Identifier

etd-07122012-151431

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Phonemic segmenting and blending is seen as one of the most critical skills necessary for the development of good reading skills in beginning readers. Research has shown that teaching phonemic skills results in improved reading for both trained (familiar) and untrained words when compared to teaching word-recognition reading strategies. Within the field of phonemic awareness teaching, results have been mixed as to the most effective methods of teaching phonemic skills, but it is generally agreed that explicit instruction in both segmenting and blending is better than instruction focusing on onset/rime or rhyming methods. The purpose of the current study is to compare two methods for explicitly teaching phonemic awareness. In the study, participants were taught to read nonsense words by either being presented with intact words and taught to segment and blend the individual phonemes making up the word, or by being presented with individual phonemes first, followed by the intact word through introduction of phonemes only, ending in the whole word. Hypothesized results are that teaching segmenting and blending in the context of the whole-word will result in better generalization to non-studied nonsense words than being taught blending in the context of initial presentation of separate phonemes before blending.

Date

2012

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Gansle, Kristin A.

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.4158

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