Effects of explicit teacher-implemented phoneme awareness instruction in 4-year-olds

The purpose of this study was to determine whether gains would be observed in an integrated group of 4-year-olds when phoneme awareness skills were explicitly taught by trained early childhood educators. In a quasi-experimental design with a delayed treatment approach, one classroom (N = 14) was randomly assigned to receive the instructional program in fall, while a second classroom (N = 10) served as a control and subsequently received the program in spring. Baseline assessment of speech and language skills indicated there were four participants with speech and/or language impairments. The teacher training involved an initial workshop and weekly hour-long mentoring meetings; the program was provided for 20 min a day, 4 d a week, for 10 weeks. Outcome measures of phoneme awareness and letter knowledge skills were obtained from non-standardized tasks administered pre-instruction and post-instruction, at mid-year and end-year points. When each classroom received the phoneme instruction, participants made gains in letter knowledge and phoneme level skills in comparison with group performance under regular instruction. These gains were statistically significant for phoneme blending and letter knowledge. Using an aggregate of all outcome measures, the gain for each classroom when under instruction was statistically significant as compared with when that same classroom was receiving the regular curriculum. Children with speech and/or language impairment responded more variably. Gains in the more difficult phoneme awareness skill of blending suggest the potential for marked change with an intensive, explicit classroom instruction and hold promise for SLPs collaborating with preschool teachers to provide time-efficient PA instruction.