Program

Education K-12 M.A.

Number of Pages

69

Year Approved

2022

First Advisor

Silmser, Lisa

Second Reader

Nathan Elliott;

Abstract

This literature review examines teaching phonemic awareness skills and their importance in identifying students at risk. Phonemic awareness measures used at the beginning of kindergarten can help predict students' reading abilities at the end of the first and second grades. Tests of PA such as phoneme blending, phoneme segmenting, phoneme elision, RAN, and letter knowledge have all been shown to be significant predictors of future reading achievement when used with kindergarten children while rhyming did not. Teachers can use these tests to identify students at risk for reading difficulties so they can be placed in interventions early. A variety of teaching strategies and skills were addressed in the research. Some promising ones were phoneme blending, segmenting, and manipulating but the big consensus was that PA training needs to be explicitly taught for students to transfer the skills to reading. Results suggest that tests of PA can help educators predict which students are at risk and explicit training in PA can help prevent or lessen those students' difficulties when remediated early on in their education.

Degree Name

Education K-12 M.A.

Document Type

Masterʼs thesis

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