Examining an Explicit Phonological Awareness Intervention: The Impact on First Sound Fluency in Young Children

The authors evaluated the ability of typically developing preschool children to acquire the phonemic awareness skill of first sound fluency (FSF) when trained through an explicit modeling treatment paradigm. Three preschool children participated in a single-case A-B-A research design in which the independent variable was shared book reading between professional and child with embedded modeling of first sounds in words and the dependent variable was the participants' ability to produce first sounds in words in response to the professional's auditory probes. A baseline phase included sessions without intervention. An intervention phase followed with sessions of explicit modeling of first sounds with hierarchal cueing and a follow-up phase. All three participants demonstrated immediate behavior change in an accelerating trend direction for FSF performance which was achieved after five sessions. However, the children's accuracy in producing first sounds in words was not maintained at levels expected for any of the participants. Suggestions are provided for how this strategy can be used and adapted by clinicians and educators to prepare preschool children for phonologically based emergent literacy skills needed to succeed in kindergarten.