The use of phonological awareness instruction in improving English word reading ability of Thai Primary Students. TITLE The use of phonological awareness instruction in improving English word reading ability of Thai primary school students AUTHOR Satita Pairor.
INTRODUCTION
- Background of the study
- Purposes of the study
- Scope of the study
- Significance of the study
- Definition of key terms
- Thesis proposal structure
It also aimed to explore Thai Grade 2 primary school students' attitudes toward features of phonological awareness instruction that improve students' reading skills in English. The current study aimed to investigate the use of phonological awareness in improving students' English word reading skills.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Phonological awareness
Likewise, Hu (2019) defined phonological awareness as the ability to perceive and manipulate speech, and it is divided into three levels: shallow syllable awareness, deep phoneme awareness, and intermediate rhythm onset awareness. As discussed above, it can be concluded that phonological awareness is the ability to manipulate and distinguish speech sounds and to understand that speech sound can be divided into smaller parts from the sentence to the word to the syllable and the syllable into phonemes.
Phonological awareness and English word reading ability
It can predict reading performance, and phonological awareness training can influence changes in reading outcomes. One of the most important aspects of phonological awareness for children to understand is the alphabetic principle.
Phonological awareness training
- Word awareness
- Syllable awareness
- Onset-rime awareness
- Phoneme awareness
For students who do not naturally understand the alphabetic principle, phonological awareness instruction can fill in the gaps. In summary, phonological awareness is the ability to hear, understand and manipulate the sounds of spoken language.
Letter-sound knowledge
- Letter-sound knowledge activities
In the same way as Dessemontet and Chambrier (2014) included letter-sound knowledge with phonological awareness in their reading intervention. Knowledge of letter sounds is now widely accepted in languages with alphabetic spellings. Letter knowledge and phoneme awareness are crucial prerequisite skills that together promote early reading in children. Before segmentation and blending skills are developed, the teacher must teach letter-sound representations along with phonological awareness interventions (Ball & Blachman Blachman, Tangel, Ball, Black, & McGraw, 1999).
Similarly, Lane (2007) and Gillion (2008) argued that phonological awareness activities should be included in letter and sound training. The development of letter sound knowledge and phoneme awareness can fully mediate the development of children's word-level literacy skills five months after the end of the intervention. As we know, knowledge of letters and sounds is related to phonological awareness, especially at the level of phonemes.
Theoretical framework
2006) suggest that instruction that includes both visual and verbal modeling of letter writing improves students' automaticity of letter formation and their ability to read words. Writing the letters of the alphabet can focus children on the key features that distinguish one letter from another, while improving their knowledge of letter names and sounds (Aram, 2005). In addition, students' handwriting movements during letter writing can facilitate their memorization and letter identification (Longcamp et al., 2005).
Related studies
- Previous studies on phonological awareness instruction in a global
The findings showed that phonological awareness skills training significantly improved the reading performance of the experimental group students. Pearson correlation analysis showed that word reading and vocabulary size were related to phonological awareness. The findings revealed a substantial relationship between the students' phonological awareness and their sense of foreign accents.
Students in the experimental group were given phonological awareness tactics (rhyme, alliteration, blending and segmentation) to improve their EFL oral reading fluency. The study's findings showed that the use of some phonological awareness strategies increased the experimental group's EFL oral reading fluency (reading simple sentences and answering basic questions) much more than the control group. Throughout the lower primary school years, phonological awareness and reading ability in Thai language were consistently improved.
Summary of this chapter
The five subtests of phonological awareness consisted of Initial Phoneme Extinction, Phoneme Identification, Phoneme Discrimination, Phoneme Substitution and Rhyme Detection. Vibulpatanavong and Evans (2019) studied phonological development, reading development and the relationship between phonological awareness and reading aptitude in Thai language. Even when age, gender, parental education, and letter knowledge were taken into account, phonological awareness could essentially predict reading ability in lower students.
However, less attention has been paid to teaching phonological awareness in order to improve English word reading in Thai primary school students. English phonological awareness training is described in the study as the implementation of reading instruction, which is essential for learning to read in alphabetic languages such as English. The level of English phonological awareness includes word awareness, syllable awareness, rhyme awareness and phoneme awareness.
RESEARCH METHODS
- Participants and Setting
- Research Instruments
- Word reading test
- Semi-structured interview
- Word selection
- Phonological awareness training
- Data collection procedure
- Data analysis
- Quantitative data analysis
- Qualitative data analysis
- Ethical considerations
The first section describes the results of the effect of the phonological awareness instruction on Thai second graders' English word reading ability. The second section presents the features of the phonological awareness instruction that improved the students' English word reading ability, according to the students. Research Question 1: Does teaching phonological awareness affect the English word reading ability of Thai primary students.
This indicates the beneficial effect of phonological awareness instruction on the development of English word reading skills among participants. Research Question 2: What features of phonological awareness instruction improve students' reading skills in English? In addition, the characteristics of phonological awareness education that improve the reading skills of English words were also examined.
RESULTS
The effect of phonological awareness instruction on the students’ English word
- English word reading ability pretest and posttest scores
This section summarizes the second grade students' performance on tests of English word reading skills. To investigate the effect of phonological awareness teaching on Thai primary school students' English word reading skills, the mean scores of the pretest and posttest were compared using a paired t-test. As shown in Table 4, there was a significant difference between the mean English word reading scores of second grade students at the pretest and the posttest at the .05 level (t = 6.504).
The features of the phonological awareness instruction that improved students’
This study examined the effect of using phonological awareness instruction to improve the English word reading ability of Thai second grade EFL students. The current results suggest that phonological awareness can help students improve their English word reading skills. Finally, improvement in English word reading in each aspect of phonological awareness was not investigated in the current study.
This study examined the effect of teaching phonological awareness on Thai EFL second graders' ability to read English words. The current study compared pre- and post-test scores to assess the effectiveness of phonological awareness instruction. Therefore, the study did not reveal improvement in word reading with every aspect of phonological awareness instruction.
Effects of English phonological awareness training on English reading ability among Thai primary school students. The role of phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge in the reading development of children with intellectual disabilities.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Summary of findings
Discussion
- The Effect of the Phonological Awareness on Students’ English Word
- The features of the phonological awareness instruction that improve
The students' English word reading skills improved significantly after receiving phonological awareness instruction, with a mean score of 4.58 for the pretest and 6.25 for the posttest. According to Chard and Dickson (1999), phoneme awareness is the most important and advanced level of phonological awareness. The results of the semi-structured interviews indicate that students believe that letter-sound knowledge and phoneme awareness are the hallmarks of phonological awareness that help them read unfamiliar words.
This is consistent with previous research by Dessemontet and Chambrier (2015) showing that phonological awareness and letter sound knowledge at 6–8 years of age can indicate growth in both word and non-word reading. The benefits of phoneme awareness and letter-sound knowledge were demonstrated by Lerner and Lonigan (2016) who examined patterns of bidirectional relationships between letter knowledge and phonological awareness during preschool investigation. Students also reported that their English word reading ability improved because the activities in this phonological awareness training were varied and enjoyable.
Conclusion
Specifically, it was shown that the development of letter sound knowledge and phoneme awareness at the end of the intervention fully mediated gains in children's word skills at five months (Hulme, 2020). The findings of the current study indicate that letter knowledge and phoneme awareness are critical prerequisite skills that together promote early reading in children. Many studies have shown strong links between letter knowledge and later decoding skills (Badian, 1998; Roth, Speece, & Cooper 2002; Georgiou & Kirby, 2008).
Understanding the alphabetic principle, how particular speech sounds in spoken words are indicated by letters in printed words, requires letter-sound knowledge. Letter knowledge is the precursor and is necessary and sufficient for the development of phoneme awareness. Overall, it can be concluded that phonological awareness instruction, which involves activities that teach to read words, is beneficial for students to improve their word reading abilities, especially letter-sound knowledge and phoneme awareness.
Pedagogical Implications
Limitations of the study
Learning sounds in English is new and challenging for Thai EFL students, especially for young people. As a result, phonological awareness tasks should be varied to accommodate students' different learning styles. Teachers should provide a variety of activities that include pictures, videos, sounds and allow them to move their bodies to acquire and absorb knowledge as effectively as possible.
Indeed, this study compared pre-test and post-test word reading scores, but did not assess the specific components of phonological awareness that may have helped Thai EFL students read English words.
Recommendations for future studies
Development of phonological awareness and word recognition skills: A two-year intervention with low-income, inner-city children. Rapid naming components and their relation to phonological awareness orthographic knowledge, speed of processing and different reading outcomes. A culturally responsive framework for promoting phonological awareness development in children with speech and language impairment.
Phonological awareness training in kindergarten: Fluency and comprehension gains are greatest for at-risk readers in grades 1-9. Second language learners' phonological awareness and perceptions of foreign accent and intelligibility by native and foreign English speaking EFL teachers. Bidirectional relations between phonological awareness and letter knowledge in preschool education: A growth curve analysis of the relationship between two code-related skills.
