Chapter 5

Alphabetics: Phonemic Awareness and Word Analysis

Definition

English is an alphabetic language. The letters in its alphabet are used to represent the sounds of spoken English. One aspect of reading is the ability to associate a written word or string of letters with the spoken word that it represents and, consequently, with the concepts or meanings associated with this word. The whole process of using the letters in a written alphabet to represent meaningful, spoken words is called alphabetics.

Alphabetics includes both phonemic awareness, or knowledge of the sounds of spoken language, and word analysis, or knowledge of the connection between written letters and sounds (letter-sound correspondence).

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to focus on and manipulate phonemes in spoken wordsÉ. Phonemes are the smallest units constituting spoken language. English consists of about 41 phonemes. Phonemes combine to form syllables and words. A few words have only one phoneme, such as a or oh. Most words consist of a blend of phonemes, such as go with two, or check with three phonemes, or stop with four phonemes (NRP, p. 2-1).

Graphemes are the written letters used to represent phonemes. A grapheme may be a single letter representing a single sound. Go consists of two graphemes, g and o. A grapheme may also consist of more than one letter. The word check consists of three graphemes, the two-letter combinations ch and ck and the single-letter grapheme e.

Although each grapheme represents a phoneme, different graphemes may be used to represent the same phoneme. The sound corresponding to the grapheme oh may also be represented by the graphemes oe, ough, and ow, for example. Also, the same grapheme may represent different phonemes, depending on context. The grapheme a in glad represents a different sound than the a in glade.

Word Analysis

Word analysis instruction is commonly thought of as phonics instruction, especially with children. Beginning phonics focuses on simple one-letter graphemes representing consonants (b, c, d, f, g, h, and so on) and vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and blending them together to make simple words (sat, met, and so on). While phonics instruction, viewed narrowly, is restricted to teaching grapheme-phoneme (letter-sound) correspondences, word analysis instruction may also include other methods that students can use to figure out words. One of these, sight word recognition, is taught along with phonics. Common and irregularly spelled words (was, want, to) are taught to be recognized on sight as whole words rather than being analyzed into graphemes and phonemes and then blended. Other word analysis techniques that are taught are the use of context, knowledge of prefixes, suffixes, and their stems, and dictionary skills.

The distinction between phomemic awareness (PA) and phonics instruction is not always a sharp one, as noted by the NRP:

Some forms of PA training in the [NRP] data set qualified as phonics instruction, which involves teaching students how to use grapheme-phoneme correspondences to decode or spell words. For example, [one] program taught students to use graphemes and phonemes to blend words--which is decoding. [Another program] taught students to use graphemes and phonemes to segment words--which is spelling. Also, another taught both segmenting and blending with letters. What distinguished the NRP [PA] studies from the general pool of phonics training studies, however, is that instructionÉ was limited to grapheme-phoneme manipulation and did not go beyond this to include other activities such as reading decodable text or writing stories (p. 2-11).

Thus, the NRP treated some approaches that used letters as well as sounds during instruction, and that technically are forms of phonics instruction, as PA instruction. Although these approaches included the manipulation of letters as well as sounds, they did not involve instruction above the word level.

Phonics may be taught systematically or incidentally. Systematic phonics instruction is the direct, explicit teaching of a comprehensive set of grapheme-phoneme correspondences including consonants, short and long vowels, two-letter graphemes (oi, ea, ou, sh, ch), and common blends consisting of more than one grapheme (st, sm, bl, pr) (p. 2-99). Students practice using this letter-sound knowledge when reading word lists and texts that are, to various degrees, controlled so that they contain words that are decodable using letter-sounds relations learned. Programs that do not emphasize phonics in this way, that teach it incidentally, include "whole word programs, whole language programs, and some basal reader programs" (p. 2-89).

The NRP (p. 2-81) describes several types of systematic phonics programs:

Synthetic phonics programs teach children to convert letters into sounds or phonemes and then blend the sounds to form recognizable words.

Analytic phonics avoids having children pronounce sounds in isolation to figure out words. Rather children are taught to analyze letter-sound relations once the word is identified.

Phonics-through-spelling programs teach children to transform sounds into letters to write words.

Phonics in context approaches teach children to use sound-letter correspondences along with context cues to identify unfamiliar words they encounter in text.

Analogy phonics programs teach children to use parts of written words they already know to identify new words.

Mixed programs: The distinctions between systematic phonics approaches are not absolute, however, and some phonics programs combine two or more of these types of instruction.

A synthetic phonics program would teach the three graphemes t, a, p and their associated phonemes (often pronounced as tuh, a, and puh) before teaching students to blend them (tuh-a-puh or tap). Through practice and direct instruction, some synthetic phonics programs teach letter-sound units that are larger than single grapheme-phoneme pairs. Common blends such as str (three phonemes that are blended together) and eam (two phonemes) are taught as one unit or become automatized through practice and become essentially one unit for the student. In this way, when decoding the word stream, for example, students are not faced with blending s-tuh-er-ea-m, which might tax short term memory and requires getting rid of some extra sounds during the blending process, like the uh in tuh (p. 2-104).

Rationale

Why should PA and word analysis be taught?

PA is thought to contribute in helping children learn to read because the structure of the English writing system is alphabetic. Moreover, it is not easy to figure out the system. Words have prescribed spellings that consist of graphemes symbolizing phonemes in predictable ways. Being able to distinguish the separate phonemes in pronunciations of words so that they can be linked to graphemes is difficult. This is because spoken language is seamless and there are no breaks in speech signaling where one phoneme ends and the next one begins. Rather phonemes are folded into each other and are coarticulated. Discovering phonemic units is helped greatly by explicit instruction in how the system works (p. 2-11).

PA is not learned naturally along with speech; it is learned through reading and writing and is an important aspect of the word reading process. Both PA and phonics instruction may contribute to decoding words ("transforming graphemes into phonemes and then blending the phonemes to form words"), recognizing the similarity between known and unknown words and reading by analogy, recalling learned words or sight words from memory, and providing cues to help make guessing words from context more accurate (p. 2-11). As readers advance, more complex aspects of word analysis may contribute to word reading ability, such as the knowledge of words parts (parts of words such as prefixes, suffixes, stems, and the parts of compound words) and the use of tools such as the dictionary.

Both PA and word analysis contribute to word reading and word reading is necessary in reaching the ultimate goal for reading, text comprehension. Once word reading is learned, comprehension of the meaning of a text is possible. Comprehension processes used while reading are at least very similar to those used to understand spoken language (p. 2-106).

Assessment

Phonemic awareness (PA) and phonics or word analysis are assessed by asking learners to complete tasks at the word and sub-word levels. The NRP (2000b, p. 2-10) provides a good list of tasks used to assess PA or to improve PA through instruction and practice. In the following list of assessment tasks quoted from the NRP, letters between slashes are meant to be read as sounds, not letters. For example, /b/ is read as the first sound in "buh" as opposed to b without the slashes, which would normally be read as "bee."

Assessment tasks from the NRP (p. 2-10):

1. Phoneme isolation, which requires recognizing individual sounds in words, for example, "Tell me the first sound in paste." (/p/)
2. Phoneme identity, which requires recognizing the common sound in different words. For example, "Tell me the sound that is the same in bike, boy, and bell." (/b/)
3. Phoneme categorization, which requires recognizing the word with the odd sound in a sequence of three or four words, for example, "Which word does not belong? bus, bun, rug." (rug)
4. Phoneme blending, which requires listening to a sequence of separately spoken sounds and combining them to form a recognizable word. For example," What word is /s/ /k/ /u/ /1/?" (school)
5. Phoneme segmentation, which requires breaking a word into its sounds by tapping out or counting the sounds or by pronouncing and positioning a marker for each sound. For example," How many phonemes are there in ship?" (three: /sh/ /i/ /p/)
6. Phoneme deletion, which requires recognizing what word remains when a specified phoneme is removed. For example," What is smile without the /s/?" (mile) (p. 2-10).

Phonics assessment includes tasks involving whole words and parts of words. Knowledge of word parts can be assessed by asking students to pronounce single-letter graphemes (What sounds do these letters make: b, d, f? What is the short vowel sound made by these letters: a, e, i?), digraphs (What sounds do these letters make: ch, ck, oa, ee?), and larger word parts, including blends of more than one grapheme (br, st, str, at, am).

The ability to pronounce these word parts can also be assessed with whole word tasks. To find out if someone can decode the short a vowel sound, for example, we might ask him or her to read the word can. Any response with a short a sound in the middle position would be correct (can, cat, or ban) because it contains the short a target phoneme.

Whole words, of course, are used most often to assess how well learners can decode complete words. In this case, we would expect all of the sounds to be pronounced correctly and blended together into the word can. Problems can arise when using real words, such as can, to assess decoding. If the learner knows can as a sight word, no decoding skills are needed to pronounce it. For this reason, decoding assessments often use nonsense words, or words that a learner could not have already memorized as a whole word. The nonsense word cag, for example, would not have been memorized as a sight word.

Sight word knowledge is assessed with sets of words typically encountered at different reading levels. These sets contain both regular and irregular words (NRP, p. 2-90).

Alphabetics Assessment: Principles and Trends

Question

Based upon assessment results, what are ABE learners' strengths and needs in alphabetics?

Research assessing adult's phonemic awareness (PA) and word analysis (WA) skills has focused on adult non-readers, adult beginning readers, and adults with a reading disability. No experimental research was found that dealt with the PA and WA abilities of ABE adults in ESOL programs.

Principle 2:

Adult non-readers have virtually no phonemic awareness ability and are unable to consistently perform, on their own, almost all phonemic awareness tasks. (Adrian, Alegrai, & Morais, 1995; Bertelson, Gelder, Tfouni & Morais, 1989; Morais, Bertelson, Cary, & Alegria, 1986; Morais, Cary, Alegria, & Bertelson, 1979; Read, Zhang, Nie, & Ding, 1986; Scliar-Cabral, Morais, Nepomuceno, & Kolinsky, 1997)

Experimental results from five studies and non-experimental results from one study of non-readers demonstrate that they lack basic phonemic awareness, or the knowledge that words are made up of individual sounds (Adrian, Alegrai, & Morais, 1995; Bertelson, Gelder, Tfouni & Morais, 1989; Morais, Bertelson, Cary, & Alegria, 1986; Morais, Cary, Alegria, & Bertelson, 1979; Read, Zhang, Nie, & Ding, 1986; Scliar-Cabral, Morais, Nepomuceno, & Kolinsky, 1997). All of these studies evaluated non-readers from countries other than the United States, presumably because it is difficult to find completely illiterate groups of adults in the U.S. Each study used at least one group of illiterate adults that had been exposed to a language that, like English, uses an alphabetic writing system. Although illiterate adults may possess some rudimentary, practical knowledge of phonemes, each study found that they are unable to consistently perform almost all phonemic awareness tasks. This was true even for adults who were literate in a non-alphabetic language (Chinese) but illiterate in the alphabetic version of this language (Read et al., 1986). Non-readers could not, for example, consistently delete a consonant from a word or nonword they heard in order to produce a new word or nonsense syllable (e.g., deleting the b sound in the word bat to produce the word at, or deleting the d sound in the nonword dak to produce the nonsense syllable ak).

Principle 3:

Adult beginning readers, like all beginning readers including children, perform poorly on phonemic awareness tasks that require phoneme manipulation. The ability to perform more complex operations with phonemes generally increases (in adults without a reading disability) along with reading ability, until word analysis is established. (Adrian, Alegrai, & Morais, 1995; Byrne & Ledez, 1983; Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997; Morais, Bertelson, Cary, & Alegria, 1986; Pratt, & Brady, 1988; Read & Ruyter, 1985; Scliar-Cabral, Morais, Nepomuceno, & Kolinsky, 1997)

Experimental results from several studies and non-experimental results from one study show that beginning adult readers, like non-readers, perform poorly on phonemic awareness tasks (Adrian, Alegrai, & Morais, 1995; Byrne & Ledez, 1983; Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997; Morais, Bertelson, Cary, & Alegria, 1986; Pratt, & Brady, 1988; Read & Ruyter, 1985; Scliar-Cabral, Morais, Nepomuceno, & Kolinsky, 1997). All but two of these studies (Adrian et al.; Scliar-Cabral et al.) involved adults who spoke English. Several studies found that the ability to manipulate speech sounds seems to improve as an adult's reading ability improves (Adrian et al., 1995; Morais et al., 1986; Pratt & Brady, 1988; Scliar-Cabral, et al., 1997). One study found a gradual increase in the number and complexity of phonemic awareness tasks across groups of non-readers, beginning readers (those with up to two years of schooling), and literate adults (those with 4 - 11 years of schooling) (Scliar-Cabral, et al., 1997). A similar study found an increase in phonemic awareness between those who were just beginning to learn to read but who could not yet consistently decode single-syllable words and those who were beginning to read monosyllabic words with some consistency (Adrian et al., 1995). Another found that advanced ABE readers (approaching the time when they would take the GED) were significantly better at phonemic awareness tasks than beginning ABE readers (Pratt & Brady, 1988). This suggests that phonemic awareness may continue to develop at least until decoding ability is firmly established. It is important to note that none of these studies looked specifically at adults with a severe reading disability such as dyslexia.

Principle 4:

Adult beginning readers, like other beginning readers, have difficulty applying letter-sound knowledge in order to figure out new or unfamiliar words while reading, although they are generally better at recognizing familiar sight words than children who are learning to read. (Byrne & Ledez, 1983; Gottesman, Bennett, Nathan, Kelly, 1996; Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997; Read & Ruyter, 1985) Lacking the ability to manipulate speech sounds in words orally, adult beginning readers may also have difficulty manipulating the written letters and letter-combinations that represent speech sounds (Read & Ruyter, 1985; Gottesman et al., 1996; Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997; Byrne & Ledez, 1983). Adults learning to read may tend not to use letter-sound knowledge to figure out unknown words as they read (Byrne & Ledez, 1983); they may be relatively better at sight word recognition or recognizing whole words (Read & Ruyter, 1985). One experimental result comparing children and adults at the same reading level finds that adults are better at recognizing familiar words but are worse than the children in using letter-sound knowledge (Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997).

Trend 1:

On phonemic awareness tasks, adult beginning readers are not as good as reading-matched children (children progressing normally in their reading who are reading at the same level as the adults). Adult beginning readers' PA abilities may be more like those of children who are poor readers. (Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997)

In many of the studies discussed above, similarities between the level of phonemic awareness of adult beginning readers and of children beginning to learn to read were noted (Byrne & Ledez, 1983; Pratt, & Brady, 1988; Read & Ruyter, 1985). Experimental results from one study, in which adult readers were compared directly to children reading at the same level (based on a test of word recognition), found that adult beginning readers are much worse on phoneme deletion and segmentation than these reading-matched children (Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997).

Trend 2:

The basic PA abilities of adults who learn to read at an older age are not different from adults who learn to read at a younger age. (Morais, Cary, Alegria, & Bertelson, 1979)

In one experimental study, adults who learned to read after the age of 25 were compared with those who learned to read before age 25. There were no differences in PA ability between the two groups. Age does not seem to affect the ability to learn PA.

Alphabetics Assessment of Adults with a Learning Disability

Question

Based upon assessment results, what are the strengths and needs in alphabetics for ABE learners' with a learning disability?

Trend 3

While readers will typically develop phonemic awareness as they learn to read, adults with a learning disability in reading, such as dyslexia, may not; dyslexia tends to persist into adulthood and may be related to a functional disruption in the brain. (Bruck, 1992; Pennington, Orden, Smith, Green, & Haith, 1990; Scarborough, 1984; Shaywitz, Shaywitz, Pugh, Fulbright, Constable, Mencl, Shankweiler, Liberman, Skudlarski, Fletcher, Katz, Marchione, Lacadie, Gatenby, & Gore, 1998)

Most of the studies that support this trend are robust, experimental studies. This trend is not labeled a principle, however, because the studies do not specifically evaluate students who qualify for ABE programs. The studies do not distinguish between those adults with a reading disability (dyslexics) who have completed high school and those who have not, for example. The studies are included in the research review because there is no reason to believe that ABE adults with dyslexia would perform any better on phonemic awareness tasks than the dyslexic adults in these studies.

In a series of four experiments, phonemic awareness among adults diagnosed with dyslexia was found to be extremely low (Pennington, Orden, Smith, Green & Haith, 1990). In these studies, phonemic awareness was also found to be strongly related to word analysis ability among adult dyslexics, as measured by a non-word reading task. In an experimental, brain-imaging study of adults with dyslexia, they scored significantly lower than non-dyslexic adults on tasks that placed progressively greater demands on phonological processing ability, and their pattern of brain activity during these tasks indicated a disruption in the brain systems responsible for translating letters into sounds (Shaywitz, Shaywitz, Pugh, Fulbright, Constable, Mencl, Shankweiler, Liberman, Skudlarski, Fletcher, Katz, Marchione, Lacadie, Gatenby, & Gore, 1998).

In two additional studies (one with experimental and one with descriptive results), adults diagnosed with dyslexia during childhood, or who remembered significant reading difficulties during childhood, were found to continue to have poor phonemic awareness into adulthood (Bruck, 1992; Scarborough, 1984). For non-disabled good readers in one study, increased phonemic awareness was associated with increases in age and grade level, but was not for those with dyslexia (Bruck, 1992). The low level of phonemic awareness attained by those with dyslexia (knowledge of onset-rime only) is similar to the rudimentary phonemic awareness that another study reports for those who were illiterate (Scliar-Cabral, Morais, Nepomuceno, & Kolinsky, 1997).

Alphabetics Assessment of ESOL Adults

Question

Based upon assessment results, what are the strengths and needs in alphabetics for ABE learners' in ESOL classes?

There has been very little alphabetics research done with those who learn English as a second language, at either the K-12 or adult levels. As with most ESOL reading research, the few studies that look at the alphabetics ability of ESOL adults either: (a) do not distinguish between ABE and non-ABE students; (b) do not specify student reading levels in enough detail; and/or (c) are done at universities with second language learners who have more than 12 years of schooling in their native language (e.g., Koda, 1999).

Alphabetics Instruction: Principles and Trends

Overall

Questions

Does participation in adult basic education increase ABE students' phonemic awareness (the ability to manipulate the basic sounds in spoken words) or word analysis skills (the ability to recognize and use letter-sound correspondences in reading)? Does instruction in phonemic awareness or word analysis lead to increases in reading achievement?

Principle 5:

Participation in ABE programs may lead to increases in adult beginning readers' word analysis abilities. (Curtis & Chmelka, 1994; Gold & Horn, 1982, and Gold & Johnson, 1982; Maclay & Askov, 1988; Truch, 1994; Venezky, Bristow, & Sabatini, 1994)

Most evaluations of adult literacy programs have not assessed effects on phonemic awareness or word analysis. Experimental results from two studies that did assess effects on word analysis achievement suggest that participation in ABE programs can improve adult beginning readers' word analysis achievement (one study is reported in Gold & Horn, 1982, and Gold & Johnson, 1982, and the other in Maclay & Askov, 1988). Although non-experimental results from one study (Venezky, Bristow, & Sabatini, 1994) found no evidence for growth in word analysis ability (decoding) following participation in ABE, results from two non-experimental studies did (Curtis & Chmelka, 1994; Truch, 1994).

It was clear from the descriptions of all but one of these studies (Venezky, Bristow, & Sabatini, 1994) that word analysis was an important part of the instruction provided to adult learners. Those studies that focus specifically on the effects of word analysis instruction are described in more detail in the Teaching Strategies topic below.

Trend 4

Participation in adult education may lead to increases in adult beginning readers' phonemic awareness. (Bertelson, Gelder, Tfouni & Morais, 1989; Gombert, 1994; Morais, Cary, Alegria, & Bertelson,1979; Morais, Content, Bertelson, Cary, & Kolinsky, 1988; Truch, 1994)

Experimental results from one study (Morais et al., 1979) found that those who completed adult literacy programs had better PA ability than those who did not. The programs themselves, and methods used, were not described. Non-experimental results from three studies suggest that focused phonemic awareness instruction by itself (Bertelson et al., 1989; Gombert, 1994; Morais et al., 1988) or along with instruction in other aspects of reading (Truch, 1994), leads to increased phonemic awareness among adult non-readers (Bertelson et al.; Gombert; Morais et al.) and adult beginning readers (Gombert; Truch). None of these three studies took place in a traditional ABE setting. In the study involving adult beginning readers, the tested group included children, though age was used as a covariate in the analysis. The studies involving non-reading adults was conducted with non-English speaking adults in their native language, which was an alphabetic language like English.

Principle 6:

Phonemic awareness and/or word analysis instruction may lead to increased achievement in other aspects of reading for adult beginning readers. (Curtis & Chmelka, 1994; Gold & Horn, 1982, and Gold & Johnson, 1982; McKane & Greene, 1996; Truch, 1994)

ABE research has not isolated the effects of phonemic awareness or word analysis instruction on other aspects of reading achievement, such as comprehension ability. Two of the studies discussed above and one discussed in the fluency section below, however, suggest that alphabetics instruction combined with instruction in other aspects of reading may lead to increased achievement in other aspects of the reading process (Curtis & Chmelka, 1994; Gold & Horn, 1982, and Gold & Johnson, 1982; McKane & Greene, 1996). All found increases in reading comprehension ability when alphabetics was a significant part of instruction. One additional non-experimental study (Truch,1994) finds that focusing on phonemic awareness instruction, but including some word analysis instruction, leads to increases in fluency (oral reading accuracy).

Goals and Setting

Questions

Does participation in a program specifically aligned with one of the three major ABE goals or settings lead to a greater increase in phonemic awareness or word analysis ability than participation in another type of program? Does setting affect the degree to which PA or word analysis instruction increases achievement in other aspects of reading?

No research was found that compares the effects of alphabetics instruction in programs aligned with one of the three major ABE goals or settings: general functional literacy, workplace literacy, and family literacy.

Question

Within any one type of program, is it possible to increase phonemic awareness or word analysis abilities, and is instruction related to alphabetics effective in increasing other aspects of reading?

All except one of the research studies presented above, in the Overall section, was done in a general functional literacy setting. The principles in that section, then, apply to general functional literacy. No trends were found for workplace literacy, although descriptive results from one study found that students' word analysis ability increased in a vocational-technical developmental reading class when a meaning-based, diagnostic-prescriptive approach to instruction was used (Cheek & Lindsey, 1994). Experimental results from this study are described in more detail in the teaching strategies section.

Family Literacy

Within a family literacy program, is it possible to increase phonemic awareness or word analysis abilities?

Trend 5:

It may be possible to increase word analysis achievement in a family literacy setting. (Maclay & Askov, 1988)

Results from one experimental study suggest that adult beginning readers (reading below GE 4) in a family literacy program who receive extensive practice in the recognition of 1,000 high frequency and functional sight words increase their word recognition achievement. This study is described in more detail in the teaching strategies section.

Instructional Methods and Material

Of the several factors that may affect the outcomes from alphabetics instruction (teaching strategies, instructional materials, intensity and duration, and teacher preparation), no research was found related to teacher preparation. All other factors are discussed below.

Teaching Strategies

Question

What specific teaching strategies or techniques can be used to increase phonemic awareness and word analysis abilities?

Because there are only four, non-experimental results from studies relevant to the part of this question having to do with PA, no principles or trends related to PA teaching strategies can be drawn from the research. The four studies that do address phonemic awareness instruction suggest that it may be taught to adults using approaches that include direct instruction in phonemic awareness and instruction in phonemic awareness along with instruction in other aspects of reading. In three studies (Bertelson, Gelder, Tfouni & Morais, 1989; Gombert, 1994; Morais, Content, Bertelson, Cary, & Kolinsky, 1988), some simpler phonemic awareness tasks were quickly taught to adult non-readers and beginning readers using simple demonstration and corrective feedback. These adults were non-English speaking adults, but their native language was alphabetic, like English, and instruction took place in their native language.

In another non-experimental study, extensive, direct instruction in the manipulation of phonemes (using Auditory Discrimination in Depth) followed by practice in word analysis, spelling and fluency (oral reading), appeared to increase phonemic awareness among reading disabled adults (Truch, 1994). Phoneme awareness exercises involved segmenting words into phonemes, blending phonemes, and adding, deleting, substituting, and shifting phonemes. The group given pretests and posttests in this study included children. However, the group as a whole increased phonemic awareness ability, and age was used as a covariate in the analysis.

Principle 7:

Word analysis may be taught using approaches that include direct instruction in word analysis along with instruction in other aspects of reading. (Curtis & Chmelka, 1994; Gold & Horn, 1982, and Gold & Johnson, 1982; Maclay & Askov, 1988; Truch,1994)

In one study with experimental results (reported in Gold & Horn, 1982, and Gold & Johnson, 1982) word analysis was taught using whole-word phonics (phonics by analogy) and writing words while speaking the letters (VAKT or visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile approach). This took place within a larger context involving listening comprehension instruction and the use of student generated texts (through a language experience approach). Results suggest that this approach increases word analysis ability (word recognition as measured on the WRAT and Woodcock, and word attack as measured on the Woodcock).

Results from a second experimental study (Maclay & Askov, 1988) suggest that adults receiving extensive practice in the recognition of 1,000 high frequency and functional sight words increase their word recognition achievement (as measured on the SORT, a series of graded word lists at different levels of difficulty). The approach used in this study with adult beginning readers (reading below GE 4) was computer-based. The computer program assessed students' ability to recognize specific words and, when needed, provided word recognition practice using pictures and verbal descriptions (through voice synthesis). Although the students were taught whole words, some of the words taught included groups with common phonograms (such as the letter-sound combination ake, as in make).

Two non-experimental studies support these results. In one, word analysis skills are taught after focusing on phonemic awareness (Truch, 1994). Instructional tasks include, for example, spelling and word identification using increasingly complex real and nonsense words. After both phonemic awareness and word analysis have been established, reading in connected text is introduced. Adult learners using this approach appeared to improve in their ability to recognize words with both regular and irregular spellings. In the second non-experimental study (Curtis & Chmelka, 1994), four 15 to 17-year-old students increased the rate at which they were learning word analysis skills. These students used a Laubach phonics and sight word recognition program modified to include practice on more challenging words. Less challenging words may not be as effective because they may be a part of adults' sight word knowledge and, if so, there would be no need to use individual letter-sound correspondences to figure them out (cf., Greenberg, et al., 1997).

Trend 6

With adult readers at the intermediate level (reading around GE 6), a meaning-based diagnostic-prescriptive approach to teaching may not lead to increased word analysis achievement. (Cheek & Lindsey, 1994)

In an experimental study of two contrasting teaching styles, neither style was found to be more effective for teaching word analysis. There were no significant differences in the gains made by students taught with either of these styles on the Phonemic Analysis and the Structural Analysis subtests of the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test. One style used a meaning-based, diagnostic-prescriptive approach while another used a programmed learning approach. The diagnostic-prescriptive approach had several important characteristics: formal and informal assessment to identify learner strengths, needs, and interests in reading; use of assessment results to develop individualized teaching strategies, methods, and materials for word analysis and reading comprehension instruction; and, language-experience and literature-based instruction emphasizing regular student-teacher interaction, real-life reading material, and reading as a meaning-making activity. The programmed learning approach, on the other hand, emphasized placement of students at their current reading levels in computer-based or print-based programs where they could work independently, at their own pace, and in a step-by-step manner toward a specific word analysis or reading comprehension learning objective.

The seventy-one students who participated in this study were each randomly assigned to one of the two approaches. Random assignment, the fact that the groups' initial reading levels were not significantly different, and the fact that both classes were team-taught by the same pair of teachers, rule out many extraneous factors that could have accounted for the results. Therefore, several fairly specific questions for future research studies can be asked: Do students reading at around GE 6 need or benefit from word analysis instruction (the range in reading GE was 3.5 to 8.5)? Although the researchers attempted to vary only their teaching style or approach, how different were the specific word analysis teaching strategies in each group (especially given that one emphasized "meaning-centered instruction")?

Instructional Material

Question

Does the use of specific instructional material lead to increased phonemic awareness or word analysis achievement?

No trends or principles are drawn from the research, which included one non-experimental study (Curtis & Chmelka, 1994). This study isolated the effects of specific instructional material on 15 to 17-year-olds' rate of growth in word analysis achievement. The rate of growth for these four students increased when a modified (as opposed to unmodified) Laubach phonics and sight word program was used. The unmodified version used words for word analysis instruction that students may have known by sight (without having to sound them out). The modified version used more complex or challenging words, which seemed to force students to apply word analysis strategies (such as sounding out) as opposed to relying on their sight word knowledge.

Intensity and Duration of Instruction

Question

Does more intense literacy instruction, or instruction that is of longer duration, increase phonemic awareness or word analysis abilities?

No trends or principles were drawn from the research. Experimental results from one study, in which one group of students (those attending day classes) received three times the amount of instruction as those in another group (attending evening classes), suggest that word analysis achievement (decoding) does not increase as the total number of hours of instruction increases (Venezky, Bristow, & Sabatini, 1994). There were, however, no gains overall in word analysis, so differential gains based on hours of instructional time might not be expected.

Learner Characteristics

Question

Reading Level, Language Ability, Motivation, and Age

Are certain forms of phonemic awareness or word analysis instruction more effective for students at specific reading levels, levels of language ability, motivational levels, or age levels?

No trends or principles were drawn from the research. Almost all of the studies with results related to alphabetics were conducted with adult non-readers or beginning readers and none compared the effects of alphabetics instruction across reading levels. Also, none investigated the effects of language differences or motivational levels. One descriptive study, however, did find that adults learning to read in a second language, after learning to speak the language, were easily able to learn a phonemic awareness task, initial consonant deletion (Gombert, 1994).

Only one study, an experimental study of Portugese adults who had completed various literacy programs, evaluated the effects of age (Morais, Cary, Alegria, & Bertelson, 1979). Adults who learned to read after the age of 25 were compared with those who learned to read before age 25. There were no differences in the PA abilities of the two groups. Age does not seem to affect the ability to learn PA.

Ideas for Alphabetics Instruction from K-12 Research

Research findings related to alphabetics instruction at the K-12 level are much stronger than the ABE alphabetics research findings. The National Reading Panel (NRP) review finds that certain techniques for PA and phonics instruction are very effective across a variety of settings, grade levels, and types of learners (NRP, 2000b, pp. 2-4 -- 2-5).

How are the findings from the K-12 research base related to alphabetics instruction for ABE learners? First of all, the results from the NRP research review do not address several topics important to adult basic education. The subtopics associated with Goals and Setting are not addressed and neither are the subtopics Teacher Preparation, ESOL, and Motivation. All of these are important factors in ABE instruction that may affect the outcome of instructional interventions. Adults may attend classes in workplace or family literacy settings or in community learning centers as well as in more formal educational settings, such as community college programs. In most of these settings, adults do not receive daily instruction in reading, as children do in the elementary education system. Adult attendance is not as good as children's either, given the exigencies of adult life. The demands of adult life may also make motivation a more important factor for adults. Alphabetics instruction for those learning English is an extremely important topic for those programs with ESOL classrooms.

Second, the main findings from the NRP review of alphabetics research studies with children in grades K-6 are basically compatible with the principles and trends derived from ABE research studies. None of these principles and trends is contradicted by the NRP findings although the ABE research may focus a bit more on whole word approaches to word analysis instruction.

Third, although the NRP findings provide some support for the evidence derived from studies of ABE adults, the ABE assessment research suggests that there are important differences between adults and children who are beginning to learn to read. These differences should be kept in mind when considering how alphabetics instruction with children may be related to alphabetics instruction with adults. The ABE research suggests that adult beginning readers are not as good at manipulating phonemes or at applying letter-sound correspondences (decoding) while reading. They are more like children reading below grade level (i.e., poor readers). On the other hand, adult beginning readers are better at word recognition than children at comparable levels of development in reading. In this case they are more like children reading above grade level (i.e., good readers).

The population of adults studied in ABE research studies is different in other important ways from the population of children studied in K-12 research studies. In addition to obvious differences in age and experience, adults attending ABE programs tend to be from lower socioeconomic groups. To the degree that reading ability and SES contribute to the results at the K-12 level, these differences make direct adult-child comparisons difficult. On the other hand, alphabetics research results at the K-12 level related specifically to those with poor PA and decoding abilities, and those from lower SES groups, may be of particular interest to adult educators.

Keeping in mind the above discussion, each topic important for ABE alphabetics instruction addressed by the NRP review will be discussed below, focusing on ideas for alphabetics instruction that can be derived from K-12 reading instruction research and that may be of use for ABE reading instruction.

Goals and Setting

Idea 1:

Most students in ABE literacy programs are from lower socioeconomic levels, and PA training and systematic phonics instruction may be effective with adults from these settings.

K-6 research. The NRP review of phonemic awareness and phonics instruction in Kindergarten through the 6th grade does not consider ABE settings specifically. It does, however, evaluate the effects of PA and phonics instruction across socioeconomic levels. Results show that systematic phonics instruction is a better method for teaching decoding than non-systematic or incidental phonics instruction for children from families at low, middle, and high SES levels (p. 2-95). In addition, PA training was just as effective for children at all three SES levels (though transfer to other aspects of reading was greater for mid- to high-level SES children) (NPR, 2000b, pp. 2-4 -- 2-5).

Instructional Methods and Material

The NRP report supports the emerging principles and trends from the ABE research literature suggesting that PA and word analysis can be taught and that direct instruction in word analysis may be effective with ABE students (NRP, pp. 2-4, 2-5, 2-92). Because the NRP research base is larger, however, the NRP report was also able to identify specific instructional strategies that work with children.

Teaching Strategies

Idea 2:

To teach phonemic awareness skills to ABE beginning and intermediate readers, provide focused and explicit instruction on one or two PA skills rather than teaching a combination of three or more skills. Focusing on two skills in particular, blending and segmenting, may be most effective (pp. 2-4 -- 2-5).

K-6 research. Children taught one or two PA skills, especially blending and segmenting, improved their PA abilities and other reading skills more than those who were taught three or more PA skills (pp. 2-4 -- 2-5). Segmenting involves teaching students how to segment words into their individual phonemes (e.g., count the number of sounds in the word cat: c-a-t). Blending involves teaching students how to put individual sounds together to form a word (e.g., say the word that has the sounds c-a-t: cat).

Idea 3:

To teach phonemic awareness skills to ABE beginning and intermediate readers, teach students how to manipulate phonemes (e.g., how to blend and segment words) using letters rather than using only oral instruction.

K-6 research. The NRP review found that "phoneme manipulation with letters" was more effective for normally developing readers and at-risk readers than "PA instruction without letters" (pp. 2-4 -- 2-5). PA can be taught without reference to written words or letters. Students can play rhyming games for example, that focus on the first sound in words (say a word that rhymes with cat: bat). Phoneme manipulation can be taught with oral phoneme deletion exercises (take away the first sound in the word c-at: at). In addition to these oral exercises, the manipulation of speech sounds can be practiced with exercises that use written words or letters. A simple exercise of this type is having students say the consonant sounds associated with written letters (e.g., b, t, m). More complex exercises involve saying and blending the individual sounds in simple written words or pseudowords. Technically, because these exercises involve the use of letter-sound correspondences, they are phonics exercises, though the NRP treats any exercises at the word and sub-word level as phoneme manipulation exercises.

Idea 4:

To improve ABE beginning and intermediate readers' ability to decode regularly spelled words and read familiar sight words, teach phonemic awareness.

K-6 research. The NRP review of research at the K-6 level found that teaching PA leads to improvement in children's ability to read regularly spelled new words (pseudowords) and sight words (NRP, 2000b, p. 2-4). Although effective, PA training was not quite as strong an instructional approach for older, disabled readers (those in Grades 1-6) suggesting that this group may be especially difficult to teach.

Idea 5:

To teach decoding of regularly spelled words and recognition of irregularly spelled sight words to adult beginning and intermediate readers, use systematic as opposed to non-systematic phonics instruction.

K-6 research. Systematic phonics instruction is better than non-systematic phonics instruction for improving children's ability to read regular words (and pseudowords) and irregularly spelled words (p. 2-92). The NRP review found that, on average, children's reading achievement is better when they are exposed to systematic phonics instruction as opposed to programs that teach phonics incidentally or "as needed" during reading instruction (as is done in many whole word or whole language programs).

Idea 6:

To teach decoding of regularly spelled words and recognition of irregularly spelled sight words to adult beginning and intermediate readers, use systematic programs that focus on individual phonemes or that focus on larger parts of words.

K-6 research. Three types of systematic phonics programs were compared in the NRP review and all were found to be equally effective (p. 2-93):

(1) Synthetic phonics programs which emphasized teaching students to convert letters (graphemes) into sounds (phonemes) and then to blend the sounds to form recognizable words; (2) larger-unit phonics programs which emphasized the analysis and blending of larger subparts of words (i.e., onsets, rimes, phonograms, spelling patterns) as well as phonemes; (3) miscellaneous phonics programs that taught phonics systematically but did this in other ways not covered by the synthetic or larger-unit categories or were unclear about the nature of the approach.

Idea 7:

To teach word recognition, use fluency instruction (repeated readings and guided oral reading, for example) to supplement regular word recognition instruction.

K-12 research. The NRP review of research related to fluency instruction finds strong support for the use of repeated, guided oral readings and other types of fluency instruction to increase word recognition achievement (p. 3-3).

Instructional Materials

Idea 8:

Computer programs may be useful in teaching PA skills to adult beginning and intermediate readers.

K-6 research. The NRP review did not evaluate specific instructional materials, although it did look at a few studies that used computers to teach PA skills (NRP, 2000b, p. 2-4, p. 2-44). It found that computer programs can be effective, although more research is needed.

Intensity and Duration

Idea 9:

To teach adult beginning and intermediate readers PA, individual instruction, small group instruction, and classroom instruction may be used, though small group instruction may be most effective.

K-6 research. The NRP review found that small-group PA instruction was more effective than teaching PA individually or in classrooms, although all approaches led to significant gains in PA ability (pp. 2-4 -- 2-5). The Report cautions, however, that these results are based on correlational data, not on the experimental manipulation of class size (p. 2-44).

Idea 10:

When teaching adult beginning and intermediate readers PA, too much as well as too little PA instruction may be ineffective.

K-6 research. The NRP review of PA instruction research with children found that teaching PA from 5 to 18 hours total was most effective. Instruction that lasted a total of more than 18 hours or less than 5 was not as effective (pp. 2-4 -- 2-5).

Teacher Preparation

The NRP review did not examine the effects of teacher training on PA and word analysis instruction. The report does discuss this issue, however, and that discussion applies to ABE instruction as well, where the level of teacher training is probably lower.

...the role of the teacher needs to be better understood... Some phonics programs require a sophisticated understanding of spelling, structural linguistics, and word etymology. Teachers who are handed the programs but are not provided with sufficient inservice training to use these programs effectively may become frustrated. In view of the evidence showing the effectiveness of systematic phonics instruction, it is important to ensure that the issue of how best to prepare teachers to carry out this teaching effectively and creatively is given high priority (NRP, 2000b, p. 2-135).

Learner Characteristics

Functional Reading Level

The research discussed above suggests that adult beginning readers of all ages and ability levels (at least those reading at or below GE 6) may benefit from PA and phonics training. The NRP findings related to PA training and functional reading level, however, may be especially relevant for ABE alphabetics instruction.

Idea 11:

PA training may be most effective if provided immediately to adult non-readers and those just beginning to learn to read. Special PA training may be needed for adult beginning readers who are a little more advanced in their reading (reading at or above GE 1).

K-6 research. The NRP review found that younger readers, those in kindergarten, benefited more from PA training, although it was effective for children in all grades from kindergarten through the grade six (NRP, 2000b, p. 2-24).

ESOL

The NRP review did not evaluate studies of children learning to read English as a second language. They looked only at the effects of PA training for non-English speaking children in their own languages.

Learning Disability

Idea 12:

Although the same PA training that is useful for non-disabled readers may be effective for disabled readers, special PA training may be needed for adult beginning and intermediate readers who have a reading disability. K-6 research. The NRP review found that PA training is effective in improving PA for (a) at-risk readers (children in grade 1 with low reading scores), (b) disabled readers (those above grade 1 with low reading scores but normal cognitive ability), and (c) normally progressing readers. However, PA training is less effective in improving PA for disabled readers than for the other two groups. The reason for lower effects with disabled readers was not investigated, although the NRP report speculated that older readers might already have some PA skills, and so may have less room to grow. Or, older readers may be learning more advanced forms of PA (pp. 2-4, 2-5, 2-23). It is also possible, of course, that the effects are due to a reading disability.

Idea 13:

Use systematic phonics programs with reading disabled adult beginning readers, the same programs that are effective with non-disabled readers.

K-6 research. The NRP review found that the same phonics programs that are most effective for normally progressing readers (systematic phonics programs) are also more effective for disabled readers (p. 2-94).