How Spanish-English Speaking

Kindergarteners Identify
English Speech Sounds and
Letters
ASHA 2007: Session # 1399 Poster #103
Roanne G. Brice, Ph.D. Alejandro E. Brice, Ph.D.
University of Central Valdosta State University
Florida aebrice@valdosta.edu
robrice@mail.ucf.edu
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Recent Research States:

! The ability to read is the primary fundamental skill required for
children to achieve academic success (Simmons, 1999)
! Phonemic awareness and phonics skills are essential in learning to
read (Adams, 1990; Chall, 1967; Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987 )
! Children who are English Language Learners (ELL) and/or children
with disabilities often have difficulty learning to read (Ramirez, 2000)
! Thus, these at risk students find it difficult meeting grade level
expectations (U.S. Department of Education, 2002)

! All at-risk students would benefit from:

! Early identification of reading difficulties (Nat. Center for Learning Disabilities, 2003)
! Early, intensive, high-quality reading intervention & instruction
(Torgesen, 1998)

! Monitoring of Response-to-Intervention before referral for

special education assessments (Vaughn & Fuchs,2003).
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 Statement of the Problem
! English Language Learners/Hispanic students are:
! Educationally at-risk and are more likely to be referred for
special education assessment due to difficulties in learning to
read (Burnette, 1998; Donovan & Cross, 2002; Ortiz, 2003)

! At-risk for reading difficulties:

! 56 % of fourth-grade Hispanic students performed below the
basic proficiency level in reading (National Assessment of Educational
Progress, 2003)
! ELL students performed at an even lower reading level
(U.S. Department of Education, 2002)
! ELL students “are operating in two languages and often have
difficulty in separating the different phonological and
orthographic systems” (Durán & Shefelbine, 2003; p. 220).
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Purpose of The Study

! Purpose: To identify phoneme & grapheme abilities in
kindergarten students, high and low readers, with and
without disabilities, who are English monolingual and
Spanish-English bilingual students.

! To provide valuable teaching strategies for at-risk students, that is,

students with disabilities and English language learners

! Research Questions Include the Following Independent Variables:

! initial & final positions of words
! one & two syllable words
! voiced & voiceless distinctive features
! high and low reading abilities
! Monolingual and bilingual students
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 Setting:
Elementary School in Central Florida

! Demographics:
! Approx. 950-1000 students
! 56% Hispanic, 32% White, 9% Black, 3% Other
! Low SES-75% in Free/Reduced Lunch Program
! 25% served in Exceptional Education Programs
! 20% in the English Speakers of Other Languages
(ESOL) Program
(Source: Elementary School Improvement Plan, 2003-2004)

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Participant Selection
! Multistage stratified random sampling procedures
were used to place students into participant groups:
! 1. High/low early reading skill levels
! Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills (DIBELS)
! 2. Languages Spoken: a) English b) English-Spanish
! 3. Simple random sample used to obtain 80 kindergarten
students
! (20 participants for each of the four groups):
! Group 1: High reading level/English monolingual
! Group 2: Low reading level/English monolingual
! Group 3: High reading level/Spanish-English bilingual
! Group 4: Low reading level/Spanish-English bilingual
! Ages: 5 yrs.-5 months to 6 yrs.-7 months
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 Number of Special Education Program
Placements By Groups
14 students in Special Education Programs (18%)
Groups DD LLD SI SLD Student
Total
1. High Reading Level 0 0 1 0 1
English Monolinguals
2. Low Reading Level 0 3 4 0 7
English Monolinguals
3. High Reading Level 0 0 0 0 0
English-Spanish Bilinguals
4. Low Reading Level 1 3 1* 2* 6
English-Spanish Bilinguals
Note: One student was identified for special education and placed in both programs
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Instrumentation: Word Stimuli List

! Developed by the researcher based on criteria:
! Use of most English consonants
! Phonemes/Graphemes taught in kindergarten
! Phonemes in initial and final positions in words
! One and two syllable words (CVC and CVC-CVC)
! Emphasis on using cognate pairs (e.g., /p,b/; /f,v/)
! 68 stimuli words (34 initial & 34 final)
! Content validity established by:
! Extensive review of related research
! Review by experts in the field
! Piloted on 7 kindergarten students (each group/ disabilities)

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 Instrumentation:
Recording of the auditory stimuli words
! Stimuli recorded by the researcher
! Recorded using “clear speech” (Kent & Read, 1992)
! Apple G5 computer /High fidelity microphone
! Best of at least three recordings of each stimuli word
! Stimuli randomly assigned and each word inserted into a
PowerPoint slide
! Acoustic Wave
Form
! “bell”

Sound Studio used to

digitally record stimuli 9
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Task Administration Stimulus

! Directions: Given in both English & Spanish Word # 57
! 1 demonstration model of task presented
! 5 practice items were administered: Initial & Final moth
! All stimuli words were presented: Initial then Final
! Ceiling: 5 consecutive errors / m!! /
! Testing time: 15 to 30 minutes
! The participants were asked to:
! Identify the beginning/ending sound in the word presented
by saying the initial/final phoneme
! Point to the corresponding letter(s) on the Grapheme Chart
! Sessions video/audio taped
! Interrater reliability established by second rater:
1984 Agreements / 2176 Total Responses = 91.2%
! 10,880 data entries entered into SPSS
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 Initial Statistical Analyses

! Twelve Research Questions

! Questions 1-6: dependent t tests
! Questions 7-12: two multivariate analysis of
variance (MANOVA)
! Necessary because more than one dependent variable
! More powerful than separate univariate tests
! May detect combined differences not found in separate univariate tests
! 16 Analyses: 13 statistically significant

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Overall Results: Phoneme and

Grapheme Identification

35

30

25

20

15

10

0
Initial Phonemes Mean=27.46
Final Phonemes Mean=17.46
Initial Graphemes Final
Mean=22.19
Graphemes Mean=15.64

Significant at p<. Significant at p<.

001 001
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 Results Indicated:
! The findings of this study support previous research,
that is, phoneme and grapheme identification are
important beginning reading skills (Adams, 1990; Lyon, 1998; Simmons
& Kameenui, 1998; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Shaywitz, 1996).

! Similar results were found for grapheme

identification tasks; alphabetic skills are also related
to difficulty levels (Bear & Barone, 1989)

! Identification of phonemes and graphemes also

appears to be a developmental skill in English for
both monolingual and bilingual students.

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Results Indicated:
! Developmental patterns of learning:
! Phoneticstructure: 1-3 phonemes easier than 4 or more
phonemes
(e.g., kit vs. stripes)
! Size of phonological unit: one syllable (CVC) is easier than two
syllable (CVC-CVC) words
! Position of phonemes in words: Initial sounds easier to identify
than final sounds (Smith, Simmons, & Kameenui, 1998)
! Therefore, research and literature support universal grammar
and general acquisition of phonemes and phonology for all
children regardless of language background (Iribarren, Jarema, & Lecours,
1999; Major, 1994; Major & Faudree, 1996; Yopp, 1988; Young-Scholten, 1994)
! Increased Memory, Attention, and Processing Demands:
! Inability to move information to a working memory level
! Inability to process the information through an auditory loop
(Gathercole & Baddeley, 1993; Swanson, 1999) 14
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 Results: Voiced/Voiceless Phonemes
(Sounds)

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Initial Voiced Phonemes
Initial Voiceless
Mean=14.74
Phonemes
Final
(Maximum=18)
Voiced
Mean=12.73
Phonemes
Final
(Maximum=16)
Voiceless
Mean=8.61Phonemes
(Maximum=18)
Mean=8.85 (Maximum=16)

Significant at p<.001 Non-Significant 15

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Results: Voiced/Voiceless Graphemes

(letters)

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Initial Voiced Graphemes
Initial Voiceless
Mean=12.70
Graphemes
Final
(Maximum=18)
Voiced
Mean=9.49
Graphemes
Final(Maximum=16)
Voiceless
Mean=8.39
Graphemes
(Maximum=18)
Mean=7.25 (Maximum=16)

Significant at p<.001 Significant at p<.001

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 Further Analyses

! The data were further analyzed to determine specific mean

differences according to initial and final phonemes by
groups. Specifically, analyses included One way ANOVAs
for each initial and final phoneme for the 4 groups (High
reading English, High reading English-Spanish, Low
reading English, Low reading English-Spanish).

! Results indicated significant differences (p<.05) on 20/34

phoneme comparisons. Tukey post hoc analyses were also
conducted. Descriptive results are reported here. Refer to
the following Figures.

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Contributions of This Study

! With regards to special education, these findings have
strengthened the importance of:
! Phonemic awareness and phonics skills related to reading
! Developmental levels for children with disabilities and at risk
for reading failure
! The relationship between reading and memory, attention, and
processing

! As applied to bilingual education, this study supports the

research regarding:
! How phonemic awareness skills in Spanish influence the
acquisition of literacy abilities in English
! The distinctive feature of voicing in correct sound and letter
identification.
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 Contributions of This Study
! With regards to general education, this study has added to the
literature regarding:
! How children with low reading abilities, with and without
disabilities, need systematic and explicit instruction in
phonemic awareness and phonics.
! The knowledge that differences exist between monolingual and
bilingual students even with high reading abilities. These
differences may be attributable to normal second language
learning difficulties and possibly not due to disabilities.
! The fact that all bilingual children, even high readers, need
additional instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics.

! In addition, this study has documented that a reading

achievement gap, even at the kindergarten level, exists
between bilingual and monolingual students at both high and
low reading levels.
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Recommendations for Practice

! Based on the results and observations in this study, the following
! recommendations are made for practice:
! Specific instruction in place, voice, & manner
! Link phonemic awareness with correct articulation
! Student say words and segment aloud for auditory and kinesthetic
feedback
! Pair phoneme and grapheme identification tasks
! Identify/say the sound, then say the letter, point to the letter

! Teach phoneme identification in developmental sequence initial,

final, medial
! Practice aloud phoneme and syllable segmentation
! Begin with CVC, generalize skills to more complex structures

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 Conclusion
! It is anticipated that this study will add to the body of
knowledge that might lead to successful early
intervention and prevention of reading difficulties in at-
risk bilingual students with and without disabilities. This
could ultimately lead to fewer inappropriate referrals for
special education and correct placement of Hispanic ELL
students.

! In teaching reading to bilingual students with disabilities,

educators must be knowledgeable in the areas of
scientifically based reading instructional practices,
exceptional education instructional methods, and
bilingual/ multicultural language development and
language differences. 21
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 Initial Phonemes
1.20

1.00

0.80

High Readers English

Means

0.60

High Readers Eng.-Spanish

0.40
Low Readers English

0.20 Low Readers Eng.-Spanish

0.00

/p/ /b/ /f/ /v/ /t/ /d/

 Initial Phonemes
1.20

1.00

0.80

High Readers English

Means

High Readers Eng.-Spanish

0.60
Low Readers English
Low Readers Eng.-Spanish

0.40

0.20

0.00

/s/ /z/ /k/ /g/ /T/ /D/

 Initial Phonemes
1.20

High Readers
1.00 English

0.80
High Readers
Eng.-Spanish
Means

0.60

Low Readers
0.40 English

0.20
Low Readers
Eng.-Spanish
0.00

/S/ /tS/ /m/ /n/ /l/

 1.20

1.00

0.80

High Readers English

Means

High Readers Eng.-Spanish

0.60
Low Readers English
Low Readers Eng.-Spanish

0.40

0.20

0.00

/p/ /b/ /f/ /v/ /t/ /d/

Final Phonemes
 1.20

1.00

0.80

High
Readers
Means

0.60 English

High
Readers
0.40 Eng.-
Spanish
Low
Readers
English
0.20
Low
Readers
Eng.-
0.00
Spanish
/s/ /z/ /k/ /g/ /T/ /D/
Final Phonemes
 1.20

High Readers
1.00 English

0.80
High Readers
Eng.-Spanish
Means

0.60

Low Readers
0.40 English

0.20
Low Readers
Eng.-Spanish
0.00

/S/ /tS/ /m/ /n/ /l/