Rosine Salazer, Kim Gain, and Kim Koyanagi, in collaboration with Professor Genese Warr-Leeper, have recently completed a study of phonological
awareness skills and programming outcomes for at risk Kindergarten children in the Thames ValleyDistrict School Board. Results of this study indicate that the services of a Speech - Language Pathologist were important and increased the success of phonological awareness training programs.
The project included over 1500 Kindergarten students from 46 schools which had low literacy test scores and were considered to be environmentally disadvantaged. The study involved testing of student
phonological skills in the fall, before extra programming was provided, and again in the spring, at the end of the program. The children were tested
on a variety of skills including:
- rhyming recognition
- rhyming production
- word awareness
- syllable awareness
- sound blending
- sound awareness
- sound segmentation
- sound deletion
- beginning, ending, and middle sound identification
The children’s scores were used to identify three distinct groups, those who had the skills, those for whom the skills were emerging and those who did
not have the skills. Children in all three groups improved their scores as a result of phonological awareness training programs.
A variety of phonological awareness programs were delivered using different combinations of personnel. Significant gains in overall scores were found for training programs led by an SLP, and in programs for which the SLP provided indirect support.
The results suggest that a team approach, involving Speech-Language Pathologists, in literacy programs for children at risk for reading failure is effective.
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