Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Semester of Degree Completion

1998

Thesis Director

Jean M. Smitley

Thesis Committee Member

Rebecca M. Throneburg

Abstract

Past research has established that phonological awareness skills are an important precursor to the development of reading (Jenkins & Bowen, 1994; Catts & Karnhi, 1986; Bradley & Bryant, 1978; Frith, 1981). Results of numerous phonological awareness training programs have been published (Ball & Blachman, 1988, 1991; Lundberg, Frost, & Petersen, 1988; Bradley & Bryant, 1983, 1985), however, none have compared the roles of professionals involved in teaching phonological awareness skills. Additionally, the effectiveness of various service delivery models has not been reported. This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of a phonological awareness training program on kindergarten children's phonological awareness and literacy skills. Furthermore, the role of the speech-language pathologist in instructing phonological awareness was investigated. The study also examined the phonological awareness and reading skills of speech-language impaired children.

The subjects consisted of 45 kindergarten children selected from two elementary schools in central Illinois. These students were enrolled in half-day kindergarten classrooms and were grouped according to time of attendance and school placement. Subjects were divided into three groups including collaborative, consultative, and control groups. Each subject was administered The Phonological Awareness Test (Robertson & Salter 1997) to assess their phonological awareness skills; and the Letter-Word Identification Subtest of The Woodcock-Johnson Test of Intelligibility (Wooccock & Johnson, 1990) to assess their reading abilities.

Results of this study revealed several interesting findings. First, a significant relationship was found between children enrolled in phonological awareness training and their phonological awareness skills. In addition, results of the present study indicated that the most effective service delivery was a collaborative model with the speech-language pathologist working in conjunction with the classroom teacher. This study also revealed that a consultative service delivery model was effective in phonological awareness training. Speech-language impaired children were also found to benefit from the implemented phonological awareness training program. The results of this study did not find a significant increase in kindergarten children's reading skills following 12 weeks of phonological awareness training, however, children who participated in the phonological awareness training programs demonstrated higher phoneme/grapheme correspondence, identification of sounds in words, and segmentation skills than children enrolled in a traditional kindergarten curriculum.

These findings suggest that phonological awareness training significantly increases kindergarten children's phonological awareness skills. In addition, findings of this study indicated that speech-language pathologists collaborating with classroom teachers can effectively provide phonological awareness training to kindergarten children. Furthermore, results suggested that speech-language impaired children also benefit from phonological awareness training.

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