1. Prevention of reading and spelling deficits by training phonological awareness and letter-sound- correspondencies in kindergarten Peter Marx Department of Psychology, Universität Würzburg, Germany

2. Overview 1)Background: precursors of literacy acquisition 2)Phonological awareness training in kindergarten 3)Practical problems (some of which could be German- or Germany-specific) 4)Classic evaluation results from the 1990ies 5)Preschool prediction of reading difficulties - who should participate in the training? 6)New evaluation results with language-impaired children and children with migration background

3. Introductory remarks: German(y)-specific German children do not receive any formal reading instruction before they enter school (at the age of 6). Reading instruction in first grade: phonics-based In the 1990ies, German kindergarten teachers often refused to introduce letters. The German orthography is quite shallow, as far as reading is concerned: Letter-sound-correspondences are more consistent for German than for English. In Germany spelling is quite important (unfortunately ).

4. phonologyability to decode Only a small part of the picture… …but a central part!

5. Background: precursors of literacy acquisition Children acquire skills needed for literacy acquisition prior to formal reading instruction. Skills proven to be important prerequisites for reading mainly belong to the language domain: Phonological processing (Wagner & Torgesen, 1987) –phonological awareness –phonological working memory –access to the long term store (speed)

6. Phonological Awareness insight into the sound structure of the language phonological awareness ability to differentiate or to segment larger units (words, syllables) or to identify rhymes (usually acquired before school entry) phonemic awareness ability to identify and to discriminate smaller units (sounds) in spoken words (usually acquired during literacy acquisition)

7. Phonological awareness training for kindergarten children

8. The Würzburg program(s): Hören, Lauschen, Lernen 1 (Küspert & Schneider, 1999, 2006) + Hören, Lauschen, Lernen II (Plume & Schneider, 2004)

9. The Würzburg program(s): Hearing, Listening, Learning 1 (training of phonological and phonemic awareness) + Hearing, Listening, Learning II (training of letter-sound-correspondences)

10. The Würzburg program(s): Hearing, Listening, Learning 1 (training of phonological and phonemic awareness) adaptation of the Lundberg program (Lundberg, Frost & Petersen, 1988) + Hearing, Listening, Learning II (training of letter-sound-correspondences)

11. Hören, Lauschen, Lernen 1+2 last year of kindergarten (e.g. January - June) 20 weeks, 15 minutes per day groups of 4 - 8 children conducted by kindergarten teachers

12. Hören, Lauschen, Lernen 1+2 1)Listening games 2)Rhymes 3)Sentences and words 4)Syllables 5)Identification of the initial phoneme 6)Phoneme blending and phoneme analysis 7)Letter-Sound-Correspondences

13. Hören, Lauschen, Lernen 2: Letter-Training (Plume & Schneider, 2004) To be combined with the phonological training The children are to learn the correspondences of letters and sounds Introduction of the 12 most commonly used letters (regarding first grade texts) The children don´t have to write the letters Phonological linkage hypothesis (Hatcher, Hulme & Ellis, 1994)

14. Practical problems How can program application in thousands of kindergartens be properly supervised? (5th edition; total print run of about 90.000) Only words with regular letter-sound- correspondences should be used in the training (?) Organisational problems (no specifically trained teachers, no additional teachers available) Not all children attend kindergarten Daily training is necessary to guarantee success

15. Evaluation studies Evaluation studies have to deal with several problems, e.g. Children from the control group might –enter school with lower levels of phonological awareness –but receive additional training at school Ethical problem: children at risk as control group

16. Meta-analyis: phonological awareness training (Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999) effects on phon. awareness effects on reading nNdnNd all training studies3630921,043427510,44 purely phonological trainings 1115631,19812380,18 letters included in the training 64671,7474920,66 n: number of studies; N: number of children; d: effect size

17. Würzburg studies Schneider, Küspert, Roth, Visé & H. Marx (1997): unselected kindergarten children, purely phonological training, 2 studies Schneider, Roth & Ennemoser (2000): identification of children at risk (BISC), training of letter-sound-corr. included in the phon. awareness training Schneider, Weber, P. Marx (2001 – 2006): unselected kindergarten groups, focus on children with migration background and on language impaired children; only the combined training was used

18. Schneider, Küspert, Roth, Visé & H. Marx (1997)

19. d =.54

20. Schneider, Küspert, Roth, Visé & H. Marx (1997) d =.26

21. Children at risk for later reading deficits Bielefeld Screening (BISC) for the identification of children at risk for later reading deficits Prognostic validity of the screening Training effects for children at risk?

22. phonological awareness rapid naming phonological short term memory regulation of visual attention Bielefeld Screening (BISC) for the identification of children at risk for later reading deficits (Jansen, Mannhaupt, H. Marx & Skowronek, 1999, 2002)

23. Bielefeld Screening phonological awareness rhyme detection syllable segmentation sound categorization (syllables: au-to) sound blending rapid naming phonological short term memory regulation of visual attention

24. Bielefeld study (Jansen et al., 1999) N = 153 The BISC (4 month before school entry) detected 73 % of the children with reading/spelling deficits at the end of Grade 2 (sensitivity). 56 % of the children at risk had reading/spelling deficits 2 years later (prediction hit rate).

25. P. Marx & Weber (2006) Untrained cohort TestsN May 2001 kindergarten screening (BISC)174 School entry 2001 June 2002end of Grade 1reading/spelling161 June 2003end of Grade 2reading/spelling.156 June 2004end of Grade 3reading/spelling.152 June 2005end of Grade 4reading/spelling.152

26. Kindergarten prediction of spelling deficits at the end of grade 2 Sensitivity: 43 % Specifity: 83 % RATZ-Index: 29 % Spelling (WRT 2+) Sum < PR 10> PR 10 Screening at risk6 (20%)2430 no risk8 (6%)118126 Sum14142156

27. Selection of children at risk for later reading/spelling deficits by the screening? Training only for children at risk: More than half of the children with later reading/spelling deficits would be excluded from the training. Training for all children: Children really in need for the intervention might not be assisted sufficiently. The kindergarten teachers/educators providing the screening are sensitized for the issue of phonological awareness / phonological processing.

28. Time schedule of the third Würzburg study I (Schneider, Roth, & Ennemoser, 2000) Time schedule Potential training groups (n = 726) Control group (n = 146) 1995 Oct/Nov Bielefeld Screening (n = 208 children at risk) - Nov/DecPretest 1996 Jan – Phon. awareness training (n = 82) Phon. awareness + letter-sound training (n = 77) Regular Kindergarten program April – June Letter-sound- training (n = 49) Unselected control group (n = 146) JulyPosttest SepSchool entry

29. Pretests and posttests in kindergarten

30. Time schedule of the third Würzburg study II (Schneider, Roth, & Ennemoser, 2000) Sep 1996School entry Oct/Nov 1996Metalinguistic transfer test (follow-up) (at the beginning of Grade 1) June 1997reading and spelling test (at the end of Grade 1) (n = 59)(n = 54)(n = 36)(n = 121) May/June 1998reading and spelling test (at the end of Grade 2) (n = 54)(n = 48)(n = 36)(n = 115) June/July 1999reading and spelling test (at the end of Grade 3) (n = 50)(n = 52)(n = 30)(n = 109)

31. Results: Grade 3

32. percentage of children with spelling problems (PR 25 in the spelling test DRT 2) Results: Grade 2 pure phon. training combined training letter- sound- training control group (unselected) n544836115 Probands with PR 25 11 (20%) 3 (6%) 8 (22%) 9 (8%)

33. percentage of children with spelling problems (PR 25 in the spelling test DRT 3) Results: Grade 3 pure phon. training combined training letter- sound- training control group (unselected) n505230109 Probands with PR 25 11 (22%) 11 (21%) 7 (23%) 14 (13%)

34. What are the characteristics of those children who have trouble with literacy acquisition despite participation in the combined training before school entry?

35. Theoretically, children may develop reading and spelling problems –because their phonological/phonemic awareness was not sufficiently improved by the training, or because there was only a short-term effect, but no effect in the long run –because their reading/spelling problems are caused by other factors (e.g. more general language deficits) Background

36. W. Schneider, J. Weber, P. Marx (2001–2006) Sample: 606 children in the last year of kindergarten, consisting of –499 children from regular kindergartens –107 children from kindergarten groups from schools for children with special needs in the domain of language training group: N=56 control group: N=51

37. Method Regular kindergartens: 411 of the 499 trained children participated in the reading and spelling tests at the end of first Grade –305 children with German as mother tongue (77,0%) –33 bilingual children (8,3%) –58 children with German as second language (GSL, 14,6%)

38. Time schedule Sept - Dec 2002Pretests (kindergarten) Dec 2002 - June 2003Training (kindergarten) June - July 2003Posttests (kindergarten) Nov 2003Follow-up (grade 1) May - July 2004Reading and spelling (grade 1) May - July 2005Reading and spelling (grade 2)

39. Language subgroups: phonological awareness (large units: syllables, rhymes)

40. Language subgroups: phonemic awareness (small units: phonemes)

41. Correlation phonemic awareness (posttest) – spelling spelling 1. gradespelling 2. grade German.48.43 bilingual.46.42 GSL.51.38

42. Spelling deficits in the subgroups spelling (< PR 25)Sum mother tongue German3511,8 %297 bilingual26,3 %32 GSL1121,2 %52 Sum4912,4 %395

43. Reading comprehension deficits LuV2 (< PR 10) Reading compreh. Sum mother tongue German3010,1 %297 bilingual13,1 %32 GSL1325,0 %52 Sum4511,4 %395

44. Special education sample 107 children from kindergarten groups from schools for children with special needs in the domain of language training group: N=56 control group: N=51

45. Short-term effects of the training: phonemic awareness (p <.05)

47. Special education sample: Phonemic awareness in first Grade (n.s.)

48. Special education sample: Spelling in first Grade (n.s.)

49. Only children still receiving special education: Spelling in first Grade (n.s.)

50. Only children still receiving special education: Spelling in second Grade (p <.05, but…)

51. Conclusion Children with a migration background (GSL) and children with language deficits benefit from the training of phononological awareness (immediate effect). Immediate effects regarding the most difficult tasks are somewhat smaller for these children. There seems to be a similar relation between phonemic awareness and spelling for GSL children and for children with German as their mother tongue. We could not show transfer effects on reading and spelling for the children with language deficits.

52. Discussion Effects of phonological training (combined with the introduction of letter-sound-correspondences) are well established, but further starting points for prevention should not be neglected, e.g. –print exposure via family / early storybook reading –broader language intervention Universal or selective prevention? Identification of children at risk? Compatibility with reading instruction in first Grade?