Can a game application that boosts phonics knowledge in kindergarten advance 1st grade reading?

The Kalulu software is a tablet-based suite of phonics and reading-related lessons and minigames. In a previous intervention with a previous version of the software in 1st grade students, fluency and comprehension were boosted, but only when used in concert with reading instruction at the start of the year. Here, we asked whether a similar intervention would be more efficient if it started a year earlier, in kindergarten. Forty classes (1092= children) were randomized into playing Kalulu phonics or an active matched control game (Kalulu numbers) for the first half of the year. Those assignments were reversed in the second half of the year. Ten non-randomized business-as-usual classes also participated. In a cross- over effect, children who used the phonics version improved in letter naming, grapheme- phoneme matching and reading fluency, while those with the number version improved in number knowledge. In a longitudinal follow-up, intervention participants maintained an advantage in phoneme awareness and grapheme-phoneme matching at the start of 1st grade, but this advantage failed to translate into school literacy gains in the middle of 1st grade, and no longitudinal benefits were found for numbers. Those results improve our understanding of when and for how long to introduce phonics and question the possibility that a short-term intervention may address the complex challenges of long-term educational goals.

Alphabetic Knowledge and Phonological Awareness : A comparison between Malaysian Preschool Children from Public and Private Kindergartens

Alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness are essential skills in learning to read. This research examined the level of acquisition on alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness among 60 preschoolers from private and public preschools in Kuching, Sarawak. The mean age of the children was 5.58. The children were administered letter name and sound knowledge, and letter naming fluency tests to examine their alphabetic knowledge; Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing and Yopp-Singer Phoneme Segmentation Test to examine their phonological awareness. Higher achievement in alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness was found among preschoolers from private preschools compared to those from public preschools. This study discusses the implications for practice and the ways teachers could explicitly foster alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness skills in the classroom. Keywords: learning to read, alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness, preschool children.

The effects of a phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge intervention on four-year-old children in an early childhood setting

Phonological awareness (PA) and alphabet knowledge (AK) are two of the strongest predictors of reading acquisition, and evidence shows that many New Zealand children are entering school with low levels of emergent literacy (EL) skills. The current research showed that four-year-old children identified as having low levels of EL, who participated in an evidence-based 10-week intervention using games and books, made significant gains in PA and AK in comparison to a control group. The children were assessed pre-intervention and post-intervention using the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening PreK and it was found that the PA and AK intervention used in this research was effective in significantly raising the levels of upper-case letter naming, letter-sound awareness and beginning sound awareness.

A-165 Letter Versus Oject Naming: Exploring the Relationship Between Rapid Naming and Fluid Reasoning Ability

Objective Fluid reasoning is associated with rapid naming (RN) ability in multiple studies (e.g., Mano et al., 2019), but less is known about which aspects of RN may be driving this relationship. Hence, the purpose of this study was to determine which is better associated with fluid reasoning ability: letter or object naming. Method Participants comprised 226 children, ages 8–12 years (88.5% Caucasian, 53.1% Male), who completed a larger, NIH-funded study (R03HD048752, R15HD065627), representing a community sample. They encompassed children with ADHD, reading disability (RD), RD/ADHD and controls. Measures administered included the CTOPP Letter and Object Naming subtests and the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence, Third Edition (TONI-3). Results Linear regression revealed RN predicted TONI-3 scores, F(2, 223) = 7.44, p = .001, but only object naming was significant (Beta = .26, p = .002). Separate regressions demonstrated that RN was not related to TONI-3 performance for controls (p = .12), nor for children with ADHD (p = .58). It displayed a trend for children with RD, F(2, 45) = 2.99, p = .06, with only object naming being significant (Beta = .44, p = .02). Conclusions Rapid object naming, but not rapid letter naming, is related to fluid reasoning ability in a mixed sample of children. Further analysis suggests that these findings were driven by children with RD. Future research should investigate whether the semantic or visual aspect of object naming, or both, is driving this relationship.

Absolute pitch ability is not associated with advantage in musical tension processing

Absolute pitch (AP), a superior ability of pitch letter naming in the absence of a reference note, has long been viewed as an indicator of human musical talent and thus as evidence for the adaptationist hypothesis of music evolution. Little is known, however, whether AP possessors are superior to non-AP possessors in music processing. The present study investigated whether the AP ability facilitates musical tension processing in perceptual and experienced tasks. Twenty-one AP possessors and 21 matched non-AP possessors were tested using novel melodies in C and non-C contexts. Results indicated that the two groups provided comparable ratings of perceived and felt tension for melodies in both contexts. While AP possessors demonstrated lower accuracy with longer reaction time than non-AP possessors in naming movable solfège syllables for pitch in the pretest, their tension rating profiles showed a similar tonal hierarchy as non-AP possessors in regard to the stability of the ending tones of the melodies in both major and minor keys. Correlation analyses suggested that musical tension ratings were not significantly related to performance in pitch letter, movable solfège syllable naming, pitch change detection threshold, or pitch direction discrimination threshold for either group. These findings suggest that pitch naming abilities (either pitch letter or movable solfège syllable naming) do not benefit processing of perceived or felt musical tension, providing evidence to support the hypothesis that AP ability is not associated with advantage in music processing.

Magnocellular Pathway and Reading Rate: An Equivalence Test Analysis

Previous research has revealed conflicting results with regard to the role of the magnocellular visual system in reading and dyslexia. In order to investigate this further, the present study examined the relationship between performance on two magnocellular tasks (temporal gap detection and coherent motion), reading rate (oral and silent), and rapid letter naming (serial and isolated naming). Results showed that in a sample of 83 college students magnocellular performance was not significantly correlated with reading rate or rapid letter naming. Equivalence test analyses showed all correlations between magnocellular performance and reading rate or rapid letter naming to be within the bounds of -0.3 to 0.3. This provides evidence against the idea that having low magnocellular performance will result in poor reading ability. In opposition to the magnocellular deficit theory of dyslexia, these results suggest that a magnocellular deficit is not causally related to reading rate.

Predictive Validity of Kindergarten Progress Monitoring Measures Across the School Year: Application of Dominance Analysis

Although several measures are available for monitoring kindergarten reading progress, little research has directly compared them to determine which are superior in predicting year-end reading skills relative to other measures, and how validity may change across the school year as reading skills develop. A sample of 426 kindergarten students who were considered to be at risk for reading difficulty at the start of kindergarten were monitored across the year with a set of paper-based progress monitoring measures and a computer-adaptive test. Dominance analyses were used to determine the extent to which each measure uniquely predicted year-end reading skills relative to other measures. Although the computer-adaptive test was the most dominant predictor at the start of the year over letter sound fluency, letter naming fluency, and phoneme segmentation fluency, letter sound fluency was most dominant by December. Measures of fluency reading real words administered across the second half of the year were dominant to all other assessments. The implications for measure selection are discussed.

Acquisition of Letter Naming Knowledge, Phonological Awareness, and Spelling Knowledge of Kindergarten Children at Risk for Learning to Read

This study measures letter naming, phonological awareness, and spelling knowledge in 2,100 kindergarten students attending 63 schools within a large, urban school district. Students were assessed across December, February, and May of the kindergarten year. Results found that, by May, 71.8% of students had attained full letter naming knowledge. Phonological awareness emerged more slowly with 48% of students able to reliably segment and blend phonemes in words. Spelling development, a measure of phonics knowledge, found that, by May, 71.8% of students were in the partial-alphabetic phase. A series of regression analyses revealed that by the end of kindergarten both letter naming and phonological awareness were significant predictors of spelling knowledge (b = .332 and .518 for LK and PA, resp.), explaining 52.7% of the variance.