Abstract-The present study investigates the effect of computer-assisted intervention targeting phonological processing skills in Hong Kong kindergarteners who learn English as a second language (ESL). Thirty children received 18 sessions of 45 minutes phonological processing skills intervention over nine weeks. Children in the experimental group (n = 15) received computer-assisted intervention, while the control group (n = 15) received intervention by traditional (pencil-and-paper) teaching approach. Following a pretestposttest -retention test design, participants were assessed for their phonological processing skills changes by alliteration test, blending test, phoneme segmentation test and rhyme test before the intervention, after the intervention and 10 weeks after the intervention. The results indicated that children in the experimental group outperformed than those in the control group in all subtests during the posttest. A retention test which held 10 weeks after the intervention revealed that significant gains in the experimental group were maintained in the alliteration test and rhyme test.Index Terms-Computer-assisted intervention, CAI, early reading development, phonological processing skills.
I. INTRODUCTIONOver the past few decades, technology trends and the use of information technology (IT) to enhance teaching and learning has influenced the pedagogy in the education settings. Preliminary studies on IT in education mainly focused on the computer-assisted interventions (CAI) that were designed for medical use in helping children with learning difficulties. Computer-based tools were developed and used for training young children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), hearing problems or reading disabilities [1]- [3]. The positive effects of CAI on children with special educational needs has given rise to studies that attempted to integrate CAI into the curriculum across different subjects such as English, mathematics, physics and music [4]- [6]. Although considerable attention has been paid in the studies related to the use of IT at schools, little research has been done on the effectiveness of using CAI for language acquisition [7], [8].The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of computer-assisted intervention targeting phonological processing skills in Hong Kong kindergarteners who learn Manuscript received October 25, 2016; revised February 15, 2017. M. C. Law is with the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (e-mail: pixytess@hku.hk).K. F. Hew is with the Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (e-mail:kfhew@hku.hk).English as a second language (ESL). While previous clinical studies supported that CAI may improve phonological processing skills of young children with special educational needs, the present study aims to extend current literature by investigating the usefulness of CAI on children without learning difficulties. It is important to note that most of the existing studies are conducted in Western countries such as UK, America, Net...