Teaching Children to Decode Words: Connected Versus Segmented Phonation

<p>Two methods of decoding instruction were compared. Kindergartners who could not decode nonwords participated in the study, <em>N</em> = 38, <em>M</em> = 5.6 years. Segmented phonation, frequently used in synthetic phonics programs, taught students to convert graphemes to phonemes by breaking the speech stream (“sss – aaa – nnn”) before blending. Connected phonation taught students to pronounce phonemes without breaking the speech stream (“sssaaannn”) before blending. Kindergartners were matched and randomly assigned to the two conditions. Both groups were taught to decode the same set of CVC nonwords consisting of continuant consonants and vowels that could be stretched and connected without altering their phonemic identities and without breaking the speech stream. Following learning, students completed a transfer task to decode CVC nonwords with stop consonants that are harder to blend because a schwa vowel is added when stops are pronounced separately (e.g., “dǝ – æ – pǝ”) and must be deleted during blending (e.g., “dap”). It was hypothesized that the connected phonation group would better understand how to blend phonemes than the segmented phonation group and hence would be able to overlook schwa vowels more easily in the transfer task. Results were supportive. Connected phonation students read the CVC nonwords with stops more accurately on the transfer task as well as a delayed posttest. Errors showed that segmented phonation students more often forgot the phonemes they had pronounced, especially initial phonemes, when they tried to blend them. In addition to treatment effects, children’s sight word reading explained significant variance in nonword reading on the transfer task. Findings carry implications for how to teach decoding more effectively.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Gonzalez-Frey, Selenid M

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Linnea Ehri

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Alpana Bhattacharya
• Katharine Pace Miles

• Curriculum and Instruction
• Early Childhood Education
• Education
• Elementary Education
• Language and Literacy Education
• Phonics
• Reading
• Synthetic Phonics
• Decode
• Blending
• Segmentation

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3860

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-4850