Do alphabet letters help prereaders acquire phonemic segmentation skill?

Abstract

Two common assumptions were tested, that phonemic segmentation skill is learned best in the oral mode and that teaching segmentation with alphabet letters confuses learners. Three treatment groups of prereaders were formed. The letter group was taught to segment nonword blends using letter tokens. The nonletter group was taught to segment blends with tokens lacking letters. A control group received no training. Experimental groups took about the same time and number of trials to reach criterion during training, indicating that neither method was more difficult or time consuming. Errors indicated that letters helped subjects learn to distinguish phoneme-size units and to remember the correct sounds during the task. On a segmentation posttest, letter and nonletter subjects segmented unpracticed blends better than controls, indicating that both groups acquired general segmentation skill. Letter subjects were superior to nonletter subjects in segmenting practiced sounds, with both groups surpassing controls. The preferred interpretation for the advantage of letters is that they provide learners with a mental symbol system for representing and thinking about specific phonemes.

Phonological Awareness: A Bridge Between Language and Literacy

“…This idea is further supported by the finding that training preliterate children on both segmental analysis and letter-sound correspondences produces a stronger effect on literacy acquisition than training them on only one of these competencies or on other metaphonological abilities (see, e.g., Bradley & Bryant, 1983;Hohn & Ehri, 1983;Share & Jorm, 1987). These studies, however, do not allow us to conclude that letter-sound knowledge has a direct effect on the acquisition of reading and writing or that it has an indirect effect through its presumed role in the elicitation of segmental awareness.…”

Learning to Read and Spell Words

“…We performed a training study (Hohn & Ehri, 1983) and found that children who were taught to segment words into phonemes using letters learned the skill better than children who were taught to segment using blank markers. Bradley and Bryant (1983) performed a training study in which subjects were taught phonemic segmentation over a two-year period while they were learning to read.…”

Orthographic Analogy Training with Kindergarten Children: Effects on Analogy Use, Phonemic Segmentation, and Letter-Sound Knowledge

“…He introduced letters only when children showed proficiency in segmentation tasks. Hohn & Ehri (1983) showed that using letters to teach segmentation did not confuse beginning readers. In their study, children learned to segment as quickly when training was accompanied by letters as they did when training was accompanied by blank tokens.…”