, spelling, and MA for a group of students in kindergarten who were not achieving state‐mandated literacy benchmarks (Zoski & Erickson, ). The approach is offered as an example because it incorporates MA‐focused activities that teachers can integrate into their comprehensive literacy instruction.…”

Morphological instruction and reading development in young L2 readers: A scoping review of causal relationships

“…Note. E = experimental, QS = quasi-experimental, SA = stand-alone, P = part of comprehensive instruction, T = teacher, R = researcher, UC = usual classroom, AT = alternative treatment, NA = not available Our analysis suggested that there were six major trends: (a) most of the studies focused on older children in Grade 3 or above; only two studies included young children in kindergarten or Grade 1 (Filippini, 2007;Zoski & Erickson, 2017); also, the majority of research was based on Spanish-speaking L2 English learners in the US; (b) there were more quasi-experimental studies than experimental studies with treatment randomization; (c) eight out of 12 studies implemented morphological instruction as part of a more comprehensive curriculum rather than providing it as a stand-alone treatment; (d) the majority of primary studies reported fidelity and feasibility of morphological instruction; (e) there was great variation in the length of instructional time, ranging from one 45-minute session in total (Zhang et al, 2010) to 72 sessions totaling 3,780 minutes (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012); and (f) there was no notable trend with regard to the following three features. First, in terms of learners' language backgrounds in the treatment group, half of previous research studies included L2 English learners only, and the other half mixed L2 and L1 English learners.…”