The Effects of Pre-Kindergarten Reading Skills on First Grade Reading Achievement

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1 94# ~Chapter 15~ The Effects of Pre-Kindergarten Reading Skills on First Grade Reading Achievement Christy Gammon, M.Ed. Putnam City Public Schools Julie Collins, Ph.D. University of Central Oklahoma Abstract Many children struggle to decode and understand words while reading. With the number of children struggling to read on grade level in third grade, a focus has developed on early intervention. The goal of this study was to determine how literacy skills learned in pre-kindergarten affect first grade reading achievement. Data were collected from pre-kindergarten (if the student attended), kindergarten, and first-grade school records as well as from parent surveys about home literacy practices. Data were analyzed for descriptive statistics and correlations. Results of the data are discussed. Keywords: pre-kindergarten, reading comprehension, early intervention, literacy skills The focus of reading instruction in the United States is currently on students who struggle to learn to read and the effectiveness of interventions. Concern for the many children who struggle to decode words and understand texts has led to a push for appropriate interventions. One intervention could take the form of attending a public pre-kindergarten program. Students who attend pre-kindergarten are given additional instructional time to develop prerequisite skills necessary for becoming good readers. The research question addressed in this study is: How do literacy skills learned in pre-kindergarten affect first grade reading achievement? Literature Review In an effort to prepare children for the increasingly rigorous demands of kindergarten, Oklahoma has provided universal, public preschool for over ten years. Many children in poverty begin kindergarten 18 months behind the average child (Poppe & Clothier, 2005). However, attending a high-quality prekindergarten allows children in poverty to enter kindergarten with reading and social skills required to be successful (Williams, Landry, Anthony, Swank, & Crawford, 2012). Children from low-income families and those learning the English language are not the only children who can benefit from public pre-kindergarten. According to current brain research, children benefit from early instruction, with ninety-percent of a child's brain growth occurring before the age of five (Poppe & Clothier, 2005). All children can benefit from instruction in phonemic awareness, as this attention to sounds in spoken words improves their success in learning to read (Shaywitz, 2008; Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998). Children who have less letter knowledge, phonological awareness and oral language ability than their peers are more likely to have difficulty learning to read (Snow et al., 1998). Children who attend pre-kindergarten know more letters, more letter-sound associations and are more familiar with words and book concepts than their peers who do not attend such a program (Barnett, Larny & Jung, 2005). Phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words, is considered one of the better predictors of the ability to read words accurately and quickly (Shaywitz, 2008). Phonemic awareness can be taught to children who lack these skills. Explicit, systematic training helps students in phoneme manipulation tasks, leading to easier decoding of words (Kozminsky & Kozminsky, 1995). Explicit instruction in phoneme segmentation along with an emphasis on the

2 95# letter-sound relationships can be more effective in producing larger gains in phonemic awareness than instruction emphasizing rhyming or vocabulary (Yeh & Connell, 2008). Although one result of specifically focused instruction in phoneme segmentation has been an improvement in the development of rhyme, syllabic segmentation and rhyme are generally skills that have developed prior to formal schooling making it unclear whether intervention instruction in these phonological skills is beneficial in improving first grade reading achievement (Kozminsky & Kozminsky, 1995). Instruction in rhyming should not be neglected, as the mastery of this skill has been shown to produce a positive effect on successful spelling in the second year of formal reading instruction in school (Muter, Hulme, & Snowling, 1997). With reading being defined as the ability to make meaning out of print, the goal of reading is to comprehend (Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD, 2000). Although a child s receptive vocabulary influences first grade reading comprehension, there are other foundational skills linked to reading comprehension (Davison, Hammer, & Lawrence, 2011; Verhoeven & Van Leeuwe, 2008). Phonological awareness, particularly initial phoneme isolation and sound deletion, is one foundational skill that can predict first grade reading comprehension success (Kozminsky & Kozminsky, 1995). Furthermore, mastering the skill of rhyming, another phonological awareness skill, helps promote decoding as readers begin to recognize syllable units in words (Muter et al., 1997). Efficient decoding of words is necessary for reading comprehension in all grades (Verhoeven & Van Leeuwe, 2008). In order for phonemic awareness to be most effective in promoting reading comprehension through increased speed and automaticity of word decoding, instruction needs to relate segmentation of phonemes to letter names or sounds and the grapheme-phoneme relationship (Muter et al., 1997; Nation & Hulme, 1997; Verhoeven & Van Leeuwe,, 2008)). Young children are influenced by early home literacy experiences. A child s receptive vocabulary is developed through parent-child reading (Hood, Conlon, & Andrews, 2008). Although parents levels of education has been associated with home literacy experiences in the number of books available in the home and the frequency in which parents engage in reading with their preschool child, home literacy teaching experiences are more important than just story book reading in developing emerging literacy skills (Frolland, Powell, Diamond, & Son, 2013; Hood et al., 2008). Parents should be encouraged to practice literacy teaching activities since children as young as four years old can be taught to isolate phonemes as well as learn letter-sound relationships (Yeh & Connell, 2008). Four-year-olds benefit from quality prekindergarten programs. Characteristics of a quality prekindergarten program include intellectually stimulating curriculum and highly qualified teachers (Ackerman & Barnett, 2006). Curriculum should include training in the alphabetic principle, phonological awareness, and expanded vocabulary (Barnett & Frede, 2010). To help expand children's vocabulary, teacher-child interactions should include rare-vocabulary and explanations (Williams, et al., 2012). Highly qualified teachers should be skilled at engaging children, eliciting their ideas and monitoring their progress. Teachers' belief systems should be founded in providing developmentally appropriate experiences for children (Ackerman & Barnett, 2006). Thus, the research question guiding this study was: How do literacy skills learned in prekindergarten affect first grade reading achievement? Methodology Participants Eight schools in a suburban district in the middle of the United Sates participated in this study. The investigators visited the first grade classes in each of the participating schools. Parent recruitment letters and consent forms were sent home with the students. The parents who signed the consent forms also agreed to complete a parent survey. Students who returned the signed consent forms were given a bookmark. The parent survey contained nine questions related to the child s early childhood literacy experiences, both informal and formal. A survey link was ed to the parents. Parents who did not have access to a computer were given a hard copy of the survey to fill out and return. The survey was available in both English and Spanish. Data Collection and Analysis Reading skill mastery data were collected from each student s literacy continuum card and their prekindergarten and kindergarten report cards. Mastery data of individual skills were collected from the Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST) (Zgonc, 2000). This test includes subtests of six items each for individual phonological awareness skills such as rhyme recognition and production, concept of spoken word and phoneme blending, segmenting, and deletion. Phonics skills such as recognizing letters by name, matching letters to sounds and blending consonants and vowels into CVC words were assessed on a district created assessment used in the primary grades. First grade text levels were recorded from results on the Benchmark Assessment System, (Fountas & Pinnell, 2010). Data were coded to report when skills were mastered by semester during the period from Pre-kindergarten through the first semester of 1st grade. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 21 for descriptive statistics and Spearman s Non Parametric Correlations.

3 96# Findings While 132 students had permission to participate, we had access to data for both the parent survey and the reading data for only sixty-four participants. This was due to the fact that some first grade students had moved to the school after pre-kindergarten and kindergarten attendance, as well as the fact that the district was in the process of changing the assessments that were used in the early grades, which created some holes in the available student records. Survey data used mothers and fathers highest degree earned as a proxy for socio-economic level, recognizing that potential earning capability increases with higher education levels (see Table 1). The majority of the participating families (fiftytwo) spoke English at home, while eleven spoke Spanish, and one spoke another language. Eighteen of the children did not attend a prekindergarten program while forty-six of the students did; although it may not have been the prekindergarten program at the same school the student currently attended. Skills considered pre-requisites for decoding were marked according to the semester in which they were mastered between pre-kindergarten and first grade (see Table 2). With the complexity of the reading process, it is challenging to isolate variables that affect first grade reading comprehension scores; however, many correlations were found between specific components (see Table 3). Home literacy activities and specific components of reading were correlated using Spearman s Non Parametric Correlations. Several phonological awareness and phonics skills were correlated with first grade reading text level. Phoneme Blending, consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word blending and phoneme segmentation were moderately correlated with first grade reading text levels (p <.01). Consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word blending was shown to be significantly correlated with first grade January text levels (p <.01). Long vowel sounds were not as strongly correlated with January text levels, but correlations were still found to be significant (p <.05). This study found that the majority of students mastered these skills in kindergarten rather than in prekindergarten. Of those mastering skills in pre-k, only one was reading below level in first grade as measured by the Benchmark Assessment System, with four reading above grade level, and one being found to read on level. Several phonological awareness and phonics skills were highly correlated with phoneme blending: phoneme segmentation, CVC word blending, letter sounds, and long vowel sounds (p <.01). Consonant letter sounds and long vowel sounds were generally mastered before phoneme blending. Phoneme Blending was generally mastered before phoneme segmentation and CVC word blending. None of the home literacy activities were significantly correlated with first grade text levels. Table 1 Parents Education Level Parents Education Level Mothers Fathers High School Diploma College-Bachelor s Degree Graduate School-Master s Degree 5 4 Graduate School-Doctoral Degree 3 0

4 97# Table 2 Students and Mastery Time of Prerequisite Reading Skills N=64 Variables 1 Fall of PreK 2 Spring of PreK Semester of Mastery 3 Fall of Kdg 4 Spring of Kdg 5 Fall of 1 st gr 1.! Phoneme blending ! Phoneme segmentation ! CVC word blending ! Consonant sounds ! Long vowel sounds ! Short vowel sounds Table 3 Correlations of Reading Skills N=64 Variables Text level correlations -- Phoneme blending.456** -- Phoneme segmentation.274**.576** -- CVC word blending.312**.326**.576** -- Consonant sounds ** * -- Long vowel sounds.226* **.525** -- Short vowel sounds **.712** -- p<.001** p<.005* Discussion We tracked early phonological awareness and phonics skills to examine the effects of the mastery of those skills on first grade reading comprehension. Reading achievement was reflected in the first grade text level. Phonological awareness skills of rhyme recognition, rhyme production, phoneme blending, and phoneme segmentation were assessed. Phonics skills of letter naming, consonant letter sounds, short and long vowel sounds and blending CVC words were assessed. Phonological awareness skills are important for decoding words. Phoneme blending and phoneme segmentation were moderately correlated with first grade reading text levels. Although learning consonant and vowel letter sounds were not correlated with first grade reading text level, they were moderately correlated with phoneme blending and phoneme segmentation, which are significantly correlated with reading text level. Phonics skills, such as letter knowledge, are important for efficient decoding of words, necessary for comprehension. Developing letter knowledge, letter names and letter sounds, is an important factor in the development of phonemic awareness (Carroll, 2004). Although letter names and letter sounds were not significantly correlated with reading text level, they were moderately correlated with blending CVC words, which was moderately correlated with first grade text level. Learning letter names and sounds teaches children the alphabetic principle. When children know sounds, they can mentally search to see if a heard sound is associated with a letter sound the child knows (Carroll, 2004). While the data showed that the majority of students mastered these prerequisite reading skills during the kindergarten or first grade years, this study was not designed to measure whether the additional instructional time provided a stronger foundation for the learning which would result in the later mastery. It should not be inferred that the additional instructional pre-kindergarten time was not important to the development of these skills. While this research did not find a relationship between the home literacy activities included in the parent survey and the first grade text level of the students, parent involvement in literacy activities continues to be important for school districts to consider when planning curriculum and instructional time for early childhood students.

5 98# Conclusions The literacy skills assessed in this study focused on phonics and phonological awareness skills and whether mastery affects reading achievement in first grade. This study confirmed previous research suggesting that these early literacy skills are vital for later reading success (Shaywitz, 2008; Snow et al., 1998). It is important for this knowledge to be confirmed, especially within the confines of varied educational settings. Due to time and data limitations, we were not able to study all aspects of literacy which might be important to a child s later reading success. A research study of this type would be best conducted as a longitudinal study, but due to time constraints within a graduate program and an on-campus grant program it was not possible to set it up in that manner. These limitations were magnified by the fact that the suburban school district where the data was collected was in the process of changing from one assessment process to another. As a result, the assessment results for the time period being examined were not all complete and readily available. This lack of records eliminated potential data from being included in the analysis. Additionally, the research would be strengthened by being able to collect the data during the study, rather than collecting existing data. If this study were to be duplicated as a longitudinal study it would be more effective for collecting complete data sets. A longitudinal study would also help to track students from pre-kindergarten through their primary grades enabling the connection between attending prekindergarten and later reading performance to be highlighted. Components which should be addressed in future research include oral language, both expressive and receptive, and vocabulary, as well as instructional research as to whether explicit or implicit instruction for some of these components would be most effective, and how these components fit into a developmentally appropriate environment for early education. Additionally, many other factors may affect the outcomes found in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes. Class size, small group intervention in or out of the classroom and extended school time may all be important factors in determining the best outcomes for students. Further research will be needed to determine how these components relate to one another. This project is based on work supported by a Research, Creative, and Scholarly Activities (RCSA) grant from the Office of High-Impact Practices, University of Central Oklahoma.

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