1. The Roots of Learning to Read and Write: Acquisition of Letters and Phonemic Awareness in English Language Learner and English only children.
Dr. Theresa Roberts

2. Delighted to be here! Working with professionals who are:
Knowledgeable
Motivated
Influential

3. Professional orientation to research
Frame the questions
Ask for the data
Scrutinize the data
Respond to the data

4. Major Purposes Explain the relationships between speech and print
Explain why alphabet letters are very important for early literacy
Discuss instructional approaches for teaching alphabetics
Engage in discussion about “hot topics”
Emphasize how all the above relates to research studies with ELLs

5. Reading: connecting speech and print
Essential task in reading is to connect word pronunciations with written representations of those words
Necessary for comprehension to get a pronunciation of a word

6. Speech and print
Learning these associations/connections between sounds in speech and graphemes in print is decoding:
To help the child make these connections:
Speech sounds - phonological/phonemic awareness knowledge/instruction
Graphemes - letter names/sounds knowledge/instruction

7. What makes speech easy makes reading hard
In speech sounds are interleaved and overlapped (coarticulated)
Speeds speech processing and lowers cognitive demand
In reading, must unconnect these sounds in somewhat artificial manner
phonemic awareness

8. A few misunderstandings
English, while more variable than other languages, is largely systematic in phoneme- grapheme correspondences
Learning to read is somewhat of an “unnatural” process

9. Phases in learning the speech to print connection (Ehri, 1999)
Pre-alphabetic
Partial alphabetic
Full alphabetic
Consolidated alphabetic

10. Pre-alphabetic phase (pre-k - grade 1)
Lack letter knowledge and phonemic awareness
Children resort to use of visual or contextual cues
McDonalds sign, Pepsi label
Do not have word awareness as shown by fingerpoint reading
Characteristic of children with limited informal and formal experience with the alphabet (preschool to grade 1 range)

11. Partial alphabetic phase (pre-K - grade 1)
Know some names/sounds and have some phonemic awareness
Form partial connections between speech and print
/jp/ for “jump”
Very evident in writing
Initial and final sounds more salient
Characteristic of preschool middle class and children with extensive informal and formal PA and alphabetic experiences

12. Full alphabetic phase (k- grade 2)
Know how to segment and blend
Know major vowel and consonant phoneme-grapheme relationships
Have both PA and alphabet knowledge
Characteristic of first grade children with rich PA and alphabetic instruction

13. Consolidated alphabetic phase (Grades 1-3)
Know larger spelling patterns
Silent e
Acquiring extensive sight vocabularies (pronunciation and word spelling glued together in memory)
Accuracy and speed in decoding are important
Characteristic of grade 2 children with extensive reading and good fluency

14. Instructional approaches for developing PA
Purpose of PA instruction is to help children be able to connect letters to phonemes when they read or write letters
Helps children move from pre-alphabetic to partial alphabetic phase

15. Informal and formal approaches to PA
Both informal and formal approaches to teaching phonological/phonemic awareness have been suggested

16. Informal experiences for PA
Nursery rhymes
Challenged
Letter knowledge more powerful than nursery rhymes (Johnston, Anderson & Holligan (1996)
Meaning may get in the way
Inventive spelling
Reading of alphabet books with initial sounds of words emphasized

17. Instruction for PA Differentiate: Phonological awareness
Phonemic awareness

18. Instruction for PA Developmental progression should guide instruction:
Syllable/word counting
Isolating initial phonemes/rhyming/onset-rime
Segmenting and blending
Deleting phonemes
Substituting phonemes

19. Instruction for PA
Many programs are effective at kindergarten and some studies show programs effective at pre-k
Concurrent and later reading-related performance improves with instruction
Instruction most beneficial for those most at risk

20. Alphabet letters are our friends
Knowledge of alphabet letters and phonemic awareness are the two best predictors of beginning reading competence
Alphabet letter knowledge influences later reading as well, but less strongly
Includes knowing shapes, names, sounds
Which is most critical?

21. Learning alphabet letters
Is substantially a paired associate learning task
Is difficult- there are 40 shapes to be learned whose names are arbitrary
Requires significant practice
Children are oriented to meaning rather than print (write apple in red, believe “bear” should be a longer word than “caterpillar”)
What are the implications for learning of these facts ?

22. Alphabet letter factoids
All but one letter name contains clues to a phoneme it represents
Letters with the name at the beginning are easier to learn than those with the name at the end (letter b vs. letter f )
Capital letters are easier to learn than lower case letters
There are 40 different shapes to be learned
Some letters are highly confusable with other letters

23. Informal and formal approaches to the alphabet
Like PA, both informal and formal learning approaches have been suggested

24. Informal experience for learning letters
Singing the alphabet song
Manipulating alphabet letters
Learning to write personal names
Watching Sesame Street etc.
Reading alphabet books
Reading storybooks
Attending to environmental print
Rank these from most to least effective

25. Writing your name gets your letter name learning engine going
Name and letter knowledge linked (Bloodgood, 1999)
3-year old’s name knowledge in advance of other literacy
Know names of letters in own name best (Treiman & Broderick, 1998)
Names, not sounds, promoted by personal name knowledge

26. Book reading
During storybook reading, little attention directed to letters
Alphabet book reading with attention to letters and words containing them (usually initial sounds) can be effective
For ELLs, alphabet letter instruction decontextualized from storybook reading more effective.
What might be the reasons for this?

27. Alphabet song Familiarizes children with the letter names
Depends on how it is used whether it teaches the letter names and the letter shapes
How might teaching ensure the alphabet song helps with learning letter shapes?

28. Environmental print
Children are actually learning the visual signs and are not attending to print
Studies where arches removed from McDonald’s and Pepsi written separately show children cannot recognize the print
Fail to recognize changes in the print
“xepsi” for “pepsi”

29. Instructional principles for learning letters
Learn to recognize visually and write letters
Connect the letter names/sounds with the grapheme repeatedly
Oral production important
Need sufficient instruction and practice

30. Methods of teaching alphabetics
Mnemonics
Help with making the letters efficiently
templates
Names versus sounds
All letters but one contain clues to the sounds
Letter names are more stable than letter sounds-important for ELLs
Make letters and sounds concrete and stable

31. Mnemonics principles Link letters to sounds in words
Integrated picture mnemonics
When the mnemonic does not link letters to their sounds, only limited benefit (Marsh & Desberg, 1978)
Pumpkin picture for /p/
Boy blowing out a candle and saying /p/
When pictures removed, no advantage
May be best used for initial learning

32. Integrated mnemonic

33. Help with making the letters efficiently
Templates with directionality
Modeling of correct letter making
Attend to the fine motor control challenges of young children
White boards
Writing experiences

34. Names versus sounds
All letter names but one contain clues to a sound for that letter
Letter names are more stable than letter sounds-important for ELLs
More sounds than letters so ultimately need to systematically include all sounds
/sh/

35. Making alphabetics concrete
Particularly important for Ells with limited English
Use markers, tiles, movable letters
A reason letter names may be preferred over letter sounds for initial instruction
Particularly important for PA instruction- why?

36. A big worry
Low income and English learners are much more likely to enter K with limited letter knowledge
Teachers are also more reluctant to offer such instruction to these same children
Programs for low income children have not had a strong emphasis on and effectiveness in teaching letters

37. Hot topics: Preschool reading foundations
What to develop?
How much attention to decoding skills?
Are letter names or letter sounds best?
Upper case or lower case, sequence of letters, rhyming?
How to develop?
Teacher led versus child-initiated?
Contextualized versus decontextualized?
When to develop?
- Is preschool too early?
Child interest?
English oral proficiency?

38. Research study citations:
Roberts, T. (2003). Effects of alphabet letter instruction on young children’s word recognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95,
Roberts, T. & Neal, H. (2004). Relationships among preschool English language learner’s Oral proficiency in English, instructional experience and literacy development. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29,
Ehri, L. C. & Roberts, T. A. (2005). The roots of learning to read and write. In Newman, S. & Dickinson, D. (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research, vol.II, pp New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Roberts, T. (2005). Articulation accuracy and
vocabulary size contributions to phonemic awareness and
word reading in English language learners. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 97(4),

39. Purpose of my studies
Development of alphabetic knowledge in preschool and kindergarten English Language Learners from two language groups
Developmental patterns in the context of instructional experience (explicit, small group, decontextualized)
Relationships among alphabetic knowledge and other components of language and reading (oral proficiency, pronunciation)

40. Participants
Preschool and kindergarten ELLs from low socioeconomic families
Two preschool studies (35-44 children)
Two kinder studies (126 and 27 children)
Children attended one site
Drawn from all 4 preschool classes and all 5 kindergarten classes at the school
Hmong, Spanish and English primary languages
All learning to read in L2 only (70-80% of ELLs in US)

41. Preschool instructional variation
Random assignment across teachers
Treatments:
Alphabet letter/rhyme instruction
Comprehension/vocabulary instruction
Decontextualized vs contextualized alphabet instruction
Differences in the studies:
Duration (8 or 16 weeks)
Frequency (2 or 3X weekly)
Type (decontextualized vs contextualized )

42. Preschool measures Letter naming (0-16) Rhyme generation (0-10)
Storybook vocabulary (0-30)
Paired associate learning of simplified word spellings (6 word pairings, 7 trials) (0-42)
Phonetic (“BL” for “ball”, “JMP” for “jump”)
Visually distinct (“QN” for “ball”, “cFy” for “jump”)
Pre-IPT test of English oral
proficiency

43. Is knowing letters causally connected to word reading?
Experimental study (Roberts, 2003)
Previous evidence correlational
Studies from 1980s concluded not causal
Ehri (1983) critiqued these studies
I decided to retest this with improved methodology in predominantly ELL population

44. Methodology
Random assignment to explicit alphabet letter instruction or storybook reading instruction
Taught 16 letters- 16 weeks- letters A-P
After instruction ended taught children paired associate word spellings and tested their learning of these words over one session

45. Word learning trials Children taught to spell three kinds of words:
simplified phonetic spellings based on letters included in the letter instruction (e.g. “BL” for “ball”; “KND” for “candy”);
simplified phonetic spellings with letters not included in letter instruction (e.g. “ZR” for “zipper”; “RYS” for “rice”)
visually distinct spellings (e.g. “sT” for lunch; “cFy” for “apple”)
If letter knowledge a cause, what should
happen?

46. Phonetic spellings with taught letters

47. Phonetic spellings with letters not taught

48. Visually distinctive spellings

51. Results
Alphabet letter instruction children learned the phonetic spellings using letters they had been taught significantly better than either a) phonetic spellings with not taught letters or b) visually distinct letters
Storybook instruction children learned visually distinctive spellings best

52. Conclusion
Learning alphabet letters is a cause in learning phonetically spelled words in ELL and EO children.
Letter name instruction helped move children from the pre-alphabetic to the partial alphabetic phase of reading

53. How much alphabet letter instruction was needed?
Sixteen weeks of instruction that covered one letter a week for 3 X week with no more than 30 minute lessons was adequate for relatively high levels of alphabet letter learning.
24 hours of explicit alphabet letter instruction, or no more that 1 ½ hours per week was adequate for significant alphabet learning.

54. Amplification of letter name learning instruction
In our studies children who received instruction began knowing about 2.75 letters and ended knowing an average of 11/16 letters taught
Put them very close to middle class counterparts
1/2 year program
Limited to 20 mins. 3X per week
Included 3 year olds
Comparison scores of 50% (no formal instruction) to 78% (instruction)

55. But is it “developmentally appropriate”?
However, preschool children’s participation in skill-oriented, explicit small group instruction of the type used in this study has been argued against. For example, the most recent statement on developmentally appropriate practice published by the National Association for Young Children (1998) concludes, after reviewing studies showing positive effects of explicit training on phonemic awareness for kindergarten and grade 1 children, “Yet, whether such training is appropriate for younger-age children is highly suspect” (p.4). They also state, “In the preschool years sensitizing children to sound similarities does not seem to be dependent on formal training but rather from (sic) listening to patterned, predictable texts while enjoying the feel of reading and language” (p. 4). Yet no direct evidence
was used to support these assertions.

56. But is it “developmentally appropriate”?
One might argue that just because the instruction worked, it could still be out of alignment with the cognitive characteristics and inclinations of children.
“Children’s apparent utilization of letter names for learning to recognize words without instruction or guidance to do so provides strong evidence that the instructional experiences and simple word learning tasks were developmentally appropriate.” (Roberts, 2003)

57. Oral language proficiency
Children with the lowest levels of oral language proficiency (level a-b) showed the same pattern of results
Oral language proficiency more related to vocabulary than alphabetics

58. Correlations between oral language and posttest letter naming and vocabulary
Measure
Oral
Language 1
Language 2
Vocab
Letter
Naming
Oral Language 1
.80***
.67***
.42*
Oral Language 2
.57***
.30
Vocabulary
.14
p  .05
p  .01**
p  .001***

59. What’s up with rhyming?
Preschool ELL children were not successful with learning to rhyme in either the 8-week or 16-week study
Learning to generate rhymes is a very difficult task for preschool English language learners
Alliteration may be better?
Kinder ELL children can learn rhyming

60. What’s up with rhyming? Controversy in the primary language literature
Phonological or phonemic?
How relevant to reading?
Different issue- task difficulty?
Phoneme identity? (Roberts, 2003)
Vocabulary?
Verbal memory?
In kindergarten, only task on which EO
better than both groups of ELLs

61. Decontextualized small group instruction
Pre-K ELLs were able to learn alphabet letters in small group and decontextualized instruction
Instructional Press concept: The nature and focus of instruction directs attention and activates strategies (Roberts & Neal, 2004)

62. But does knowing letters influence later reading in ELLs?

63. Kindergarten measures
Upper case letter name (0-26) and letter sound (0-26) production
Rhyme, blend, segment phonemic awareness test (0-30)
Word recognition (2-4 letters) (0-16)
High frequency (4), decodable (6), decodable pseudowords (6)
IPT- 1 Test of English oral proficiency (1-5)

64. Preschool to kindergarten
Preschool explicit alphabet instruction was linked with kindergarten letter name knowledge
End of preschool letter knowledge was associated with kindergarten letter names, letter sounds and word reading
End of preschool phonetic spelling was associated with kindergarten PA and word reading

65. Preschool to kindergarten

66. Preschoolers as super literacy people
Preschool phonetic word learning ability was related to word reading at the end of kindergarten.
Previous work has demonstrated importance of PA
Children’s earliest attempts to use phonetic information in learning written words is also an important component of phonological sensitivity.
Using phonetic information to read and write words may be warranted in preschool.

67. Preschool to kindergarten conclusion
Not only are preschool ELL children capable of using letter name knowledge in learning to read words, their ability to do so supports phonemic awareness and decodable word reading one year later.

68. Some interesting between language findings

69. Between language differences
ELL= EO on alphabetics, word reading & number recognition
EO > ELL on rhyme
Spanish = English on blend, segment
English > Hmong on blend, segment
Spanish > Hmong on blend

70. Between language differences
Differences exist between groups of ELLs.
Differences between Hmong and Spanish-primary children were as great as differences between ELL and EO children
Differences on PA, but not alphabetics
What may be going on?

71. Between language differences
Between language variability within the ELL population merits more careful study
Differences strongest between ELL groups on more linguistically mediated tasks

72. First and second language literacy
Similarities in reading of ELL and EO children
ELL children are capable of inducing important understandings between alphabet letter knowledge and word reading (preschool study).
Preschool literacy was also predictive of kindergarten literacy, showing another similarity between ELL and English only children (kindergarten study).

73. First and second language literacy
English learner’s alphabet knowledge is in advance of their phonemic awareness
potential educational significance
It appears easier to promote alphabetics than a measure of phonological awareness (Rhyming) in ELLs
Use of alphabet as a tool for PA learning should be explored

74. First and second language literacy
Possible differences in reading of ELL and EO children
ELL children may have greater challenges on tasks that are more linguistic (PA) compared to alphabetics.
Alphabet knowledge may precede and prepare a foundation for phonological awareness.

75. Possible teaching sequence for letters to phoneme awareness
Teach letters
Show/teach simplified phonetic spellings (use taught letters) and word meaning
“BT” for “bat” (letters with sounds at beginning of letter name)
Introduce markers, tiles, movable letters and delete/switch letters

76. Quality of Instruction for ELLs

77. Separate content from quality
Separate content of instruction from quality of instruction
Assume alphabetics and “drill and kill” the same
And much practice is needed

78. Quality of instruction
Instruction was designed to ensure that
children understood task instructions, to draw on children’s competencies and to engage and respond to children’s language use.
Less participatory and activity-based group instruction with preschool English learner children may not have been as successful. (Roberts & Neal, 2004)

79. Quality of instruction
Concrete activities
Language simplification
Highlighting the most important language
Routine within lessons
Repeated exposure to and practice with lesson content, review
Ongoing oral participation
Carefully designed sequence of
increasing difficulty

80. Curricula/program evaluation tool
Shapes and names, sounds?
Letter writing?
Integrated mnemonics?
Articulation cues, oral production?
Use of personal names?
Concrete supports for name, SOUND learning?

81. Curricula/program evaluation tool
Use of alphabet books?
Upper/lower, confusable letters?
Use of Alphabet song?
Opportunity for practice, review?
Interest, motivation?

82. Evaluation specific to ELL
Instructional language appropriate level?
Verbal memory load?
Level of vocabulary?
Concrete activities, TPR?
Signal to noise good?
Articulation support and oral production?
Routinized instruction?
Opportunity for ethnic specific experiences and models?
Pet show book

83. New “hot topic”
Does the quality of ELL children’s pronunciation influence their beginning reading?
Pronunciation is only a surface feature and will self-correct?
Pronunciation reflects children’s phoneme knowledge which will influence their ability to learn the phoneme-grapheme equation necessary for word reading?

84. New “hot topic”
What is the importance of teacher oral proficiency on children’s literacy and language development?
Alphabetics and phonemic awareness
Vocabulary, language acquisition
What are the implications of this for workforce preparation and certification?

85. New “hot topic”
Vocabulary differences at preschool entry are huge and related to quantity of language in the home
How to support language development from birth to age 3?
What about children who speak a language other than English?

86. Engender open discussion on:
Role of child oral proficiency
Effectiveness of small group instruction
Decontextualized and contextualized instruction
What areas of speech matter for ELL preschool literacy
Intensity and duration of instruction (practice, review, amount of instruction)
Role of teacher oral proficiency