This paper critically reviewed the literature on the relationships between Pinyin and Chinese bilingual and monolingual children’s phonological awareness (PA) and identified areas of research worth of further investigation. As the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet providing pronunciation of the universal Chinese characters, Pinyin facilitates children’s early reading development. What research has found in English is that PA is a reliable indicator of later reading success and meta-linguistic training improves PA. In Chinese, a non-alphabetic language, there is also evidence that PA predicts reading in Chinese, which confirms the universality of PA’s role. However, research shows the uniqueness of each language: tonal awareness is stronger indicator in Chinese while phonemic awareness is stronger indicator in English. Moreover, Pinyin, the meta-linguistic training, has been found to improve PA in Chinese and reading in Chinese and possibly facilitate the cross-language transfer of PA from Chinese to English and vice versa.

This quantitative study has been derived from a five-year federal experimental research project entitled English and Literacy Acquisition (ELLA- R305P030032) which targeted Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) receiving services in English immersion and bilingual program models. The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive power of Spanish phonemic awareness in kindergarten on Spanish reading ability in first grade among Spanish-speaking ELLs. Fifty-five students from typical practice bilingual classrooms were included in this study. Phonemic awareness skills were measured using blending phonemes and segmenting words, two subtests from Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (C-TOPP). Reading ability was measured using letter-word identification and passage comprehension, two subtests from Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPB-R). Data of phonemic awareness skills were collected at the beginning and end of kindergarten and data of reading ability were collected at the beginning and end of first grade. Correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were performed to address the research questions. The data from this study present a picture of a predictive power of phonemic awareness skills on reading comprehension in Spanish. Results from this study suggest that both skill areas of phonemic awareness in kindergarten have a moderate predictive effect on reading ability at the beginning of first grade. However, phonemic awareness skills in kindergarten did not show a statistically significant relationship to Spanish literacy at the end of first grade. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

The primary purpose of the present review was to determine why conflicting findings have been reported regarding the long-term effects of phonological awareness training for children from low socioeconomic status families (low-SES) and children with familial risk for reading impairment. Four aspects of intervention were analyzed for each of the studies: service delivery, content of intervention, length of sessions, and total number of sessions. The second purpose of the review was to determine which aspects of intervention had the largest effect on improving later reading skills as well as if general aspects were beneficial to both at-risk groups or if there were population-specific factors. A total of ten intervention studies, five involving children from low-SES and five involving children with familial risk for reading impairment, were reviewed. Of the ten interventions reviewed, only three interventions, two involving children from low-SES and one involving children at familial risk for reading impairment, demonstrated successful long-term effects on reading. The remaining interventions demonstrated differences across the four aspects analyzed and conflicting long-term outcomes. As no population specific factors were observed across studies, the similarities found in the three successful interventions suggest that a general intervention program can be beneficial for both populations of at-risk children. / text

The purpose of this study is to investigate if the class teachers believe that their education has given them enough knowledge about dyslexia in order to succeed a successful education for these pupils. It will present what four class teachers and two special education teachers has answered what they know about dyslexia. The study aims to find out if class teachers believe that they have enough knowledge to determine whether a pupil has dyslexia. If they have knowledge of appropriate methods and if they know how to prevent that pupils fall behind in their literacy and also what factors they believes makes it problematic to implement a literacy for these pupils. I propose the following questions: Do the class teachers consider that their education has given them sufficient knowledge of dyslexia and its characteristics? What methods does the class teachers and special education teachers considers as useful for pupils with dyslexia? What does the class teachers consider can prevent that pupils with dyslexia fall behind in their reading and writing skills? What factors consider class teachers and special education teachers is problematic to to succeed a reading and writing education for pupils with dyslexia? This study is based on a qualitative method and my theoretical approach is based on Høien and Lundberg established view of what dyslexia is. The results show that teacher’s university studies do not provide sufficient knowledge about dyslexia and appropriate methods. This problem is also described in the research I have used. Attributed to this it is obvious that class teachers have enough knowledge what dyslexia is and they could tell which methods that are good to use. They could also declare how to prevent that pupil’s with dyslexia fall behind in their reading and writing education. This means that a teacher in grade F -3 has sufficient knowledge to be able to implement a teaching adapted for pupils with dyslexia.

The effectiveness of treatment approaches aimed at children with language impairments to improve reading skills is the focus of this research synthesis. Research in this area is extensive but this report aims to focus on the results of 12 studies to highlight similarities and differences. Findings from these studies were analyzed and showed that phonological awareness intervention is one of the most prevalent types of intervention for this population. Research supports the fact that phonological awareness intervention can produce positive changes in children with language impairments. This type of intervention can not only cause improvements in phonological awareness skills but can also cause increases in reading ability. Credibility ratings for the studies as well as clinical implications are also discussed. / text

This dissertation is an examination phonemic awareness and its relationship to reading ability in literate adults. Phonemic awareness is an indisputable predictor of reading ability in children, but whether the same relationship between phonemic awareness and reading exists in adult readers is unknown. All alphabetically literate adults are understood to be phonemically aware to a certain degree. Moreover, adults pay attention to sound/symbol relationships when reading. Yet, the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading ability in alphabetically literate adults has not been explicitly studied, even though phonemic awareness is understood to be a key component of reading strategy and proficiency. A study was conducted on phonemic and syllabic awareness in adults. The results indicate that adults, despite years of alphabetic reading experience, are differentiated with regard to phonemic awareness and are more syllabically aware than phonemically aware. Additionally, the study demonstrates that phonemic awareness is associated with reading ability in adults, though syllabic awareness is not. Implications and directions for future study are discussed.

While significant research has been done on dyslexia with native English speakers, little is known about identifying dyslexia in English Language Learners (ELLs). Previous research, primarily involving monolingual native English speakers, has highlighted specific cognitive correlates of reading that help screen students with dyslexia at an early age. These cognitive correlates, which include Phonological Awareness (PA), Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN), and Processing Speed (PS), have consistently been linked to basic reading skills in English and other languages. The present study had many objectives that could provide guidance for practitioners working with ELLs. First it explored the value of PA, RAN, and PS as predictors of basic reading skills in Spanish speaking ELLs. Second, it investigated a model that combined tasks of PA, RAN and PS that had the highest correlations to aspects of reading. Third, it explored the role of Vocabulary (V) in both English and Spanish in the development of reading skills in ELLs. Fourth, it aimed at establishing the use of the Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough & Tunmer, 1986), which postulates that reading is the product of decoding and listening comprehension skills, for the assessment of reading in ELLs. Finally, it incorporated findings from this study for an adaptation of the SVR for use with ELLs. Findings suggest that RAN, PA, and PS, as measured in this study, are highly correlated to basic reading skills in Spanish speaking ELLs, and that these can be used for the assessment of reading and dyslexia in this population. This study also demonstrated that a model that included RAN numbers and phoneme deletion in English can accurately predict reading performance. Findings also indicate that V in English is highly correlated to basic reading skills in English, and that the model of the SVR can be replicated with the population sampled in this study. Finally, case study analyses illustrate how a model similar to the SVR, which incorporates RAN and PS, as well as V, can be used for the assessment of reading and dyslexia in ELLs.

Until recently, the majority of research in the area of English phonological awareness has centered on segmental phonology as predictors of reading. Current research, however, has expanded the concept of phonological awareness to include prosodic sensitivity⎯the awareness of suprasegmental information. The present study explores the role of five segmental and suprasegmental levels of English phonological awareness as predictors of individual differences in word reading in Korean children learning English. 104 native Hangul speaking children in Grade 3 were assessed on English levels of stress, syllable, rime, simple phoneme, and consonant cluster awareness, as well as, English and Hangul word reading. Hierarchical regression models indicated that awareness of syllables, onset/rime units, and phonemes within consonant clusters were uniquely predictive of individual differences in L2 English word reading after accounting for cognitive ability, English background variables, and L1 word reading. Awareness of stress-timed patterns contributed to common variance in English and Hangul word reading, but was not uniquely predictive in final regression models. No level of phonological awareness was predictive of Hangul word reading. Results support the notion that segmental phonological elements not present in L1 may be predictive of individual differences in L2 word reading. Furthermore, cross-language transfer of PA may be weak in the direction of English (L2) to Hangul (L1). / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2010-06-30 18:10:10.564

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Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) often present with difficulties in learning new words compared to age-matched children with typical language development. These difficulties may affect the acquisition, storage, or retrieval of new words. Word-learning deficits impact on children’s vocabulary development and impede their language and literacy development. Findings from a wide range of studies investigating word-learning in children with SLI demonstrated that semantic and phonological knowledge are crucial to the word-learning process. However, intervention studies designed to improve the word-learning abilities in children with SLI are sparse. The experiments described in this thesis addressed this need to understand the effects of interventions on word-learning abilities. Further, the thesis describes the first investigation of word-learning abilities of New Zealand school-aged children with SLI. Specifically, the following three broad questions are asked: 1. What are the word-learning skills of New Zealand school-aged children with SLI compared to children with typical language development and which underlying language skills influence word-learning? 2. What are the immediate and longer term effects of phonological awareness and semantic intervention on word-learning and language skills in children with SLI? 3. What are the error patterns of children with SLI compared to children with typical language development when learning to produce new words and do these patterns change following phonological awareness and semantic intervention? The first experiment compared the word-learning abilities of 19 school-aged children with SLI (aged 6;2 to 8;3) to age-matched children with typical language development and revealed that children with SLI presented with significant difficulties to produce and to comprehend new words. After repeated exposure, children with SLI caught up to the performances of children with typical language development in learning to comprehend new words, but not on production of new words. Correlation analyses demonstrated that there were no correlations between the word-learning skills and other language measures for children with SLI, whereas the word-learning abilities of children with typical language development were correlated to their phonological awareness, semantic, and general language skills. In the second experiment, it was investigated whether there were also qualitative differences during word-learning between children with and without SLI additionally to the quantitative differences as revealed in the first experiment. Children’s erroneous responses during the word-learning tasks were categorised into phonological, semantic, substitution or random errors. A comparison of the children’s error patterns revealed that children with SLI presented with a different error pattern and made significantly more random errors than children with typical language development. However, after repeated exposure, children with SLI demonstrated a similar error pattern as children without SLI. Furthermore, it was examined whether a specific combination of phonological and semantic cues facilitated children’s learning of new words or whether there were word-specific features that facilitated children’s word-learning. No facilitative word-specific features could be identified. Analysis revealed that there were no significant effects of cueing on learning new words, but specific patterns could be derived for children with SLI. Children with SLI learned to comprehend more words that were presented with two semantic cues or one phonological and one semantic cue and learned to produce more words that were presented with two phonological cues. In the third experiment, the effectiveness of a combined phonological awareness and semantic intervention to advance children’s word-learning abilities was examined. Nineteen children with SLI (same participants as in experiment 1) participated in this intervention study that implemented an alternating treatment group design with random assignment of the participants. Children in group A received phonological awareness intervention followed by semantic intervention, whereas children in group B received the same interventions in the reverse order. Children’s word-learning abilities were assessed at pre-test, prior to the intervention, at mid-test after intervention phase 1, and at post-test, immediately following the completion of the second intervention phase. Each intervention itself was effective in significantly improving children’s fast mapping skills, however, gains in children’s word-learning abilities were only found for children in group A for production of new words. Extending the findings of the intervention effectiveness of phonological awareness and semantic intervention on word-learning as reported in experiment 3, it was investigated in experiment 4, whether the implemented intervention additionally influenced the error patterns of children with SLI. The erroneous responses of children with SLI on all word-learning probes at pre-, mid-, and post-test were categorised into the same error groups as described in the second experiment (semantic, phonological, substitution, and random errors). The error analyses revealed that children’s error profiles changed during the course of intervention and treatment specific effects on children’s erroneous responses were found. Post-intervention, children who received phonological awareness followed by semantic intervention displayed the same error patterns as children with typical language development, whereas children who received the same interventions in the reverse order maintained the same error pattern as displayed at pre-test. The final experiment examined the longer-term effects of the combined phonological awareness and semantic intervention reported in experiment 3 on the language and literacy development of children with SLI. Eighteen of the 19 children with SLI, who received the intervention reported in experiment 3, were available for re-assessment 6 months after the completion of the intervention. The children (aged 7;1 to 9;2 years) were re-assessed on a range of standardised and experimental measures. Data analysis revealed that 6 months post-intervention, all children were able to maintain their gains in phonological awareness, semantic, and decoding skills as displayed immediately after the intervention. Children’s general language and reading skills significantly improved following the intervention; however, children who received phonological awareness intervention followed by semantic intervention displayed significantly better reading outcomes than the children who received the same interventions in the reverse order. This thesis revealed that a combination of phonological awareness and semantic intervention can enhance the word-learning abilities of children with SLI. The combined intervention approach was also effective in additionally improving children’s general language skills and the reading of single non-words and real words, as well as connected text. The immediate and longer-term intervention effects provide evidence that advancing the semantic and phonological awareness skills is an effective intervention approach to support children with SLI in their word-learning and to furthermore promote their language and literacy development. However, the order of the implemented interventions played a significant role: Children in the current study profited most when they received phonological awareness intervention first, followed by semantic intervention.