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Examining phonemic
awareness and concepts of
print patterns of kindergarten
students
a b
William Dee Nichols , William H. Rupley ,
c c
Robert J. Rickelman & Bob Algozzine
a
Virginia Tech
b
Texas A&M University
c
University of North Carolina , Charlotte
Published online: 28 Jan 2010.

To cite this article: William Dee Nichols , William H. Rupley , Robert J. Rickelman &
Bob Algozzine (2004) Examining phonemic awareness and concepts of print patterns
of kindergarten students, Reading Research and Instruction, 43:3, 56-82, DOI:
10.1080/19388070509558411

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 Reading Research and Instruction
Spring 2004, 43(3) 56-81

Examining Phonemic Awareness and Concepts of Print

Patterns of Kindergarten Students

William Dee Nichols

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Virginia Tech

William H. Rupley
Texas A&M University

Robert J. Rickelman
Bob Algozzine
The University of North Carolina Charlotte

Abstract

Necessary prerequisites for and at the same time powerful predictors of children's
success in beginning reading are the development of phonemic awareness and concepts
of print. Students who are learning to read need to be taught how to consciously attend
to phonemes and to develop an understanding regarding concepts about print. This
study was two-fold. First, we examined demographic characteristics that included
gender, socioeconomics, preschool experience, and race to determine how these factors
related to phonemic awareness and concepts of print development for kindergarten
students. It was concluded that low SES children and Latino children were at greater
risk of not developing phonemic awareness and concepts of print in kindergarten.
Further data were collected and analyzed to examine low SES and Latino children's
knowledge of phonemic awareness and concepts of print development. The study found
that, along with maturation, a diagnostic approach that guides phonemic awareness
instruction and concepts about print enhances kindergarten students' phonemic
awareness and concepts of print development.

Almost 20 years ago, Mason (1984) examined reading from a

developmental perspective and stated:

"Three characteristics of language are woven into children's

understanding of reading: (a) determining how words and concepts are
shared by speech and print, (b) realizing how to break speech sounds
into the abstract phonemic units that correspond to letters and letter
groups, and (c) acquiring conventional information - labels, rules and
procedures - needed to describe and carry out reading tasks" (p. 510).
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 57

The present study examined student capabilities on two of these

developmental variables; phonemic awareness and concepts about print were
examined for kindergarten students in order to explore levels of development of
at-risk learners.

Importance of Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness, or the ability to focus on and manipulate
phonemes in spoken words, has been found to be a critical process in learning
to read (e.g., Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer & Carter, 1974; Snow, Burns, &
Griffin, 1998; Yopp & Yopp, 2000). Recent research (Ehri, Nunes, Willows,
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Schuster, Yaghoub-Zadeh, & Shanahan 2001) suggests a strong link between

phonemic awareness and word recognition and ultimately to reading
comprehension, revolving around phases or stages of word recognition
development (Adams, 1990; Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkerson, 1985;
Gough & Hillinger, 1980; Juel, 1988; National Reading Panel, 2000; Perfetti,
Beck, Bell, & Hughes, 1987; Stanovich, 1991). Ehri (1991) adopted terms used
by Frith (1985) to describe a three-phase process in the ability to learn and
recognize words in print. These consist of logographic, alphabetic, and
orthographic phases.
Associating an oral word with a feature of print is the logographic
phase. During this phase the learner associates a salient contextualized feature
of the word such as a logo, a configuration, a picture, or a letter shape with a
word stored in memory (Ehri & Wilce, 1985, 1987; Gough & Hillinger, 1980;
Mason, 1980). Ehri (1991) noted that logographic readers are limited to reading
words by sight and by association with visual symbols as they occur in the
contextual environment in which they are located. This is analogous to the
broader concept of environmental print; however, logographic reading becomes
more refined as children recognize the features of letter and letter combinations.
In the logographic phase, associations are formed by salient features of words
such as word shape, letter features, and visual component association with print
(i.e., Nike swoosh with word Nike). These salient features serve as arbitrary
signs for recognizing words. Due to these arbitrary associations, there are
limited developmental processors that allow the reader to map onto existing
orthographic knowledge causing the reader to struggle in the ability to
recognize words consistently (Mason, 1980).
As logographic readers become frustrated in their limited ability to
recognize words consistently, and as they strive to gain further knowledge about
letter symbols and their sound relationships, they progress into the alphabetic
phase of reading. The occurrence of this phase is attributed to the students
developing knowledge of grapheme-phoneme relationships in their word
recognition. This capability is considered the best predictor of how well
children will learn to read in the primary grades (Ball & Blackman, 1991; Clay,
 58 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

1985; Ehri, et al., 2001; Heilman, Blair & Rupley, 2001; National Reading
Panel, 2000; Share, Jorm, Maclean, & Mathews, 1984). Embedded in the
alphabetic phase is phonological recoding, which involves mastery of the
system generalizations for mapping onto phonological forms. Ehri (1991)
summarized the phonological recoding skills as those that enable "readers to
read words by applying grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules" (p. 398).
Other researchers developing models of word recognition acquisition (Gibson,
1965; Gough & Hillinger, 1980; Mason, 1980) also emphasize the importance
of phonemic awareness early in the reading process. According to these
models, once readers acquire the ability to focus on,and manipulate phonemes
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in spoken words, word recognition is then typically characterized as being

capacity free, enabling the reader to focus on getting meaning.
According to research conducted by Adams (1990) and LaBerge and
Samuels (1974), once learners successfully progress through the alphabetic
phase, they develop a richer sense of orthographic knowledge, which is
predicated on the idea that words are analyzed without phonological
conversions. Features of this phase are characteristically similar to the concept
of automaticity. As students progress through the phases of word recognition
and develop a sense of orthographic knowledge, it is generalized that as
"competence increases, the variance associated with accession of phonological
knowledge should reduce to insignificant proportions of the variance in word
recognition." (Willson & Rupley, 1993, p. 35).
Phase and stage models of word recognition dictate that, in order to
become successful in the orthographic phase of word recognition, which
ultimately frees the reader from phonological recoding and leads to fluent
meaningful reading, the reader must successfully develop phonemic
knowledge. While there is substantial research to indicate that phonemic
awareness is a prerequisite for learning to read (Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986;
National Panel of Reading, 2000; Tunmer & Nesdale, 1982), research
conducted by Perfetti, Beck, Bell and Hughes (1987) and Yopp (1992) found
that the relationship between phonemic awareness and learning to read is most
likely one of reciprocal causation. It appears credible that phonemic awareness
influences a young reader's ability to gain meaningful reading instruction and,
at the same time, it also appears that meaningful reading instruction facilitates
phonemic awareness. It would seem, then, that phonemic awareness facilitates
beginning reading development, and without successful development of
phonemic awareness, learners will have difficulty becoming successful readers
(Griffith & Olson, 1992; Juel, 1988). Phonemic awareness further supports
reading development as children are better able to interact more with print
through reading decodable books and engaging in writing activities, which
affords them practice in applying their acquired skills.
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 59

Importance of Concepts of Print

While concepts of print were frequently examined and reported in the
literature 20 to 30 years ago, relatively little research in this area has been
reported in recent years. While the current focus in early reading development
has focused on the crucial aspects of phonemic awareness, children entering
kindergarten are faced with the additional task of simultaneously learning many
new concepts and terms that are essential to their success in beginning reading
(Hardy, Stennett & Smythe, 1974). The language of visual and auditory
instruction is often brand new to the kindergarten student, and failure to
understand these conventions can strongly impact a child's success in the early
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reading stages (Hardy et al., 1974; Johns, 1972; Johns, 1980). These
conventions of reading are often described as the social and task constraints of
reading (Clay, 1972; Hillerich, 1978; Johns, 1972). These tasks hinge on
understanding the terms that are used to talk about reading, such as, "Find the
top of the page; begin reading the first sentence; locate the word; turn the page;
and what is the title of the book?" In addition to understanding these concepts,
beginning readers must also know the arbitrary rules that govern the act of
reading, such as knowing that one reads from left to right, top to bottom, that
punctuation serves a purpose, and that words have an ordinal and or spatial
feature (Mason, 1984). The process of learning to read consists of discovering,
rediscovering and elaborating on the functions and conventions of the writing
system. For many students, learning to read places them in a state of cognitive
confusion. In order to be a successful reader, this confusion must give way to
cognitive clarity (Downing, 1979).
Thirty years ago, Hardy et al. (1974) concluded that visual language
concepts such as identifying the left and right-hand side of the page, finding the
title, and locating a line within the text were difficult concepts for kindergarten
students to develop and, by the end of the school year, many kindergarten
students still lacked cognitive clarity about these terms and concepts. While the
National Reading Panel's (2000) report emphasized the importance of auditory
skills, Hardy et al. (1974) concluded that it is essential for students to develop
and understand both auditory and visual concepts in order for successful
reading to take place.

Characteristics of Phonemic Awareness and Concepts of Print

Most children enter kindergarten with a substantial oral vocabulary,
adequate amounts of syntactic knowledge, and sufficient command of most of
the phonemes that constitute their oral language (Chali, 1999; Yopp, 1992).
Even with these monumental successes with oral language, kindergarten
students typically lack phonemic awareness and concepts of print (Hardy et al.,
1974; National Reading Panel, 2000). Yopp (1992) further concluded that
performing tasks related to phonemic awareness is difficult for kindergarten
 60 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

students, who are attending to meaning and contextual information associated

with Chall's (1999) Stage 0 of reading development. The tasks associated with
the development of phonemic awareness require that children view speech as an
object, which means that they shift their attention away from the content of
speech to the form of speech, and that they be able to manipulate phonemes in
spoken words. The National Reading Panel (2000) summarized the tasks
usually used to assess phonemic awareness:
1. Phoneme isolation (recognizing individual sounds in words) (/k/a/t/)
2. Phoneme identity (recognizing common sounds in different words)
(d-ad, p-ad)
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3. Phoneme categorization (recognizing the word with the different

sound in a sequence of words) (pour, more, some, soar)
4. Phoneme blending (listening to a sequence of separately spoken
sounds and combining them to form a recognizable word)
(/b/ /a/ IM bat)
5. Phoneme segmentation (breaking a word into its sounds by counting
the sounds in each word) (dogs - lál loi /g/ /s/ - 4)
6. Phoneme deletion (recognizing what word remains when a specified
phoneme is removed) (cat - Ici - at)
Several important skills related to phonemic awareness and reading
development that are usually viewed as prerequisites to phonemic awareness
are the ability to recognize rhyme, onsets and rimes, blending and splitting
phonemes, and segmenting phonemes in spoken words (Griffith & Olson, 1992;
Yopp & Yopp, 2000). Knowledge of syllables is enhanced when onsets and
rimes are used for segmenting speech sounds and associating these sounds with
their written representations. Development of this skill supports children's
ability to use letter-sound correspondences to read and spell words (Griffith &
Olson, 1992). According to a substantial body of research (Ehri, 1992; Ehri,
et al., 2001; Griffith & Olson, 1992; O'Connor, Notari-Syverson, & Vadsay,
1996; Yopp, 1992), it is important for teachers to understand that phonemic
awareness can be a powerful predictor of later reading achievement. This
ability in young children can be facilitated by focused instruction and, with
training, phonemic awareness can improve beyond the point of simple
maturation (National Reading Panel, 2000). In a study conducted by Lundberg,
Frost, and Peterson, as cited in Yopp (1992), it was concluded that students who
received training in phonemic awareness made significant progress in reading
and spelling acquisition when compared to students who did not receive
training.
Hardy et al. (1974) concluded that language instruction in kindergarten
is complicated, and that many students do not understand the instructional
language being used by the teacher making the acquisition of reading difficult
at best. While some children enter kindergarten with concepts for words,
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 61

letters, sounds, others may find these terms completely new to them. In
addition, terminology to describe book parts also varies among entrants to
kindergarten. According to Clay (1993), important concepts about print are as
follows:
1. Can identify the front of a book
2. Understands that print contains a message
3. Knows where to begin reading, which way to go, makes return
sweep to left and is capable of matching words
4. Understands the concept of first and last, big and little, can locate
directionality or spatial relations and positions
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5. Understands the role of punctuation

Hardy et al. (1974) stated that it is essential to identify students'
concepts of print and make systematic instructional adjustments so that
developmental reading acquisition can occur. Many opportunities for students
to develop Mason's constructs mentioned earlier must be provided. There
should be many varied opportunities for students to develop knowledge about
reading. Evidence reported in Mason's (1984) study indicated the positive
results of using informal reading opportunities for enhancing the development
of concepts of print. This emergent literacy philosophy suggests that beginning
readers need many authentic opportunities to explore reading and writing, as
well as being exposed to many different forms of text.
Considerable research supports the importance of phonemic awareness
and concepts of print as they relate to word recognition and ultimately to
reading comprehension (Hardy et al., 1974; Mason, 1984; National Panel of
Reading, 2000; Yopp & Yopp, 2000); studies of associations between student
characteristics and the development of these concepts are less common. The
present study examines phonemic awareness and concepts of print development
across such student variables as gender, preschool experience, socioeconomics,
and race for kindergarten students. Examination of student characteristics in
regards to phonemic awareness and concepts of print development would reveal
those students in traditional kindergarten classrooms who are at greater risk of
not developing phonemic awareness and concepts of print.
While the research supports the importance of phonemic awareness and
concepts about print related to successful reading development, most of this
early literacy research has focused on mainstream populations of children
without examining children's performance based on key demographic
influences (Craig, Connor, & Washington, 2003). In this regard, there appears
to be limited information regarding Latino children's development in either
phonemic awareness or concepts about print. With current research focused
around overall phonemic awareness development, this study examined not only
phonemic awareness but also concepts of print with kindergarten students
taking into account a variety of demographic features.
 62 RReading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

As Chali (1996) has noted, it is during this emergent stage of reading

development, that children use the contextual information provided by pictures,
the predictable language of the text and the way that stories mimic spoken
language to interact with print. Throughout this stage, the reader uses
logographic information to make guesses about words. Learners begin to
develop phonological insights into the nature of words. For example, they can
often identify and create words that rhyme, are conscious that words are made
up of sounds, and understand that some of words have the same beginning and
ending sounds. It has been noted, however that there are variations in
acquisition of phonological knowledge that can be attributed to cultural
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background. For example, research (Rupley, Rodriguez, Mergen, Willson, &

Nichols, 2000) that focused on knowledge and rate of acquisition of structural
features associated with word recognition development of Hispanic and non-
Hispanic second graders found that rate of acquisition was significantly
different. Hispanic learners lagged behind their non-Hispanic counterparts, but
were acquiring the knowledge of structural features of words in the similar
order. In this study, we were interested in examining the various components
of phonemic awareness and concepts of print that would take into account the
diversity of today's classrooms.
While phonemic awareness may be a significant component of reading
development for most kindergarten students, it may need to be supported by
developing concepts of print for certain populations of learners who potentially
lag behind their counterparts. According to researchers from the National
Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Education, more research is
needed to document literacy development in diverse populations.
The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between
selected demographic characteristics of kindergarten students and their
phonemic awareness and concept of print development. In addition, the effects
of phonemic awareness intervention were analyzed, with the hope of shedding
light on the following question: What do teachers need to know about phonemic
awareness as it relates to the needs of kindergarten students?
Specifically, this study was guided by the following research questions:
1. Were students with certain characteristics at higher risk for not
developing phonemic awareness and concepts of print in kindergarten?
2. Which components of phonemic awareness were present in students?
3. To what extent do phonemic awareness and concepts of print
development vary for kindergarten children?
4. Did the students who were in the classrooms of teachers who
received phonemic awareness staff development and used the
recommended decodable texts make significant gains in the
components of phonemic awareness compared to those who did not
receive explicit staff development?
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 63

Method
Sample
Kindergarten classrooms in three urban schools in the Southeast were
studied over a two-year period. The schools were selected because of their
instructional programs in reading, their collaborative relationship with the
university, their interest in developing a reading program based upon
recognized theoretical models of reading, their large Latino populations, and
their specific desire to learn more about phonemic awareness development
among their students. Random selection was not performed because diagnostic
and summative phonemic awareness and concepts of print data from the entire
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population of kindergarten students at one school were gathered the first year,
while diagnostic data were gathered from the entire Latino kindergarten
population from all three participating schools the following year. The total
sample of students involved in the original study that took the diagnostic pretest
consisted of 145 kindergarten students from one urban school in the southeast.
The ethnic distribution consisted of 51 white students, 74 African American
students, 11 Latino American students, 3 Asian American students, and 6 who
identified themselves as other. Eighty-three students were identified as
economically disadvantaged based upon established state criteria. Due to
attrition, only 105 of the original 145 students were administered the summative
posttest. The posttest was administered during the last week of school.
The second set of students, selected the following year, consisted of 53
Latino kindergarten students from three schools within the same district,
including students from the original school. This ethnic population of students
was identified because they had been recognized as being at risk of not
developing phonemic awareness in kindergarten during the initial study. This
group of students consisted of 24 males and 28 females; 32 were identified as
being economically disadvantaged.

Instrumentation
The students in both groups were administered the Curriculum-Based
Literacy Assessment Revised (CBLA-R) (Jetton, Rupley, & Willson, 1995),
developed by selected teachers in conjunction with researchers from two
universities to meet district criteria, which included elements of Clay's (1993)
Observation Survey and measures associated with the Hardy, Stennett &
Smythe, (1974) study. The assessment incorporated and reflected district
curriculum guidelines and goals to reduce assessment redundancy. For
kindergarten students, measures of alphabetic knowledge, word recognition,
concepts about print, and listening comprehension were essential elements of
the school district's reading program. Content validity of the CBLA-R is based
on the district's reading curriculum and is consistent with the extant research
(Adams 1990; Chali, 1999; Ehri, 1992; Juel, 1991; Stanovich 1991). The
 64 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

reliability for all of the subtests ranged from .75 to .94, depending on the topic
(Jetton, et al., 1995). The lower reliabilities were typically associated with
measures with fewer items.
The diagnostic form of the CBLA-R, which is intended to provide
teachers with diagnostic information to guide their instruction, was
administered at the beginning of the school year during the initial study, and
again at the beginning of the school year two years later for the follow-up study.
The results of both administrations of the diagnostic CBLA-R were used to
identify individual students' reading strengths and weaknesses. This
information was then used by the classroom teachers to plan more effective
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reading instruction. The Summative assessment version of the CBLA-R was a

developmentally more challenging version of the Diagnostic form. The
Summative CBLA-R was administered at the end of the initial school year and
was used to further assess students' acquisition of reading strategies and skills,
as well as to examine gains made in regards to auditory and visual features
associated with phonemic awareness and concepts of print.
Each test consisted of consumable student booklets and a teacher's
manual. The test can be administered in one sitting or over a number of days,
if desired. Based on previous research using the instrument, it was noted that
the test is most reliable when administered in the primary grades in small
groups or with additional assistants to serve as monitors; therefore, the tests
were administered in this manner. The subtests measured the following:
recognizing letters from non-letters, naming letters, identifying features of
print, recognizing letter sound correspondences, comprehending simple
narrative text, recognizing rhyme, demonstrating orthographic knowledge,
identifying onsets, and recognizing sight words.
The alphabetic phase, as described in the literature by Ehri, (1992) and
Juel (1991), is the phase where children have learned most of the shapes and
names of the letters of the alphabet and have acquired a low-level of phonemic
awareness that enables them to focus on beginning and ending sounds in words
and in letter names. In the past, this knowledge has been measured by having
students in kindergarten examine words in isolation to detect the presence of
separate sounds in the pronunciation of words (e.g., detecting Ibl in bee). This
study used the concept of the alphabetic phase as it examined phonemic
awareness and applied it to the diagnostic and summative measure used by the
kindergarten classes.
During diagnostic assessment, data were gathered on whether or not
students could identify letters from non-letters. Two subtests assessed students'
knowledge of letters and background knowledge of letter awareness. Students
were asked to identify a letter from a choice of three symbols and had to
recognize letters from numbers. Data from the summative test regarding
differentiating letters from non-letters was more complex. On this subtest,
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 65

students are asked to recognize the fact that letters formed words and had to
locate the word among three strings of symbols, (e.g., horse, } !/>#A , ##A&*).
The measure of identifying names of letters was gathered from both the
diagnostic and summative tests. Students had to recognize lower and upper
case letters named by the teacher and locate the named letter from among a
series of other letters.
Subtests that measured functions of print awareness for both the
diagnostic and summative instrument sampled students' knowledge of how
print functions in our society and were based on Clay's Observation Survey.
These subtests measured students' knowledge and experiences with print,
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perceptions of how print is used to communicate, directionality related to

reading print, and other concepts of print.
Subtests that were used to measure students' ability to hear sounds in
words focused on students' ability to recognize words that begin with the same
sound, hear the beginning sounds of words, and isolate the ending sounds of
words. Students had to circle the correct letter or letters that represented the
sound they heard when pronounced by the teacher.
The subtests used to measure students' listening comprehension of
simple narrative text had students listen to orally read text and recall specific
story information by answering a series of questions. The questions were based
on explicit comprehension and the questions were literal.
The subtests used to measure rhyme were copies of the assessment used
by the district to determine students' ability to recognize rhyming sounds. During
these subtests students had to determine if two similar words rhymed when
pronounced by the examiner and produce rhyming words for the test words.
The abilities of recognizing letters from non-letters, recognizing the
names of specific letters from among other letters, identifying concepts about
print; hearing sounds in words, comprehending simple narrative text, and
recognizing rhymes were measured on both the diagnostic and summative
assessments during the initial study. Orthographic knowledge, identifying
onsets, and recognizing sight word vocabulary, were measured on the
summative assessments and the assessment instrument developed for the
following year. Orthographic knowledge was measured by asking students to
identify words that had similar spelling patterns. Onsets were sampled by
students' visually discriminating common two letter patterns in the initial part
of the word. Sight vocabulary was measured by having students identifying 8
Dolch words that were pronounced by the examiner from among 16 Dolch
words on a list.

Professional Development and Phonemic Awareness Implementation

To establish consistency across schools and classrooms, participating
kindergarten teachers were provided with four professional development
 66 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

seminars. Due to the current interests within this school district, phonemic
awareness development was emphasized. While other instructional techniques
of reading were being used by the classroom teachers, the district's
administration placed a heavy emphasis on phonemic awareness development
as recommended by the National Panel's (2000) report on reading, and all
training sessions focused on phonemic awareness rather than instruction that
would emphasize concepts of print.
During the first session, teachers examined the results of the diagnostic
test and began looking for individual student's strengths and weaknesses.
Interpretation of the diagnostic data revealed that teachers needed to enhance
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students' knowledge of: (1) letter sound relationships, (2) attention to sounds in
words, and (3) knowledge of rime and word families, as well as continue to
provide a multitude of authentic reading experiences to enhance students'
knowledge regarding concepts of print. Three two-hour training sessions were
devoted to the following:
• Developing Sound Matching Activities (Yopp, 1992).
• Using Word Family Activities and Making Words Activities
(Cunningham, 1995)
• Using Read-Aloud Books for Developing Phonemic Awareness
(Opitz, 1998; Yopp, 1995).
The sound matching training session used information in Yopp (1992)
and focused on how to do a matching sounds activity. This activity instructed
students to either match several words with a given sound or to generate a new
word that begins with a given sound. Teachers were also shown that they could
use pictures during the matching phase and illustrations were used to show them
how to make connections within a series of lessons that they were currently
using to teach this skill. The teachers were instructed to be as creative as
possible and to take advantage of incorporating song into this activity (Yopp,
1992; Yopp & Yopp, 2000).
The word family and making words training was based on instructions
found in Cunningham's (1995) Phonics They Use. Each teacher received a copy
of this book to use as a resource. Word families, which are also referred to as
phonograms, consist of words that have the same vowel and ending letters that
rhyme, such as c-at, h-at, f-at. Since the kindergarten students scored low on
rhyme, it was determined that word family activities would improve students'
ability to recognize rhyme. While there are many different ways to teach word
families, the training focused on developing word family categorization games.
All words selected for the game shared the same short vowel sound. In order
to play the game, the students needed to be able to recognize the three
guidewords placed as the heading for each category (i.e., Man, Cat, Nap) and
be able to place their word in the correct category. Teachers were trained to
have students say the guideword, say their word, and any other words located
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 67

in that column. Students then had to explain how they knew the word belonged
in that column. Teachers were instructed to say that all of these words end with
the same sound and after words had been sorted, students were directed to play
concentration or memory games with the various word families.
Another training approach that was used during the second session was
making words (Cunningham & Cunningham, 1992; Cunningham, 1995).
Teachers were instructed to give students letters and guide them to make words.
The students could start by making little words and gradually increase the
length of their words until all of the letters were used.
The final instructional training session provided the kindergarten
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teachers with articles by Opitz (1998) and Yopp (1995). The purpose of this
session was to focus on the importance of using read-alouds to develop
phonemic awareness. Yopp (1995) referred to several studies (Ball &
Blachman, 1988; Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Cunningham, 1990) that indicated
that phonemic awareness can be explicitly taught to children. However, in
contrast to the National Reading Panel's report, Yopp indicated that studies
revealed that phonemic awareness may also be facilitated by providing children
with language-rich environments that focus on word play in stories, songs, and
games (Griffith & Olson, 1992). According to Yopp, "the most accessible,
practical, and useful vehicles to enhance students' sensitivity to the
phonological basis of their language are children's books that deal playfully
with speech sounds through rhyme, alliteration, assonance, or other phoneme
manipulation" (p. 538). Therefore, the teachers were provided with information
on the criteria used for selecting books and were also instructed on how to use
these books effectively. Teachers were encouraged to use rereads to comment
on language use, to encourage predictions, and to examine language use
for hearing sounds in words. The lists of decodable, phonemic awareness
enhancing books generated and compiled by Yopp (1995) and Opitz
(1998) were used for teachers to select a minimum of 75 books for use in
their classrooms.
Identical training sessions were used the subsequent year for the
follow-up study. In addition to the training activities, each teacher participating
in the follow-up study received a copy of the National Reading Panel's report
on phonemic awareness, along with additional funding to purchase phonemic
awareness related texts and activities specifically geared to Latino children.

Data Collection and Analysis

During the initial year of the study, the CBLA-R diagnostic pre-test was
administered to all kindergarten students at the participating schools. After
receiving training on how to use the assessment instrument, the teachers
administered the diagnostic instrument over a one-week period. The
instruments were coded and scored by the researchers.
 68 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

During the initial study the first step was to use descriptive statistics to
examine the fall data in order to determine mean scores for each of the
subheadings. Descriptive statistics, including frequencies and means, were
gathered in order to analyze student performance by classroom teachers and to
provide diagnostic information about individual student performance for concepts
of phonemic awareness and concepts of print. These data were then used by the
classroom teachers to plan instruction based upon individual student's strengths
and weaknesses. Once it was determined (based upon the diagnostic pretest data),
using Univariate Analysis of Variance, that there were no statistically significant
differences at the .01 level between groups of teachers, the students were then
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pooled in order to analyze phonemic awareness and concepts of print trends

between specific groups of participants. Means and standard deviations (SD)
were used to describe the performance of different groups (based on gender,
preschool experience, socioeconomic status, and race) of kindergarten students on
each of the selected components of phonemic awareness and concepts of print as
related to comprehension of simple narrative text. The descriptive analysis
provided mean scores and standard deviations for each of the components. The
descriptive analyses for the data are displayed in Table 1.

Table 1.
Fall Phonemic Awareness Across Demographic Groups

Gender
Component Males (n=72) Females (n=58) Total (n=130)
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Letters 93.3 12.5 92.4 11.5 92.9 12.0

Names 91.3 15.5 88.3 19.7 89.9 17.5
Print 63.6 19.0 62.8 18.7 63.2 18.8
Sound 76.5 21.9 75.7 19.3 76.2 20.7
Comp. 79.0 18.3 71.9 19.8 75.8 19.2
Rhyme 63.2 30.3 67.4 27.6 65.1 29.1

Socioeconomic Status
Free(n=50) Reduced (n= 12) Paid (n=83) Total (n= 145)
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Letters 91.5 15.0 81.7 22.2 94.7 9.2 92.5 13.2

Names 87.2 18.3 82.5 23.0 91.6 16.9 89.3 18.1
Print 60.7 18.5 54.6 21.4 67.3 17.9 63.9 18.8
Sound 66.6 21.0 74.2 21.1 79.5 19.2 74.6 20.7
Comp. 70.6 21.2 68.3 20.8 79.8 17.2 75.7 19.4
Rhyme 54.2 31.0 53.5 24.0 71.8 26.3 64.2 29.0
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 69

table 1 Í :ont.

Preschool Experience
CMS (n=25) Other(n=63) None (n=54) Total (n=142)
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Letters 93.6 10.8 94.2 10.8 90.2 13.8 92.9 12.2

Names 95.6 8.7 91.4 17.4 84.8 20.0 89.6 17.7
Print 63.6 22.6 67.4 18.4 60.7 16.8 64.2 18.7
Sound 74.0 22.4 81.4 18.3 68.8 20.5 75.4 20.6
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Comp. 74.4 20.2 81.9 16.3 69.3 20.3 75.8 19.4

Rhyme 66.0 30.2 70.4 28.2 55.9 28.6 64.1 29.3

Race
White Black Latino Asian Other Total
(n=51) (n=74) (n=ll) (n=3) (n=6) (n=145)
Mean SD Meani SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Letters 94.9 11.4 91.9 13.0 80.6 20.1 100.0 0.0 96.7 5.6 92.5 13.2
Names 91.6 14.5 88.8 20.1 80.0 20.0 96.7 5.8 93.3 16.3 89.4 18.1
Print 70.2 18.4 61.9 19.0 50.5 15.2 62.9 12.8 59.3 11.5 63.8 18.8
Sound 78.6 20.2 73.2 20.9 61.8 13.3 86.7 23.1 75.0 30.2 74.6 20.9
Comp. 82.2 16.0 73.2 19.3 59.1 26.3 70.0 17.3 76.7 17.5 75.4 19.5
Rhyme 72.2 24.7 62.3 31.0 34.1 12.6 66.7 28.9 68.1 29.1 63.9 29.1

Table 2.
Spring Phonemic Awareness Across Demographic Groups

Gender
Component Males (n=50) Females (n=44) Total (n=94)
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Letters 93.6 18.7 95.9 11.1 94.7 15.6

Names 96.6 7.9 96.6 8.9 96.6 8.4
Print 68.6 19.6 68.2 25.4 68.4 22.4
Sound 95.6 8.3 93.2 14.4 94.5 11.6
Comp. 84.4 19.1 79.1 22.0 81.9 20.5
Rhyme 81.3 20.5 83.2 21.3 82.2 20.7
Orthographic 78.8 27.2 83.2 24.0 80.9 25.7
Onsets 70.8 32.4 66.4 31.6 68.7 31.9
Sight 91.3 15.8 87.5 22.4 89.5 19.2
 70 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

table 2 cont.

Socioeconomic Status
Free (n=33) Reduced (n=9) Paid( n=63) Total (n=105)
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Letters 89.7 20.7 100.0 .0 96.2 14.7 94.5 16.5
Names 97.6 5.6 100.0 .0 95.9 9.4 96.8 8.0
Print 62.3 24.2 69.9 19.5 69.8 22.2 67.5 22.7
Sound 93.3 10.1 97.8 3.3 94.8 12.3 94.6 11.1
Comp. 83.0 17.4 82.2 15.6 81.6 21.9 82.1 20.0
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Rhyme 78.6 17.6 81.0 13.7 83.5 23.4 81.7 21.0

Orthographic 74.5 22.5 77.8 15.6 83.8 27.8 80.4 25.6
Onsets 57.6 31.5 57.8 25.4 77.5 30.2 69.5 31.5
Sight 87.5 20.2 86.1 22.0 89.9 19.4 88.8 19.8

Preschool Experience
CMS(n=ll) Other (n=48) None (n=44) Total (n= 103)
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Letters 85.5 26.9 96.3 15.8 95.5 12.8 94.8 16.3
Names 97.3 6.5 96.0 9.6 97.3 6.6 96.7 8.1
Print 68.8 25.4 69.3 21.0 64.9 24.2 67.4 22.8
Sound 92.7 10.9 95.1 12.2 95.2 9.8 94.9 11.0
Comp. 78.2 18.9 82.9 19.8 83.2 21.1 82.5 20.1
Rhyme 81.2 23.5 84.9 21.4 79.3 20.4 82.1 21.2
Orthographic 78.2 24.4 84.6 26.5 76.4 25.3 80.4 25.8
Onsets 60.0 32.2 75.0 29.9 66.8 32.5 69.9 31.4
Sight 87.5 20.9 91.9 19.2 85.5 20.3 88.7 19.9

Race
White Black Latino Asian Other Total
(n=40) (n=51) (n=8) (n=2) (n=4) (n=105)
Meani SD Meani SD Meani SD Mean SD Meani SD Mean SD

Letters 98.5 9.5 92.2 20.4 92.5 14.9 100.0 .0 95.0 10.0 94.9 16.2
Names 97.8 7.0 97.1 7.6 91.3 11.3 100.0 .0 92.5 15.0 96.8 8.0
Print 72.5 23.4 63.6 20.7 62.5 28.5 85.7 20.2 60.7 24.4 67.2 22.7
Sound 94.7 13.8 95.7 7.5 89.2 15.9 93.3 9.4 98.3 3.3 94.9 10.9
Comp. 86.5 19.4 76.9 20.5 92.5 10.4 80.0 28.3 90.0 11.5 82.3 19.9
Rhyme 85.0 21.1 81.1 20.7 61.0 14.4 100.0 .0 97.1 5.9 82.0 21.0
Ortho. 83.0 28.1 80.0 23.3 65.0 25.6 100.0 .0 80.0 28.3 80.4 25.6
Onsets 77.5 30.8 65.5 31.0 60.0 32.1 80.0 28.3 75.0 37.9 70.3 31.3
Sight 91.6 19.9 89.0 18.5 73.4 26.3 100.0 .0 87.5 17.7 88.9 19.8
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 71

Table 3.
Paired t-Test Pre and Posttest Comparison

Paired Differences
Components
of Phonemic 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Awareness
Mean Std. Std. Lower Upper t df Sig.2
Dev. Mean -tailed
Error
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Letters -2.62 20.68 1.998 -6.58 1.35 -1.31 106 .193

Names -8.13 19.91 1.855 -11.81 -4.45 -4.38 106 .000
Print -4.50 24.79 2.396 -9.25 .256 -1.88 106 .063
Sound -20.97 21.34 2.063 -25.06 -16.87 -10.16 106 .000
Comprehension -7.38 26.29 2.542 -12.42 -2.34 -2.91 106 .004
Rhyme -19.71 28.80 2.780 -25.23 -14.19 -7.08 106 .000

Table 4.
Phonemic Awareness and Latino Students Follow-Up Fall Diagnostic Data

Total
Components Total n=53-33
Means Std. Dev. N
Letters 72.08 38.5 53
Names 38.17 32.22 44
Print 19.33 17.31 50
Sound 38.62 29.82 53
Comp. 45.58 29.71 43
Rhyme 25.25 28.75 33
Sight 12.14 22.67 28
Other 31.58 32.27 32

School A
Components Total n=9-7
Means Std. Dev. N
Letters 71.11 40.14 9
Names 43.62 33.06 9
Print 26.39 22.82 9
Sound 47.41 34.87 9
 12 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

table 4 cont.

Comp. 42.5 34.54 8

Rhyme 33.33 38.19 7
Sight 10. 14.14 7
Other 33.67 33.49 7

SchoolB
Components Total n=17-12
Means Std. Dev.N
Letters 58.82 40.91 17
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Names 18.52 20.64 12

Print 4.69 5.24 16
Sound 36.47 17.97 17
Comp. 38.33 31.29 12
Rhyme 7.05 18.59 13
Sight 3.57 7.45 14
Other 13.46 25.64 13

School C
Components Total n=27-7
Means Std. Dev.N
Letters 80.74 35.29 27
Names 46.3 33.56 23
Print 37.04 34.26 27
Comp. 50.43 27.55 23
Rhyme 39.1 22.92 13
Sight 31.43 37.16 7
Other 50.0 29.05 12

Analysis of the diagnostic pretest was intended to answer the following research
questions:
1. Were students with certain characteristics at higher risk for not
developing phonemic awareness and concepts of print in
kindergarten?
2. Which components of phonemic awareness were present in
kindergarten students?
3. To what extent do phonemic awareness and concepts of print
development vary for kindergarten children?

The descriptive statistics analyzed on the collected posttest data are presented
in Table 2; the levels of students' mastery of the components of phonemic
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 73

awareness and concepts of print based upon the summative data are illustrated.
Table 3 is provided as evidence of the initial study's students' growth in the area
of phonemic awareness and concepts about print. In order to further examine
phonemic awareness and concepts of print development among Latino children,
the fall diagnostic assessment was given the following year to a second
population of kindergarten students. The descriptive analyses are provided
in Table 4.

Results
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Means and standard deviations for early kindergarten phonemic

awareness and concepts of print development are presented in Table 1.
Kindergarten students as a whole, regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic
status, and preschool experience, appeared to have a good understanding of
what letters are and they could identify letter names by the end of the first 12
weeks of the school year. However, these same students had a more difficult
time recognizing the functions and purposes of print and letter sound
relationships, especially those that measure onset and rhyme.
The results of an initial analysis showed that gender does not play a
significant role in kindergarten students' ability to recognize various
components of phonemic awareness or concepts of print. By October, all
kindergarten students had acquired the ability to recognize letters from non-
letters, and also knew the names of letters at a proficient level. Kindergarten
students also knew sounds of the letters at about a 75% accuracy level.
However, regardless of gender, the kindergarten students in this study had not
reached a proficient level of awareness about functions of print, or the ability to
recognize rhyme by October.
As noted in the National Reading Panel's (2000) report and the analyses
conducted by Ehri, et al., (2001), socioeconomic status appears to have little
bearing on students' phonemic awareness capabilities, except in regards to onset
and rhyme. Students in our study who were from a higher socioeconomic range
scored slightly better than most other groups of students. This is similar to
results shown in the NCES report conducted by West, Dentón and Germino
Hausken (2000). The children in this study had reached a level of mastery on
the subtests used to examine students' ability to recognize letters from non-
letters and their ability to recognize the correct letter by name. However,
students' awareness of functions of print and the ability to recognize rhyme
were areas that showed students needed more knowledge before they could
reach a level of mastery. Analysis of the subtests examining the ability to hear
sounds in words and simple comprehension of narrative text also indicated that
most students had not acquired a level of mastery for these components. While
the National Reading Panel's (2000) report and the Ehri, et. al., (2001) analyses
 74 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

reported that SES played a mixed role in phonemic awareness development, our
study indicated that 62 children who were identified as economically
disadvantaged significantly lagged behind the other children in their abilities to
recognize rhyme (see Table 1).
With more and more attention being focused on educational equity
issues, this study also examined the relationship between race and the
development of phonemic awareness. When comparing students by race,
Hispanic students were more likely to have more difficulty with components of
phonemic awareness and concepts of print than were students from other ethnic
backgrounds. Regardless of race, all students had reached mastery for
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recognizing letters from non-letters and letter names. However, Hispanic

children scored lower on these components, but still had mean scores greater
than .70. All children performed at a lower level on the subtests measuring the
functions of print and abilities to recognize rhyme (see Table 1).
Although most groups of students scored similarly on each of the
diagnostic subtests, differences attributable to demographics were also noted.
Students who had received little or no preschool experience, who came from a
lower socioeconomic background, and who were of Hispanic ethnicity were at
greater risk of not developing phonemic awareness and concepts of print in
kindergarten than any other subgroups. These findings are consistent with
previous results examining children's ability to recognize words by sight and
understand words in context (West, et al., 2000). The National Reading Panel's
report also indicated that students who did not use English as their primary
language are at greater risk of delayed development of phonemic awareness
than other groups of students primarily due to the fact that ESL students are
"bound to misperceive some English phonemes because their linguistic minds
are programmed to categorize phonemes in their first language" (National
Reading Panel, pp. 2-3, 2000). Hardy et al. (1974) also recognized that some
groups of children entering kindergarten would either misunderstand or lack the
prior knowledge for the instructional discourse and language of the teacher and
text, thus delaying the acquisition of important print concepts. While these
subgroups did not always test significantly lower in all areas of concepts about
print, their scores were generally lower than all other student groups. On the
one hand the data showed that, by October, all groups of students, regardless of
gender, socioeconomic status, preschool experience, or race, had reached a
level of mastery for recognizing letters from non-letters and recognizing letters
by names; on the other hand, the data clearly indicated that all students lagged
behind for letter sound recognition and comprehension of simple narrative text.
Data for functions of print and ability to recognize rhyme were the lowest areas
of performance for all students.
Means and standard deviations across gender, socioeconomic status,
preschool experience and race are presented in Table 2. The levels of students'
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 75

mastery for phonemic awareness at the end of one year in school are illustrated.
Although most groups of students scored similarly on each of the diagnostic
subtests, some demographic trends were noted. Students who had received
little or no preschool experience and who came from lower socioeconomic
background and were of Hispanic ethnicity were at greater risk of not
developing phonemic awareness and concepts of print in kindergarten than any
other subgroups. While these subgroups did not always test significantly lower
in all areas, their scores were generally lower than all other groups.
Means and standard deviations reflecting end-of-year phonemic
awareness and concepts of print are presented in Table 2. Gender again was not
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related to students' development of phonemic awareness. All students,

regardless of gender, were able to recognize letters and words from non-letters
and words as well as recognize letters by name. By the end of kindergarten, all
students had reached a level of mastery for recognizing letter sound
relationships and had made significant gains in comprehension of simple
narrative text and the ability to recognize rhyme. On measures that were
posttest specific, students had begun to develop orthographic knowledge and
were successful at recognizing pre-primer Dolch words by sight. The two areas
that most students still struggled with were functions of print and ability to
recognize initial onset patterns.
These students also had reached a level of mastery for recognizing
letters and words from non-letters and non-words, knew the names of letters,
could hear sounds in the beginning and endings of words, and could
comprehend simple narrative text, recognize rhyme and pre-primer Dolch
words. Students, regardless of socioeconomic status or preschool experience,
scored similarly on all subtests except for students' ability to recognize patterns
in initial onsets. Students identified as economically disadvantaged scored
lower in this area than students who were not. The two areas where students
scored below a level of competence were functions of print and ability to
recognize onset.
By the end of kindergarten, there appeared to be more similarities
among racial groups than differences in regard to the development of phonemic
awareness. All students, regardless of race, had reached a level of mastery for
recognizing letters and words from non-letters and non-words as well as the
ability to recognize lower and upper case letters by name and hear the sounds
in the initial and ending parts of words. All children were also successful in the
comprehension of simple narrative text and in their ability to recognize pre-
primer Dolch words by sight. While Hispanic children continued to score lower
in concepts of print and certain components of phonemic awareness (i.e., ability
to recognize rhyme), considerable gains were noted.
The descriptive statistics presented in Tables 1 and 2 are promising to
educators. When teachers use diagnostic data (pre-tests) to guide their
 76 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

instruction of children, it appears teachers can enhance all children's

development of phonemic awareness regardless of gender, socioeconomic
status, pre-school experience, and race. The trends noted in limited proficiency
for certain subgroups of students during the gathering of the diagnostic results
were less notable in the collection of the summative results. The only group of
children that still indicated lower awareness of rhyme was children of Hispanic
ethnicity. However, even with significantly lower performance on the ability to
recognize rhyme, this subgroup of children made significant gains between the
pre and posttest assessments.
A series of dependent t tests was used to compare improvements in
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phonemic awareness and to address the following question: Did teachers who
received the phonemic awareness professional seminars and who used the
recommended decodable texts have students who made significant gains in the
components of phonemic awareness?
Significant gains at the .001 level were noted in students' ability to
recognize letter names, letter sound relationships, and ability to recognize
rhyme. Significant gains at the .005 level were also found for students'
comprehension of narrative text (see Table 3). Significant gains were not found
for students' ability to recognize letters and words from non-letters and non-
words. One possible explanation for this result could be due to the fact that
students had already reached a level of mastery for this subtest prior to taking
the post-test and would be reasonable given the results of previous longitudinal
data collected on kindergarten students ability to recognize letter names (West,
et al., 2000). The other subtest that students did not make a significant gain on
was functions/concepts of print, which could possibly indicate that as teachers
increase their emphases on phonemic principles, they might begin to lessen
their instruction on functions and concepts of print.
In order to further examine phonemic awareness development among
Latino children, a fall diagnostic assessment was given the following year to a
second population of kindergarten students. Results of the follow-up study's
fall diagnostic assessment continue to indicate that kindergarten students of
Hispanic origin scored significantly lower on all components of phonemic
awareness and concepts of print development when compared to the other
students in this study. Students in the follow-up study had extremely limited
phonemic awareness recognition in the areas associated with letter names, letter
sounds, and rhyme as well as concepts of print (see Tables 4). This suggests
that students of Latino background could strongly benefit from explicit
phonemic awareness instruction as well as instruction focused on concepts of
print. As the National Reading Panel (2000) indicated, children will differ in
their phonemic awareness and some students will need more in-depth
instruction than others. This study indicates that students of Latino background
need explicit instruction in phonemic awareness for a longer period of time than
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 77

other groups of students. In addition to concepts of print development,

phonemic awareness instruction should continue throughout first grade or until
mastery occurs.

Discussion and Conclusions

In this study, low SES children and Latino children were at greater risk
of not developing phonemic awareness and concepts of print in kindergarten
and lagged behind in comparison to their counterparts. This finding is similar to
what was found in an earlier study (Rupley, et al., 2000) that indicated that
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Hispanic second graders lagged behind non-Hispanic second graders in

acquiring structural knowledge of words for word recognition. The implication
is not that these learners are at risk for developing word recognition strategies,
but they are in need of intervention instruction that addresses their needs and in
the broadest sense, "catches them up". This implication was evidenced by the
support that teachers' use of a diagnostic approach that guides phonemic
awareness instruction and concepts about print enhanced kindergarten students'
phonemic awareness and concepts of print development.
The results of the initial study indicate that, while most students scored
similarly on the diagnostic subtests, students with little or no preschool
experience who came from a lower socioeconomic background, or whose
ethnic background was Latino, lagged behind in developing phonemic
awareness and concepts of print in kindergarten when compared to other groups
of students. While these at-risk subgroups scored consistently lower on the
diagnostic pretest, the results of the initial study, much like those included in the
National Panel's report, indicate positive gains in all students' performance
when teachers used diagnostic data to guide their instruction of students. In
addition, it could be concluded that providing explicit phonemic awareness
instruction based on diagnostic data enhances students' development of
phonemic awareness. Teaching phonemic awareness benefits many different
students in their ability to learn to read; not only does explicit phonemic
awareness instruction benefit average learners, it also strongly enhances the
reading performance for at-risk students including those from low
socioeconomic backgrounds and whose primary language is not English.
Past reports, other than the National Reading Panel (e.g., Hardy et al,
1974; Johns, 1972; Mason, 1984), verify that the development of reading is
more than just the development of phonemic awareness. In order to be a
successful reader one must also begin to understand the conventions and
functions of print. While all students made gains in their reading development
in kindergarten, their concepts of print were consistently lower than any other
reading measures and significant gains were not evident. This was even more
pronounced for students who were from ESL backgrounds.
 78 Reading Research and Instruction Spring 2004, 43 (3)

When kindergarten teachers use diagnostic data to guide their reading

instruction, students, regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, preschool
experience or race, reach a level of competence in phonemic awareness and
make gains in their development of print concepts. As more states and local
school districts increase their focus on performance-based standards in reading,
the importance of using diagnostic data to guide instruction becomes
increasingly important. When teachers use their knowledge of individual
student performance to guide their instruction, the commonalties among
students, rather than their differences, become apparent. Since earlier studies
(National Reading Panel, 2000) have indicated a significant relationship
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between phonemic awareness and later successes in reading, teachers must use
a variety of stimulating language activities and informed diagnostic data to
provide explicit phonemic awareness instruction especially for at-risk students.
Adding phonemic awareness instruction and decodable texts into an already
language rich classroom should improve students' chances for later reading
successes. Teachers should also realize the strong role they play in developing
phonemic awareness and concepts of print development, and that building
individualized instruction based upon diagnostic data yields gains in both of
these components.
The descriptions of phonemic awareness and concepts of print
development reflected in this study of kindergarten children are promising to
educators. When teachers use diagnostic data to aid and guide their instruction
of children, they can enhance all children's development of phonemic
awareness regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, preschool experience,
and race. The trends noted in limited proficiency for certain subgroups of
students during the gathering of the diagnostic data were diminished in the
posttest results. The only group of children that was found to have limited
awareness of rhyme were Hispanic children. However, even with significantly
lower performance ability to recognize rhyme, this subgroup of children made
significant gains between pre and posttest. Future research efforts might try to
further examine this relationship, with the hope of clarifying this possible
difference, especially in areas where Latino children are in the majority.
Influences of the home language on kindergarten students' phonemic awareness
of English sounds is also an important factor, and should be studied more
closely to pinpoint whether the interventions discussed in this study would
continue to be successful for all students.
 Examining Phonemic Awareness 79

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