home site map our company advisory board contact us update profile
| 
| 
| 
| 
| |
| News & Information » News » Articles » Interviews » Ask the Expert » Submissions |
| » 800.242.5183» Email Us |
| Home | Articles | Article Details |
  |
|
4/19/2004 Improving Reading Fluency: Phonological Awareness Training Karen McGehee, M.S., CCC/SLP | |
| Introduction Recently, reading and written language skills have consistently fallen within the domain of the speech-language pathologist (SLP). It has been widely documented that children with speech and language disorders are probable candidates for, and are likely to demonstrate reading difficulties (Catts, Fey, Tomblin, and Zhang, 2002). As the ASHA scope of practice statement explicitly included reading and written language skills (ASHA, 2001), many questions have emerged regarding the speech-language pathologist's role in delivering services directed at remediating reading and written language deficits. One aspect of literacy quickly embraced by many school-based SLPs has been phonological awareness skills. Phonological awareness can be thought of as the ability to think about and manipulate the speech sound segments of language (Swank & Catts, 1994). Activities targeting phonological awareness skills, readily lend themselves towards integration into speech and language therapy. Research has shown that students with speech and language disabilities who receive direct phonological awareness training demonstrated significant improvement in phonological awareness, reading, and spelling (Gillon, 2000). Additional support for SLPs addressing phonological awareness training is derived from the vast knowledge SLPs have about sounds and their relationship to words. SLPs, by virtue of their education, training and license know how to dissect words into smaller sound units to maximally convey the physical sound, the cognitive impression and the appropriate articulatory manuevers to the student. It is important to consider the functional aspects of phonological awareness, which necessarily, must be transferable to print. Therefore, it is important and desirable to consider collaboration with a resource room teacher or reading specialist to focus these skills on pragmatic material to promote carryover from the auditory analysis of sound, to the visual analysis of words. These skills can be thought of as ''decoding.'' As SLP caseloads and time constraints limit service delivery options, creative group sessions may be necessary. This group model provides an opportunity for resource room collaboration. The following treatment approach relied on this group model for SLP-directed intervention for reading disabilities. Methods >Participants Participants in this phonological awareness program included nine students in first and second grade, all of whom received reading and written language services in the resource room, although not all of them received speech and language services. Special education services provided for each student were as follows:  Students receiving speech and/or language services received additional therapy to focus on speech and language deficits. However, they received no additional phonological awareness training. Materials No published phonological awareness program was used for this treatment approach. Words for phonological awareness training were generated by the speech-language pathologist. Word “families” were based on words used in the resource room reading curriculum. For word family training an 8.5-inch by 11-inch magnetic letter board was used. Procedures Phonological awareness intervention began during the last week in February 2003 and lasted 10 weeks. Students were grouped for services during special education time for reading and written language. Students were grouped randomly, not according to ability level. The same SLP provided phonological awareness instruction for all resource room groups. Students were seen by the SLP twice weekly in groups of 3-4 students, in the back of the resource room. Session time was previously set aside for reading and written language independent work. The speech-language pathologist saw each group of students in 10-minute blocks and provided stimulus items to each student according to his/her ability. During the first ten minute weekly session, students practiced auditory segmenting and blending words. Five minutes were dedicated to segmenting words, and five minutes were dedicated to blending words. Students moved along a hierarchy of auditory segmenting from compound words. For example: Auditory segmenting of compound words, syllables, phonemes and blends might include (respectively)... ”Say starfish. Now say it again but don't say [star].” “Say table. Now say it again but don’t say [ta].” “Say bake. Now say it again but don't say [b]. “Say stop. Now say it again, but don't say [s]. When students demonstrated difficulty or produced inaccurate responses, they were cued by tapping their hands to represent segments of the stimulus word. In other words, a student held out his/hand for each segment of a given word. For example, when segmenting the word “bake” at the phoneme level, one of the student’s hands represented “b” and the other hand represented “ake.” The student was asked to take the “b” hand away. She was then asked, “What is left?” Each individual student progressed along the hierarchy at their own rate. Students progressed when they reached 100% accuracy at a given level, without cues. With regard to auditory blending, students were moved along a hierarchy of syllables, phonemes, and blends similar to the one described for auditory segmenting. The clinician provided a stimulus item to the student, based on his/her ability level. Students listened to the word segments (e.g. “pa – per”) and were asked to blend the sounds to make a word. When students responded incorrectly they were prompted to say each portion of the word aloud. No visual cues were used for this task. For both auditory segmenting and blending, students were given the correct answer if they did not produce it after prompting. A similar skill used in aural rehabilitation is referred to as phonemic synthesis. During the second weekly session, ''word families'' were taught. For instance, the ''ug'' family included the words... bug rug tug dug Students were asked to take turns producing words that rhymed with a given word-family word. They were reminded that rhyming words all sound the same. Each student in the group took a turn generating a rhyming word for the list. When students did not accurately produce a rhyming word they were prompted with the following cue. “Find a word that rhymes with take. It must end in [ake].” Students also played games manipulating initial phonemes and blends to change visually presented words to different words within a word family. For example… ''Here is [bug] how do I change the word into [chug]? Using a magnetic letter board, students rearranged letters to form new words within a word family. Word families were chosen in collaboration with the resource room teacher in order to support the special education curriculum. Results Measurements All pre-and-post testing was completed in a one-on-one setting.
Data Pre Test Data  Post Test Data  Reading Fluency Growth  Discussion Most students made gains in reading fluency after participating in the phonological awareness training. However, the gains made were not significantly greater than those made in the 10 week period before the onset of treatment. The few students who made more significant growth were generally higher functioning students who received fewer special educations services (e.g. students D, E, and H). Almost all students improved in phonological awareness skills. The one student who did not make quantitative gains in phonological awareness made qualitative gains, specifically relying on fewer cues. Multiple benefits from this format of treatment were noted. The collaboration with a resource room teacher allowed the speech-language pathologist to gain information about the language (oral and written) expectations in an academic setting. Further, the expertise provided by the speech-language pathologist allowed the resource room teacher to add to her knowledge of phonological awareness training techniques. Study Limitations A significant limiting factor is the coexisting reading instruction provided by the resource room teacher. It is difficult to determine which factors, phonological awareness instruction, or special education curriculum, had the greatest impact on gains in phonological awareness or reading fluency. Another limiting factor was the small number of participants which made data analysis and generalizations difficult. Without a control group it is difficult to know if the few students showing significant growth in reading fluency would have made that same growth without the phonological awareness training. A final limitation is the restriction of the “calendar.” Student absences, short treatment times and breaks in the academic calendar yields inconsistent treatment exposure for some of the students. Suggestions
References American Speech-Language Hearing Association. (2001). Roles and responsibilities of speech-language pathologists with respect to reading and writing in children and adolescents. ASHA 21(Suppl.), 17-27. Rockville, MD: Author. Catts, H. , Fey, M, Tomblin, J & Zhang, X (2002). A Longitudinal investigation of reading outcomes in Children with language impairments. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 1142-1157. Gillon, G. T. (2000). The efficacy of phonological awareness intervention for children with spoken language impairment. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 31, 126–141. Swank, L.K. & Catts, H.W. (1994). Phonological awareness and written word decoding. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in the Schools, 25, 9-14 | |