Factors associated with lowercase alphabet naming in kindergarteners

Abstract

We investigated five hypotheses related to the successful naming of lowercase letters. Participants included 5,020 first-time kindergarteners from economically disadvantaged homes who previously attended publicly funded preschools. Results analyzed using three-level logistic regression showed that children have a higher probability of correctly identifying letters that appear in their own name and letters that appear frequently in print. In addition, lowercase letter shape similarity to its uppercase counterpart and letter order were also associated with the correct identification of the letter. Finally, if a lowercase letter had a visual and phonological resemblance to other letters, students had a lower probability of identifying the letter correctly. Implications for instruction are discussed.

Easy as AcHGzrjq: The Quick Letter Name Knowledge Assessment

“…Most important, none of these assessments account for what research has said about how letters differ from one another in their difficulty (Bowles et al., ; Huang & Invernizzi, ; Justice et al, ; McBride‐Chang, ). As summarized in Figure , some letters are easier: Letters at the beginning of the alphabet (e.g., A , B , C ) Letters that appear more frequently in print (e.g., E , S ) Letters that include their sounds in their names (e.g., B , F ) Uppercase letters …”

“…They identify lowercase letters that look similar to their uppercase letters (e.g., C/c, W/w) more easily than those that change shape from uppercase to lowercase (e.g., G/g, R/r). They begin to recognize lowercase letters that appear frequently in print (e.g., e, s; Huang & Invernizzi, 2014;Justice et al, 2006). They learn to write their own names and may incorporate letters from their names into other writings and drawings (Bloodgood, 1999;Bowles et al, 2014;Ehri, 2005).…”

“…Most important, none of these assessments account for what research has said about how letters differ from one another in their difficulty (Bowles et al, 2014;Huang & Invernizzi, 2014;Justice et al, 2006;McBride-Chang, 1999). As summarized in Figure 2, some letters are easier:…”

Using Kindergarten Entry Data to Guide Teachers' Skills, Beliefs, Self-Efficacy, and Practices through Instructionally Focused, Data-Driven Consultation

“…In addition to understanding word structure and growing their vocabularies, kindergarteners are also expected to be able to reproduce words through print conventions and expanded expressive language (Day & Day, 1984;Huang & Invernizzi, 2014;Moats, 2000). These two skills, while distinct, represent the generation of language.…”

“…These two skills, while distinct, represent the generation of language. To do this, children need to have a base of letter knowledge and an elementary understanding of print conventions, such as reading from left-to-right (Huang & Invernizzi, 2014;Neuman & Roskos, 2005). Simultaneously, children are expanding their expressive language capacity by incorporating their newfound lexical, phonological, and print knowledge into the words they produce to communicate (HSELOF, 2015;Williams, 1997).…”