English Onset Rime Research Paper
The Effectiveness of Onset-Rime for English and
Non-English Early Readers:
A Research Based Analysis.
Emergent Literacy
EDUC 3000-01fa11
Maggie Madere
And
Laura White
Onset-Rime has been treated as an important component of early childhood literacy education. According to Tompkins, young children “make more errors decoding and spelling the rime than the onset,” therefore, knowing common rimes and words made from these rimes is helpful to early readers (Tompkins, 2011). This is because knowledge of the most common rimes, such as –ay, -ide, and, -ing, allow children to decode unfamiliar words by analogy (Tompkins, 2011). However, recent research has brought into question the usefulness of onset-rime manipulation relative …show more content…
to other early reading abilities and across different languages.
In a study by Savage and Carless (2005), phoneme manipulation proved to be a better predictor of early reading ability than onset-rime manipulation.
The researchers conducted a longitudinal study of 351 7 year-old children, predicting their national test and teacher-assessed performance from “phonological awareness measures, pupil baseline attainment, and background measures at age 5” (Savage, Carless, 2005). Phoneme manipulation skills at age five correlated strongly with reading success and the ability to read more difficult material at age 7, controlling for student background, baseline data, and onset-rime awareness. However, onset-rime was not predictive of reading ability at age 7, controlling for student background, baseline data, and phonemic awareness. Therefore, Savage and Carless concluded that at age 5, phoneme manipulation is a better predictor of reading ability at age 7, and that education professionals should conduct phoneme manipulation screenings with young students to identify literacy learning needs …show more content…
early.
These findings are supported by another study conducted by Savage, Blair, and Rvachew (2006), who found that rime awareness most likely emerges as a consequence of reading, rather than contribute to the developing ability to read. According to the phonological status hypothesis, onset-rime awareness emerges in phonological development before other phoneme units” (Savage, Blair, Rvachew, 2006). This hypothesis was supported by research that asked children to identify “the odd word out” (i.e. pin-sit-fin), which is problematic given such tasks do not isolate onset-rime awareness and phonemic awareness, as well as the effect of working memory on student performance on the task (Savage, Blair, Rvachew, 2006). Therefore, Savage, Blair, and Rvachew devised a task that would isolate working memory and phonemic awareness from onset-rime awareness. In their study, 91 preschool children were given two words and asked to determine if the words were similar or different based on a particular phonological unit. Words were selected based on familiarity and how frequently preschool students use them. Additionally, students were given the opportunity to voice the sound that was the same in the word pairs (i.e. fish-dish [/ish/], sit-sick [/si/]). The researchers found that the advantages of onset and rime recognition were not statistically significant in the nonreading preschool children, and that early teaching of reading and spelling should emphasize heads and single-phoneme onset and coda units.
Onset-Rime is a phonemic exercise that is used throughout the world. Given the current studies indicating that onset-rime is not a useful predictor of reading in English speaking children, perhaps studies from other parts of the world can give insight into the effectiveness of onset-rime. Duncan, Cole, Seymore and Magnan (2006) sought to analyze whether the accepted developmental sequence of syllable – onset-rime – phoneme varied according to a child’s native language. They performed two experiments with children age four through six in Scotland and the South of France. They found that French speaking children were more accurate than English speaking children at segmenting syllables. English children’s incorrect responses included initial consonant segmentation while French responses did not. This finding could indicate that English speaking students had a stronger grasp on onset-rime segmentation than French speaking students. This could also indicate a different pattern of development from the expected.
A second experiment sought to identify whether the sequence of development differed between English and French speakers. The authors theorized that the development should follow the same sequence, increasing as vocabulary develops. Each child was assessed in syllables, rimes and initial phonemes. Each student participated in three sessions focusing on one single unit (syllable, initial phoneme and rime). The results indicated that English speaking students performed very poorly on all linguistic units at age four. French four year olds performed very accurately on segmenting syllables (86% correct). By age five, English speaking students’ initial phoneme identification improved dramatically (to 61%) while the French students’ did not. However, the French students maintained their advantage on syllable segmentation.
At age six, the French students’ advantage in syllable segmentation diminished and phoneme segmentation rose sharply. Six year old children in both languages experienced an improvement in rime segmentation. Neither group followed the expected large to small progression. English students progressed phoneme – syllable/onset-rime while French students progressed syllable – phoneme/onset-rime. Astrid Geudens and others performed two studies of Dutch speaking children in order to assess the children’s explicit and implicit knowledge of onset-rime. The researchers differentiate explicit from implicit by the degree to which kindergarten and first grade children must actively and consciously break up words and identify the onset-rime. (Geudens, Sandra, 2003). The researchers explain that there is a general consensus that in languages such as Dutch and English that syllables are organized according to an onset-rime pattern. The very nature of onset-rime separates the initial consonant sound from the vowel and subsequent consonant sound (example: cat: /k/ /at/). Therefore, it should follow that it is easier for children to separate the initial consonant from the vowel, representing the onset-rime division (CV syllables: example /t/-/o/) rather than separate the vowel from the consonant, representing division of the rime (VC syllables: example /o/-/t/). (Geudens, Sandra & Martensen 2005).
The 2003 study assessed the explicit awareness of onset-rime by assessing segmentation (“What sounds do you hear in ______?”) and substitution (“You have just heard the word t____. What happens if you change the /t/ to a /s/?”) in kindergarten and first grade pre-readers. They found that children had more difficulty segmenting on the onset-rime “boundary” (CV syllables) than segmenting within the rime (VC syllables). And it was easier for students to substitute within the rime (VC) than those that constituted onset and rime (CV).
The 2005 study the researchers sought to identify if children had an implicit understanding of the onset-rime structure. In the first test, syllable pairs were presented such that the length of the CV was the same as the length of the onset such as /fim/ - /fil/ or /fim/ - /lim/. The researcher used puppets to help students visualize the concept of twins. The puppets looked similar and the student would be told that they had similar names. The researcher could always remember one name (as an example /fim/) but could not remember the other puppet’s name. The children would be asked “What do you think are the twins’ names? /fim/ and /lim/ or /fim/ and /fil/?” The children had to respond by saying the pair of names that sounded most familiar, not simply stating the first or the second. Unrelated syllables were also used in some questions where the length of the syllable was the same but the sounds differed (example: /fim/ - /lim or /fim/ - /des/). Researchers found that the students judged rime pairs to sound more alike than pairs with other similarities of the same length.
However, their second experiment indicated that this was likely a result of the rhyming scheme of the syllables rather than an implicit understanding of the onset-rime structure. In the second experiment students were asked to help a parrot puppet learn to talk by repeating a series of three unrelated syllables. The children’s incorrect responses were analyzed to see if they retained the rime (VC), the CV or retained the consonants but substituted a different vowel. The theory was that an inherent understanding of the onset-rime structure would result in more rime retention. However the results were evenly distributed among the three types. Accordingly, the study did not find support for the theory. Taken together these studies indicate that young children do not possess an implicit or explicit inherent ability to segment the onset from the rhyme. Additionally, the ability to segment onset from rime in young children does not predict that they will be better readers in the future. These studies focused on emergent readers who had received little to no actual reading instruction. It is apparent that onset-rime is not beneficial to the prereader. However, they also indicate that onset-rime sensitivity and ability increases with age and exposure to reading instruction. Accordingly, onset-rime may indeed be a useful tool with older children who are learning phonics and should be expressly taught in the first and second grade as children explore the written word and how it connects with the spoken word. Instruction for emergent readers should focus on phonemic awareness and exploring the spoken word and sounds.
Works Cited:
Duncan, L., Cole, P., Seymour, P., & Magnan, A.
(2006). Differing sequences of metaphonological development in French and English. Journal of Child Language, 33, 369-399.
Geudens, A., & Sandra, D. (2003). Beyond implicit phonological knowledge: No support for an onset-rime structure in children’s explicit phonological awareness. Journal of Memory and Language, 49, 157-182.
Geudens, A., Sandra, D., & Martensen, H. (2005). Rhyming words and onset-rime constituents: An inquiry into structural breaking points and emergent boundaries in the syllable. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 366-387.
Savage, R., Blair, R., & Rvachew, S. (2006). Rimes are not necessarily favored by prereaders: Evidence from meta- and epilinguistic phonological tasks. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94, 183-205.
Savage, R., & Carless, S. (2005). Phoneme manipulation not onset-rime manipulation ability is a unique predictor of early reading. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46:12, 1297-1308. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01436.x
Tompkins, G. (2011). Cracking the Alphabetic Code. Literacy in the Early Years,
92-119.
Non-English Early Readers:
A Research Based Analysis.
Emergent Literacy
EDUC 3000-01fa11
Maggie Madere
And
Laura White
Onset-Rime has been treated as an important component of early childhood literacy education. According to Tompkins, young children “make more errors decoding and spelling the rime than the onset,” therefore, knowing common rimes and words made from these rimes is helpful to early readers (Tompkins, 2011). This is because knowledge of the most common rimes, such as –ay, -ide, and, -ing, allow children to decode unfamiliar words by analogy (Tompkins, 2011). However, recent research has brought into question the usefulness of onset-rime manipulation relative …show more content…
to other early reading abilities and across different languages.
In a study by Savage and Carless (2005), phoneme manipulation proved to be a better predictor of early reading ability than onset-rime manipulation.
The researchers conducted a longitudinal study of 351 7 year-old children, predicting their national test and teacher-assessed performance from “phonological awareness measures, pupil baseline attainment, and background measures at age 5” (Savage, Carless, 2005). Phoneme manipulation skills at age five correlated strongly with reading success and the ability to read more difficult material at age 7, controlling for student background, baseline data, and onset-rime awareness. However, onset-rime was not predictive of reading ability at age 7, controlling for student background, baseline data, and phonemic awareness. Therefore, Savage and Carless concluded that at age 5, phoneme manipulation is a better predictor of reading ability at age 7, and that education professionals should conduct phoneme manipulation screenings with young students to identify literacy learning needs …show more content…
early.
These findings are supported by another study conducted by Savage, Blair, and Rvachew (2006), who found that rime awareness most likely emerges as a consequence of reading, rather than contribute to the developing ability to read. According to the phonological status hypothesis, onset-rime awareness emerges in phonological development before other phoneme units” (Savage, Blair, Rvachew, 2006). This hypothesis was supported by research that asked children to identify “the odd word out” (i.e. pin-sit-fin), which is problematic given such tasks do not isolate onset-rime awareness and phonemic awareness, as well as the effect of working memory on student performance on the task (Savage, Blair, Rvachew, 2006). Therefore, Savage, Blair, and Rvachew devised a task that would isolate working memory and phonemic awareness from onset-rime awareness. In their study, 91 preschool children were given two words and asked to determine if the words were similar or different based on a particular phonological unit. Words were selected based on familiarity and how frequently preschool students use them. Additionally, students were given the opportunity to voice the sound that was the same in the word pairs (i.e. fish-dish [/ish/], sit-sick [/si/]). The researchers found that the advantages of onset and rime recognition were not statistically significant in the nonreading preschool children, and that early teaching of reading and spelling should emphasize heads and single-phoneme onset and coda units.
Onset-Rime is a phonemic exercise that is used throughout the world. Given the current studies indicating that onset-rime is not a useful predictor of reading in English speaking children, perhaps studies from other parts of the world can give insight into the effectiveness of onset-rime. Duncan, Cole, Seymore and Magnan (2006) sought to analyze whether the accepted developmental sequence of syllable – onset-rime – phoneme varied according to a child’s native language. They performed two experiments with children age four through six in Scotland and the South of France. They found that French speaking children were more accurate than English speaking children at segmenting syllables. English children’s incorrect responses included initial consonant segmentation while French responses did not. This finding could indicate that English speaking students had a stronger grasp on onset-rime segmentation than French speaking students. This could also indicate a different pattern of development from the expected.
A second experiment sought to identify whether the sequence of development differed between English and French speakers. The authors theorized that the development should follow the same sequence, increasing as vocabulary develops. Each child was assessed in syllables, rimes and initial phonemes. Each student participated in three sessions focusing on one single unit (syllable, initial phoneme and rime). The results indicated that English speaking students performed very poorly on all linguistic units at age four. French four year olds performed very accurately on segmenting syllables (86% correct). By age five, English speaking students’ initial phoneme identification improved dramatically (to 61%) while the French students’ did not. However, the French students maintained their advantage on syllable segmentation.
At age six, the French students’ advantage in syllable segmentation diminished and phoneme segmentation rose sharply. Six year old children in both languages experienced an improvement in rime segmentation. Neither group followed the expected large to small progression. English students progressed phoneme – syllable/onset-rime while French students progressed syllable – phoneme/onset-rime. Astrid Geudens and others performed two studies of Dutch speaking children in order to assess the children’s explicit and implicit knowledge of onset-rime. The researchers differentiate explicit from implicit by the degree to which kindergarten and first grade children must actively and consciously break up words and identify the onset-rime. (Geudens, Sandra, 2003). The researchers explain that there is a general consensus that in languages such as Dutch and English that syllables are organized according to an onset-rime pattern. The very nature of onset-rime separates the initial consonant sound from the vowel and subsequent consonant sound (example: cat: /k/ /at/). Therefore, it should follow that it is easier for children to separate the initial consonant from the vowel, representing the onset-rime division (CV syllables: example /t/-/o/) rather than separate the vowel from the consonant, representing division of the rime (VC syllables: example /o/-/t/). (Geudens, Sandra & Martensen 2005).
The 2003 study assessed the explicit awareness of onset-rime by assessing segmentation (“What sounds do you hear in ______?”) and substitution (“You have just heard the word t____. What happens if you change the /t/ to a /s/?”) in kindergarten and first grade pre-readers. They found that children had more difficulty segmenting on the onset-rime “boundary” (CV syllables) than segmenting within the rime (VC syllables). And it was easier for students to substitute within the rime (VC) than those that constituted onset and rime (CV).
The 2005 study the researchers sought to identify if children had an implicit understanding of the onset-rime structure. In the first test, syllable pairs were presented such that the length of the CV was the same as the length of the onset such as /fim/ - /fil/ or /fim/ - /lim/. The researcher used puppets to help students visualize the concept of twins. The puppets looked similar and the student would be told that they had similar names. The researcher could always remember one name (as an example /fim/) but could not remember the other puppet’s name. The children would be asked “What do you think are the twins’ names? /fim/ and /lim/ or /fim/ and /fil/?” The children had to respond by saying the pair of names that sounded most familiar, not simply stating the first or the second. Unrelated syllables were also used in some questions where the length of the syllable was the same but the sounds differed (example: /fim/ - /lim or /fim/ - /des/). Researchers found that the students judged rime pairs to sound more alike than pairs with other similarities of the same length.
However, their second experiment indicated that this was likely a result of the rhyming scheme of the syllables rather than an implicit understanding of the onset-rime structure. In the second experiment students were asked to help a parrot puppet learn to talk by repeating a series of three unrelated syllables. The children’s incorrect responses were analyzed to see if they retained the rime (VC), the CV or retained the consonants but substituted a different vowel. The theory was that an inherent understanding of the onset-rime structure would result in more rime retention. However the results were evenly distributed among the three types. Accordingly, the study did not find support for the theory. Taken together these studies indicate that young children do not possess an implicit or explicit inherent ability to segment the onset from the rhyme. Additionally, the ability to segment onset from rime in young children does not predict that they will be better readers in the future. These studies focused on emergent readers who had received little to no actual reading instruction. It is apparent that onset-rime is not beneficial to the prereader. However, they also indicate that onset-rime sensitivity and ability increases with age and exposure to reading instruction. Accordingly, onset-rime may indeed be a useful tool with older children who are learning phonics and should be expressly taught in the first and second grade as children explore the written word and how it connects with the spoken word. Instruction for emergent readers should focus on phonemic awareness and exploring the spoken word and sounds.
Works Cited:
Duncan, L., Cole, P., Seymour, P., & Magnan, A.
(2006). Differing sequences of metaphonological development in French and English. Journal of Child Language, 33, 369-399.
Geudens, A., & Sandra, D. (2003). Beyond implicit phonological knowledge: No support for an onset-rime structure in children’s explicit phonological awareness. Journal of Memory and Language, 49, 157-182.
Geudens, A., Sandra, D., & Martensen, H. (2005). Rhyming words and onset-rime constituents: An inquiry into structural breaking points and emergent boundaries in the syllable. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 366-387.
Savage, R., Blair, R., & Rvachew, S. (2006). Rimes are not necessarily favored by prereaders: Evidence from meta- and epilinguistic phonological tasks. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94, 183-205.
Savage, R., & Carless, S. (2005). Phoneme manipulation not onset-rime manipulation ability is a unique predictor of early reading. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46:12, 1297-1308. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01436.x
Tompkins, G. (2011). Cracking the Alphabetic Code. Literacy in the Early Years,
92-119.