Goucher Graduate Students' Perception of the Effectiveness of Letter Sounds, Rhyming, and Phoneme Segmentation in Developing Early Reading and Writing Skills
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2010-07
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Masters of Education
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Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain information or permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Goucher Special Collections & Archives at 410-337-6347 or email archives@goucher.edu.
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Goucher graduate students in education perceive instruction in letter sounds, rhyming, or phoneme segmentation as more useful in developing phonemic awareness, word identification, and spelling skills. The study was a descriptive study in which quantitative data was collected through the use of self-report surveys in the form of questionnaires. The sample of graduate students was broken down into two categories: the entire sample (n = 80) and a subset consisting of students with Early Reading Instruction Experience (n = 39). Among the total sample, the letter sounds favorability rating (Mean = 30.78, SD = 3.25) was significantly higher than the rhyming favorability rating (Mean =27.33, SD = 4.24) [t(79) = 8.63, p < .001] and the segmentation favorability rating (Mean = 30.00, SD = 3.82) [t(79) = 2.42, p < .05]. Favorability ratings for segmentation were significantly higher than favorability ratings for rhyming [t(79) = 6.96, p <.001]. Among the subset of teachers with Early Reading Instruction Experience, the letter sounds favorability rating (Mean = 30.00, SD = 2.96) was significantly higher than the rhyming favorability rating (Mean = 27.49, SD = 3.95) [t(38) = 5.87, p < .001] but not the segmentation favorability rating (Mean = 29.69, SD = 3.18) [t(38) = .98, p > .05]. Favorability ratings for segmentation were significantly higher than favorability ratings for rhyming [t(38) = 5.37, p < .001]. Implications of the study, including the apparent preference of graduate students in education for teaching letter sounds over the other methods, are discussed.