The effects of rime‐ and phoneme‐based teaching delivered by Learning Support Assistants

Abstract

This paper evaluates three word-level teaching programmes delivered by trained Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) for Year 1 children 'at risk' of reading difficulties. Rime-based, phoneme-based, and 'mixed' (rime and phoneme-based) interventions were contrasted with controls receiving only the National Literacy Strategy. Phonological onset-rime and phoneme manipulation, spelling, and word and non-word reading were measured before and after the nine-week intervention. High rime neighbourhood (HRn) non-words (e.g. 'dat' -with many real word rime neighbours) and low rime neighbourhood (LRn) non-words (e.g. 'tav' with few real word neighbours) were used to evaluate onset-rime-or grapheme-phoneme-based decoding strategies. Results showed greater phonological onset-rime skills, lettersound knowledge and non-word reading skills in all LSA-taught intervention groups. There was no difference between the HRn and LRn non-words. The only reliable difference between the intervention groups was an advantage in phoneme blending for the rime-taught group. It was concluded that LSAs can enhance literacy development for 6-year-old poor readers. There appears to be no simple association between rime-or phoneme-based teaching intervention and changes in the size of unit used by children following interventions.Considerable evidence suggests that explicit training of sub-syllabic phonological skills plays an important part in facilitating children's early reading development. One foundation for this view is the large and convergent body of evidence from controlled intervention studies (e.g. Ball & Blachman, 1991;Lundberg, 1994;Lundberg, Frost & Peterson, 1988;Stuart, 1999). These studies show that training children to reflect upon, and manipulate, the phonological units within a syllable, measurably facilitates word

Using Technology to Assist Children Learning to Read and Write

“…Recent longer term intervention studies suggest that intense phoneme-based interventions are superior to mixed phonic approaches that include rime awareness (Christensen & Bowey, 2005;Hatcher, Hulme, & Snowling, 2004;Solity et al, 1999Solity et al, , 2000. Savage, Carless, and Stuart (2003) describe a rime-and phoneme-based training study delivered over eight weeks by schools' own para-professionals to 6-year-olds "at-risk" of reading diffi culties. Th ey reported clear advantages in decoding nonsense words in all interventions, with subtle variations in phonological skills across interventions.…”

Rimes are not necessarily favored by prereaders: Evidence from meta- and epilinguistic phonological tasks

“…In support of this view, some evidence suggests that forms of teaching that emphasize rimes can have specific effects on rime phonological awareness (e.g., Goswami & East, 2000; but see also Savage, Carless, & Stuart, 2003). Goswami and East (2000) sought to teach young children how to use rimes and assessed their rime phonological awareness before and after this instruction.…”

Syllabic Schemes and Knowledge of the Alphabet in Reading Acquisition: Onset or Nucleus Variation

“…As Savage et al (2003) have proposed, English speakers can use the syllabic pattern based on nucleus variation in the reading acquisition process. According to Strange, Bohn, Trent, and Nishi (2004) the standard American English inventory includes nine so-called monophthongs and two diphthongised nonrhotic vowels: a front-unrounded series [i:, ɪ, eɪ, ɛ, ae:] a back-rounded series [u:, ʊ, oʊ, ɔ:], and the low and mid-low back vowels [ɑ:, ʌ].…”

“…Although there is a growing consensus that, in learning to read, it is essential to provide children with learning activities that promote the development of reading cognitive schemes or patterns (Crawley & Merritt, 2009;Cunningham & Allington, 2003;Ehri, 2012;Gaskins et al, 1997;Goswami & East, 2000;Kyle et al, 2013;Rueda, Sánchez, & González, 1990) there is no agreement on which kind of syllabic schemes must be worked out in the first place (Savage, Blair, & Rvachew, 2006;Savage, Carless, & Stuart, 2003). Savage (2001) emphasises the need for solid research on the nature and relevance of sub-syllabic units and their use in early reading.…”