Hello Friends!
I just read this very recently published research study from Norway that addresses a very important practical issue in teaching beginning literacy: the pace of instruction of letter-sound relationships in kindergarten. This topic hasn't been subject of much research (although note that Jones and Reutzel [way to go Dean Ray!] did examine it in a quasi-experiment in Utah). The Norwegian study was a basically a "natural" quasi-experiment and involve a very large sample of kids and classrooms. Importantly, the research found that a faster pace of introducing letter sounds in kindergarten led to stronger outcomes in letter knowledge, word reading and spelling and was particularly important for students who enter school with poor letter knowledge. Here are some of the key takeaways in the authors' own words...
Discussion
This
study was designed to find out whether a faster pace of letter instruction
contributes to the development
of
letter knowledge, word reading, and spelling skills in the first year of
school, and whether a faster pace of
letter
instruction reduces or increases the probability of very low or very high
scores on literacy measures. In
general,
the findings from the present study were in line with the hypotheses put
forward. More specifically,
children
in classes with faster letter instruction performed significantly better on all
outcome measures and
were
less likely to score among the lowest 10% and 20%. Also, a faster pace of
letter instruction was
significantly
associated with word-reading accuracy in the higher end of the distribution.
These findings are
in
line with that of Jones and Reutzel (2012) that
a faster pace of letter instruction affects children’s
development
in letter knowledge. The present study adds to the existing literature by
showing that outcomes
in
word reading and spelling are also associated with the pace of letter
instruction.
Effect
of letter-instruction pace on the development of letter knowledge, word reading
and
Spelling
The
observed effect of letter-instruction pace on letter knowledge supports the
hypothesis that
a
faster pace gives children better opportunities for sufficient repetition and
practice of the
which
helps them to decode different words. In addition, especially for sight word
efficiency,
obtaining
a high score requires keeping representations of several words in one’s memory,
and
the ability to do this is best acquired through multiple encounters with words,
through
both
reading and writing (Adams, 1990).
The
explanation for the significant effect seen for spelling seems to follow the
same line of
reasoning
as for word reading. Young children typically read words better than they spell
them,
as spelling requires grapheme retrieval and is more dependent on memory and
ample
practice
while word reading requires only grapheme recognition (Perfetti, 1997).
Still, a faster
pace
of letter instruction seems to provide children with better opportunities to
develop their
spelling
skills as well, possibly as a result of both better knowledge of the letters
and more
time
to practice.
Letter-instruction
pace and the likelihood of tail-end scores for letter knowledge, word
reading
and spelling
Children
who first start school are typically a very heterogeneous group in terms of
literacy, ranging
from
children who know only some of the letters to children who are already fluent
readers and
writers
(Justice et al., 2006; Piasta, 2014; Sigmundsson et al., 2017).
Letter knowledge at school entry
is
known to be a strong predictor of the development of reading skill (H. Catts,
Fey, Tomblin, &
Zhang,
2002; Leppanen et al., 2008;
National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; Schatschneider et al., 2004),
and if
children who know few letters at school entry have to wait, say, 19 weeks
before they are
introduced
to a letter that they need in order to read and spell, this will delay their
ability to read and
write
many words. Our findings indicate that contrary to the highest performing
children, the lowest
performing
children benefit from a faster introduction of the letters on all outcome
measures. These
results
partly contradicts the results by Connor et al. (2004) to
the effect that the level of literacy
skills
(letter recognition, letter knowledge, and word reading) at school entry is a
stronger predictor
of
literacy development than classroom instruction.
Jones
et al. (2013) highlight the opportunity to repeat and practice the letters
more often during the
first
year of school as a particular benefit of introducing them faster. Our findings
suggest that this is
particularly
important for children with poor letter knowledge at school entry – who
typically need more
explicit
exposure to letters in order to learn them sufficiently well (Jones et al., 2013;
Piasta & Wagner,
2010b;
Treiman et al., 2007). In classrooms with a slow instructional pace, children who need
such explicit
instruction
will typically learn those letters that are introduced early on quite well, as
they can repeat and
use
them more often during the academic year. However, because most children will
have automatized
their
letter knowledge during the first year, there tends to be rather less explicit
letter instruction in later
years.
As a result, the children needing such explicit instruction may not have
sufficient time to
automatize
those letters that are introduced towards the end of the first year. Hence,
children already
at
risk of reading difficulties are further disadvantaged by a slow pace (Jones et
al., 2013). As pointed out
earlier
in the discussion, letter knowledge represents one of the steps of the early
development of literacy
skills,
and children in classes with faster letter instruction are in fact less likely
to perform poorly in word
reading
and spelling. This is in line with Jones et al. (2013),
where it is emphasized that the purpose of
letter
knowledge is reading and writing and that a slow pace of letter instruction
takes up valuable time,
leaving
children with less time to develop their reading and spelling skills.
Kristin
Sunde, Bjarte Furnes & Kjersti Lundetræ (2019): Does Introducing the
Letters
Faster Boost the Development of Children’s Letter Knowledge, Word Reading and
Spelling
in the
First Year of School?, Scientific Studies
of Reading, DOI: 10.1080/10888438.2019.1615491
