Prevention of reading and spelling deficits by training phonological awareness and letter-sound- correspondencies in kindergarten Peter Marx Department.

Prevention of reading and spelling deficits by training phonological

awareness and letter-sound-correspondencies in kindergarten

Peter Marx

Department of Psychology,Universität Würzburg, Germany

Overview1) Background: precursors of literacy acquisition

2) Phonological awareness training in kindergarten

3) Practical problems (some of which could be German- or Germany-specific)

4) Classic evaluation results from the 1990ies

5) Preschool prediction of reading difficulties - who should participate in the training?

6) New evaluation results with language-impaired children and children with migration background

Introductory remarks: German(y)-specific

• German children do not receive any formal reading instruction before they enter school (at the age of 6).

• Reading instruction in first grade: phonics-based

• In the 1990ies, German kindergarten teachers often refused to introduce letters.

• The German orthography is quite shallow, as far as reading is concerned: Letter-sound-correspondences are more consistent for German than for English.

• In Germany spelling is quite important (unfortunately).

phonology ability to decode

Only a small part of the picture…

…but a central part!

Background: precursors of literacy acquisition

• Children acquire skills needed for literacy acquisition prior to formal reading instruction.

• Skills proven to be important prerequisites for reading mainly belong to the language domain:

Phonological processing (Wagner & Torgesen, 1987)– phonological awareness– phonological working memory– access to the long term store (speed)

Phonological Awarenessinsight into the sound structure of the language

• phonological awareness

ability to differentiate or to segment larger units (words, syllables) or to identify rhymes (usually acquired before school entry)

• phonemic awareness

ability to identify and to discriminate smaller units (sounds) in spoken words (usually acquired during literacy acquisition)

Phonological awareness training for kindergarten children

The Würzburg program(s):

Hören, Lauschen, Lernen 1(Küspert & Schneider, 1999, 2006)

+ Hören, Lauschen, Lernen II

(Plume & Schneider, 2004)

The Würzburg program(s):

Hearing, Listening, Learning 1(training of phonological and phonemic awareness)

+ Hearing, Listening, Learning II

(training of letter-sound-correspondences)

The Würzburg program(s):

Hearing, Listening, Learning 1(training of phonological and phonemic awareness)

adaptation of the Lundberg program (Lundberg, Frost & Petersen, 1988)

+ Hearing, Listening, Learning II

(training of letter-sound-correspondences)

Hören, Lauschen, Lernen 1+2

last year of kindergarten (e.g. January - June)

20 weeks, 15 minutes per day

groups of 4 - 8 children

conducted by kindergarten teachers

Hören, Lauschen, Lernen 1+21) Listening games

2) Rhymes

3) Sentences and words

4) Syllables

5) Identification of the initial phoneme

6) Phoneme blending and phoneme analysis

7) Letter-Sound-Correspondences

Hören, Lauschen, Lernen 2: Letter-Training (Plume & Schneider, 2004)

• To be combined with the phonological training

• The children are to learn the correspondences of letters and sounds

• Introduction of the 12 most commonly used letters (regarding first grade texts)

• The children don´t have to write the letters

• Phonological linkage hypothesis (Hatcher, Hulme & Ellis, 1994)

Practical problems

• How can program application in thousands of kindergartens be properly supervised? (5th edition; total print run of about 90.000)

• Only words with regular letter-sound-correspondences should be used in the training (?)

• Organisational problems (no specifically trained teachers, no additional teachers available)

• Not all children attend kindergarten

• Daily training is necessary to guarantee success

Evaluation studies

Evaluation studies have to deal with several problems, e.g.

• Children from the control group might– enter school with lower levels of phonological

awareness– but receive additional training at school

• Ethical problem: children at risk as control group

Meta-analyis: phonological awareness training (Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999)

effects on phon. awareness

effects on reading

n N d n N d

all training studies 36 3092 1,04 34 2751 0,44

purely phonological trainings

11 1563 1,19 8 1238 0,18

letters included in the training

6 467 1,74 7 492 0,66

n: number of studies; N: number of children; d: effect size

Würzburg studies

• Schneider, Küspert, Roth, Visé & H. Marx (1997): unselected kindergarten children, purely phonological training, 2 studies

• Schneider, Roth & Ennemoser (2000): identification of children at risk (BISC), training of letter-sound-corr. included in the phon. awareness training

• Schneider, Weber, P. Marx (2001 – 2006): unselected kindergarten groups, focus on children with migration background and on language impaired children; only the combined training was used

Identification of the first phonem

012

3456

78

pretest posttest

training group

control group

Schneider, Küspert, Roth, Visé & H. Marx (1997)

Schneider, Küspert, Roth, Visé & H. Marx (1997)

Spelling, 2nd grade (DRT 2), words correct

5

10

15

20

25

30

training group

control group

d = .54

Schneider, Küspert, Roth, Visé & H. Marx (1997)

Reading, 2nd Grade (WLLP), raw score

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

training group

control group

d = .26

Children at risk for later reading deficits

• Bielefeld Screening (BISC) for the identification of children at risk for later reading deficits

• Prognostic validity of the screening

• Training effects for children at risk?

phonological awareness

rapid naming

phonological short term memory

regulation of visual attention

Bielefeld Screening (BISC) for the identification of children at risk for later reading deficits

(Jansen, Mannhaupt, H. Marx & Skowronek, 1999, 2002)

Bielefeld Screening

phonological awareness rhyme detection syllable segmentation sound categorization (syllables: „au“-to) sound blending

rapid naming

phonological short term memory

regulation of visual attention

Bielefeld study (Jansen et al., 1999)

• N = 153

• The BISC (4 month before school entry) detected 73 % of the children with reading/spelling deficits at the end of Grade 2 (sensitivity).

• 56 % of the children „at risk“ had reading/spelling deficits 2 years later (prediction hit rate).

P. Marx & Weber (2006)

Untrained cohort

Tests N

May 2001 kindergarten screening (BISC) 174

School entry 2001

June 2002 end of Grade 1 reading/spelling 161

June 2003 end of Grade 2 reading/spelling. 156

June 2004 end of Grade 3 reading/spelling. 152

June 2005 end of Grade 4 reading/spelling. 152

Kindergarten predictionof spelling deficits at the end of grade 2

Sensitivity: 43 %

Specifity: 83 %

RATZ-Index: 29 %

Spelling (WRT 2+)

Sum< PR 10 > PR 10

Screening„at risk“ 6 (20%) 24 30

„no risk“ 8 (6%) 118 126

Sum 14 142 156

Selection of children at risk for later reading/spelling deficits by the screening?

Training only for children at risk: More than half of the children with later reading/spelling deficits would be excluded from the training.

Training for all children: Children really in need for the intervention might not be assisted sufficiently.

The kindergarten teachers/educators providing the screening are sensitized for the issue of phonological awareness / phonological processing.

Time schedule of the third Würzburg study I(Schneider, Roth, & Ennemoser, 2000)

Time schedule

Potential training groups(n = 726)

Control group(n = 146)

1995Oct/Nov

Bielefeld Screening(n = 208 „children at risk“)

-

Nov/Dec Pretest

1996 Jan –

Phon. awareness training(n = 82)

Phon. awareness + letter-sound

training(n = 77)

RegularKindergarten program

April –

June

Letter-sound-training(n = 49)

Unselected control group

(n = 146)

July Posttest

Sep School entry

segmentation into phonemes

0

1

2

3

4

5

pretest posttest

pure phon.

combined

letter-sound

control

Pretests and posttests in kindergarten

Time schedule of the third Würzburg study II(Schneider, Roth, & Ennemoser, 2000)

Sep 1996 School entry

Oct/Nov 1996 Metalinguistic transfer test (follow-up)(at the beginning of Grade 1)

June 1997 reading and spelling test (at the end of Grade 1)

(n = 59) (n = 54) (n = 36) (n = 121)

May/June 1998 reading and spelling test (at the end of Grade 2)

(n = 54) (n = 48) (n = 36) (n = 115)

June/July 1999 reading and spelling test (at the end of Grade 3)

(n = 50) (n = 52) (n = 30) (n = 109)

spelling, 3rd grade, DRT 3, raw sore

15

20

25

30

35

40

pure phon.

combined

letter-sound

control

Results: Grade 3

percentage of children with spelling problems(PR 25 in the spelling test DRT 2)

Results: Grade 2

pure phon. training

combined training

letter-sound-training

control group

(unselected)

n 54 48 36 115

Probands with PR 25

11 (20%)

3(6%)

8(22%)

9(8%)

percentage of children with spelling problems(PR 25 in the spelling test DRT 3)

Results: Grade 3

pure phon. training

combined training

letter-sound-training

control group

(unselected)

n 50 52 30 109

Probands with PR 25

11 (22%)

11(21%)

7(23%)

14(13%)

What are the characteristics of those children who have trouble with literacy acquisition despite participation in the combined training before school entry?

• Theoretically, children may develop reading and spelling problems

– because their phonological/phonemic awareness was not sufficiently improved by the training, or because there was only a short-term effect, but no effect in the long run

– because their reading/spelling problems are caused by other factors (e.g. more general language deficits)

Background

W. Schneider, J. Weber, P. Marx (2001–2006)

• Sample: 606 children in the last year of kindergarten, consisting of– 499 children from regular kindergartens– 107 children from kindergarten groups from

schools for children with special needs in the domain of language • training group: N=56• control group: N=51

Method

• Regular kindergartens: 411 of the 499 trained children participated in the reading and spelling tests at the end of first Grade

– 305 children with German as mother tongue (77,0%)

– 33 bilingual children (8,3%)– 58 children with German as second language

(GSL, 14,6%)

Time schedule

Sept - Dec 2002 Pretests (kindergarten)

Dec 2002 - June 2003 Training (kindergarten)

June - July 2003 Posttests (kindergarten)

Nov 2003 Follow-up (grade 1)

May - July 2004 Reading and spelling (grade 1)

May - July 2005 Reading and spelling (grade 2)

Language subgroups:phonological awareness

(large units: syllables, rhymes)

10

15

20

25

30

pretest posttest

GermanGSLbilingual

Language subgroups:phonemic awareness

(small units: phonemes)

4

8

12

16

20

24

28

32

pretest posttest

GermanGSLbilingual

Correlation phonemic awareness (posttest) – spelling

spelling 1. grade spelling 2. grade

German .48 .43

bilingual .46 .42

GSL .51 .38

Spelling deficits in the subgroups

spelling (< PR 25) Sum

mother tongue

German 35 11,8 % 297

bilingual 2 6,3 % 32

GSL 11 21,2 % 52

Sum 49 12,4 % 395

Reading comprehension deficits

LuV2 (< PR 10)Reading compreh.

Sum

mother tongue

German 30 10,1 % 297

bilingual 1 3,1 % 32

GSL 13 25,0 % 52

Sum 45 11,4 % 395

Special education sample

• 107 children from kindergarten groups from schools for children with special needs in the domain of language

• training group: N=56• control group: N=51

Short-term effects of the training:phonemic awareness (p < .05)

4

8

12

16

20

24

28

32

pretest posttest

trainingcontrol

4

8

12

16

20

24

28

32

pretest posttest

training

control

training (reg.Kindergarten)

Short-term effects of the training:phonemic awareness (p < .05)

Special education sample:Phonemic awareness in first Grade

10

15

20

25

30

follow-up grade 1

trainingcontrol

(n.s.)

Special education sample:Spelling in first Grade

10

15

20

25

30

spelling grade 1

trainingcontrol

(n.s.)

10

15

20

25

30

spelling grade 1

trainingcontrol

Only children still receiving special education: Spelling in first Grade

(n.s.)

5

15

25

35

spelling grade 2

trainingcontrol

Only children still receiving special education:Spelling in second Grade

(p < .05, but…)

Conclusion• Children with a migration background (GSL) and

children with language deficits benefit from the training of phononological awareness (immediate effect).

• Immediate effects regarding the most difficult tasks are somewhat smaller for these children.

• There seems to be a similar relation between phonemic awareness and spelling for GSL children and for children with German as their mother tongue.

• We could not show transfer effects on reading and spelling for the children with language deficits.

Discussion• Effects of phonological training (combined with the

introduction of letter-sound-correspondences) are well established,

but further starting points for prevention should not be neglected, e.g.– print exposure via family / early storybook reading– broader language intervention

• Universal or selective prevention?• Identification of children at risk?• Compatibility with reading instruction in first Grade?