Phoneme identification in primary reading and spelling

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston UniversityPLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you.PROBLEM: This study was an attempt to discover the difficulty patterns of phonemes and the relationship of knowledge of phonemes to reading and spelling achievement in grade two. PROCEDURE: Nine group measures of phoneme knowledge were constructed to measure the abilities to identify: the position of phonemes -- initial, medial, final; a phoneme within a group of phonemes; blends and digraphs in words in different positions; and vowel sounds in words, phonograms, and homophones; also the ability to write phonemes, blends and digraphs, and the separate sounds in words. Each word was checked for accuracy of pronunciation against Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged Second Edition, and for suitability of meaning against The Spontaneous Speaking Vocabulary of Primary Grade Children and words common to basal readers. Split-half reliabilities corrected by the Spearman-Brown formula ranged from a low of .901 on writing phonemes, to .979 on the identification of blends and digraphs. In addition to the constructed tests the following standard tests were administered to 204 children in grade two in a small city near Boston: Otis Quick-scoring Mental Ability Tests: New Edition, Alpha Short Form; Metropolitan Achievement Tests, Primary II Battery, Form C: Sub-Tests 1. Word Knowledge, 2. Word Discrimination, 3. Reading, 4. Spelling; and Gates Word Pronunciation Test, Form II. [TRUNCATED]2031-01-0