Improving Phonemic Awareness in First Graders

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2019-07

Department

Program

Masters of Education

Citation of Original Publication

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether using Elkonin boxes would result in improving first grade students’ phonemic awareness. Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills: Nonsense Word Fluency (DIBELS NWF) assessment scores from the middle of the school year were used as baseline data and were not statistically different between the groups. End of year scores were compared to determine whether the control group’s NWF scores after receiving their regular reading instruction and the experimental group’s NWF scores after receiving the same instruction supplemented with the use of Elkonin boxes differed significantly. The control group’s mean NWF score was slightly higher than that of the experimental group at the beginning and end of the intervention, but the treatment group demonstrated a larger mean gain than the control group, of 5.54 versus 3.88 points on the NWF assessment. However, the significance values obtained indicated that the groups’ mean NWF scores did not differ statistically significantly before (p < .44) or after (p < .68) the Elkonin box intervention was used with the treatment group. Therefore, the null hypothesis that the two groups’ NWF scores would be the same after the intervention was retained. Since results indicated that students had progressed in skill acquisition, further study appears warranted to determine whether and how Elkonin boxes can be used to promote phonemic awareness.