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Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 1
Gradual Implementation of Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness
“We know how to solve the literacy gap between ethnic groups, and it
won’t cost billions of dollars…” New York Times 10/23/88
Gradual Implementation of Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness
Over a Time Period in a Small School
Elizabeth Deshotel
University of Bridgeport
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 2
Abstract
This study compared the grade level equivalency (GLE) using an orthographic scale with
a group of 15 mixed ability (and age) students over two years. The second year group
was expected to achieve 2 grade levels of growth. While their results were significant and
encouraging, they did not all achieve as much as expected due to several controllable
factors.
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 3
The Gradual Implementation of Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness
In a Small School Over Time
My introduction to a language arts method, The Writing and Spelling Road to
Reading and Thinking (WSRRT), came in 1987, while my family and I were living in
Louisiana and my husband, Clopha, was working as a lobbyist. As First Lady Barbara
Bush had chosen literacy as her primary issue, our First Lady in Louisiana, Patty Roemer,
also chose literacy to champion. Clopha became very interested in the literacy issue and
through his networking, discovered The Writing Road to Reading (WRRT), by Walter
and Ramalda Spalding and WSRRT from The Riggs Institute. He was impressed with the
reading, spelling, and writing results that he saw in students and was also impressed with
the dedication of the teachers who used this method in their classrooms.
My husband was instrumental in initiating a statewide three year pilot of this
method, which integrates explicit systematic Orton Phonograms into a then-definedwhole-language framework of writing and reading comprehension. Our children attended
a school which had much earlier adopted this method exclusively after their teachers
were personally trained by Ramalda Spalding. While in pre-kindergarten, our first
daughter Hana learned to read, comprehend, spell, and write clearly. I was not trained in
elementary education, so at the time I believed that this was the norm for all children.
When Hana moved into kindergarten, she was writing legibly, reading, and spelling at a
3rd grade level. Our second daughter and our son achieved the same results in language
arts after receiving The Writing Road to Reading instruction at the same school.
Through my husband’s involvement with a range of literacy issues, I realized
that our children’s experience with language was not the norm. Many parents and
teachers struggled to help children learn the most basic skills in reading, spelling, and
writing. I participated in a forty hour teacher training course of The Writing Road to
Reading and became interested in the method as an educator. In Louisiana, I tutored my
own as well as the children of friends. Upon moving to Connecticut in 1998 to work in a
high school, and eventually an elementary school, I was able to integrate some
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 4
components of the program for students with cognitive gaps discovered during
assessment of their language development.
Part-time responsibilities at the elementary school gradually became full-time
when in the 2001/2002 academic year, as Principal, I could train all teachers for a less
piecemeal implementation schoolwide. During the 2001/2002 school year I taught Level
One of this Orton-based Writing and Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking (WSRRT)
in a mixed age classroom of 20 students. In the 2002/2003 academic year, 15 of these 20
students were in my Level Two class. This paper is a longitudinal study of these 15
students over these two academic years. The origins of this method and a description of
WSRRT itself will be examined. (Similarities with WRRT are not in the scope of this
current study.)
Dr. Samuel Orton (1879-1948), a professor of neuropsychiatry and
neuropathology at the Neurological Institute of Columbia University, brought together
neuropsychiatric information and principles of remediation. As early as 1925, he had
identified the syndrome of developmental reading disability, separated it from mental
defect and brain damage, and offered a physiological explanation with a favorable
prognosis.
Dr. Orton endeavored to re-teach brain-damaged veterans of war. These patients
had suffered physical trauma to the area of their brains connected to language skills.
Since part of the brain was missing, the same memory had to be re-established on the
other side of the brain. Dr. Orton asked a number of teachers, including Anna Gillingham
and Ramalda Spalding to design a teaching program that could re-establish memory on
the reverse side of a damaged brain.
A multi-sensory method was developed in which letters representing the single
sounds of familiar speech (phonemes) were presented, and synthesized into words that
carry meaning; the veterans did re-learn to read (McCulloch, 2000). Research by the
Medical Center at Georgetown University confirmed Dr. Orton’s theories that young
children learning to read used the left temporal region of the brain, while suppressing the
right, visual portion (Turkeltaub, Gareau, Flowers, Zeffiro, & Eden, 2003).
Ramalda Spalding observed that learning disabled students, using Orton’s
methods, were learning to read better than other students. Dr. Orton asked, “What would
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 5
happen if we simply used this same method for all normal primary children”? Mrs.
Spalding found that what worked well for serious physiological brain disorders also
worked well for normal children. The work of Dr. Orton was adapted for use in schools
by Walter and Ramalda Spalding, hence the publishing and classroom usage of The
Writing Road to Reading in 1957 (Wm. Morrow & Co., NYC). The Riggs Institute
extended this work into a 4-year curriculum series, The Writing and Spelling Road to
Reading and Thinking, in 1999.
WSRRT integrates and sequences all of the language arts “strands” including
correct spelling (it is easier to organize using the written spelling patterns), reading,
composition, grammar, syntax, listening, speaking, and legible handwriting. This method
teaches an “explicit” phonics; 55 of the 71 phonograms are taught first without pictures
or key words, through direct instruction using multiple (sight, sound, voice, writing)
pathways for sound to symbol “mapping” of a student’s functioning (listening and
speaking) vocabulary to book print. The teacher engages all students in choral responses
and Socratic instruction techniques.
Once the students master the beginning strokes for the initial eight phonograms
for preventing letter reversals, and legible formation of all the sounds of the first 55
phonograms, they start their personal notebook. This expedites building on their basic
functional vocabulary to increasingly complex words. Finally, all 71 phonograms are
mastered and creative expression through writing completes this neurolinguistic
“journey” into good literature and expressive essay composition.
The term “explicit” phonics refers, in this case, to the fact that well-intentioned
but distracting information (names of letters, pictures, and key words) is not included in
the finely sequenced process of teaching the sounds which are represented on paper by a
phonogram (phono=sound + gram=written). The term “multi-sensory” calls attention to
the fact that the teachers reach optimal results when they are able to access all, and each,
of the four main neurological pathways to the brain – seeing, hearing, speaking, and
writing. Socratic instruction is the approach wherein students are led by a series of
teacher questions and the whole class benefits from the ongoing dialogue and discovery.
Direct instruction entails the interaction of teacher to student and not the intermediary of
a worksheet or workbook exercise. Phonemic awareness is the recognition of the sounds
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 6
represented by written and printed letters, and combinations of letters. Graphemic
awareness is the correct written spelling patterns that make up the full range of words in
English speech; students’ speaking and listening vocabulary is being “mapped” to book
print.
At the time of my introduction to The Writing Road to Reading in 1987, the
“Reading Wars” were going full tilt. It was phonics vs. “whole” language. Phonics and
phonics instruction were under heavy fire. The federal government compiled reading
research in 1985 in a report entitled “Becoming a Nation of Readers”. This report defined
“explicit” phonics for the first time and supported its effectiveness (McCulloch, 2000). In
1995, the California Task Force on Reading concluded that an “explicit” skills program
that included phonemic awareness, phonics, and decoding skills is needed by the
emergent reader.
Since that time, a growing number of research articles available through ERIC
highlight the relationship between phonemic awareness and the acquisition of reading
skills. The Riggs Institute web site provides a valuable source for research materials
which support the effective use of “explicit” phonics in a skills-based whole language
curriculum. Ehri’s research spanning twenty years was particularly instructive due to its
depth of reviewing reading acquisition (Ehri, 1998). The Report from the National
Reading Panel states that phonemic awareness training has caused both reading and
spelling improvement (Gerber & Klein, 2004). Students with communication needs
demonstrate the same positive association between phonemic awareness and reading as
those without a disability (Iacono & Cupples, 2004).
Since adopting this method in 1998, our school has progressed from having one
WSRRT teacher to having all language teachers implementing this system. We strive to
improve every year and thus, this research project evolved. The tracking of achievement
of my 15 2001/2002 Level One students was examined and found to be below the
expected outcome for some. A comparison was made between the achievement of the
Level One group and what the curriculum says is possible if the recommendations are
followed closely. These same 15 students were in my Level Two group for the 2002/2003
academic year. With an intention to increase adherence to the recommendations, the
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 7
teaching of the Level Two group in 2002/2003 included those items/strategies left out or
incompletely utilized.
The following hypothesis was proposed: by correcting the previous year’s
“mistakes” and partial implementation, every student would achieve a minimum of two
years grade level equivalent (GLE) improvement above their starting GLE assessment.
The outcome has practical interest to the school, which is seeking to give an optimal
learning environment where students (in a mixed age classroom) are comfortable with
collaborative learning, self expression through writing, and the enjoyment of the printed
word in its many forms.
Method
Participants
A group of 15 mixed ability (and age) students received daily instruction (for 40
minutes) in WSRRT Level One in the 2001/2002 school year and Level Two in the
2002/2003 school year. Racially, the group was equally divided – Oriental, Caucasian,
and African American.
Table 1
Initial grade level of 15 students in 2001/2002 and reading level
Number of Students:
Grade in 01/02:
Reading Level:
2
nd
At or above level
3
rd
At or above level
3
rd
Below level
1
4
th
At or above level
2
4th
1
5
th
At or above grade level
4
5
th
Below level
2
6th
Below level
3
1
1
Table 2
Below level
Number of students reading at or above grade level and below grade level
Reading Level:
Total Number:
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 8
Table 3
At or above level
6
Below level
9
Of below level students, number who were remedial and those ESL
Category:
Total Number:
Remedial
4
ESL
5
Materials
The students were assessed initially to determine their grade level reading ability
with the Riggs Orthography Scale. This scale indicates mastery of correct spelling
patterns in a student’s spoken vocabulary and correlates with their reading ability.
Henceforth, tests were administered regularly to determine each student’s growth. The
expectation was that students would perform a minimum of two GLE above their starting
point by year’s end.
Procedure
In the summer of 2002, I critiqued myself as a WSRRT teacher. Out of my desire
to foster creativity in my students, I had rebelled against the perceived strictness of the
WSRRT method. If there was an aspect that I didn’t agree with, then I’d take a shortcut.
For example, I cut out one step of the process known as recoding. I had the opportunity to
teach a summer spelling camp, and owing to dissatisfaction with my Level One group’s
results, I determined to follow the method strictly. Literally, I felt like a brain surgeon
“operating,” teaching WSRRT in July 2002. By the end of the four weeks, I had pushed
my students and myself to the limit. The results from that mixed age and ability group
were impressive. The minimum achieved during that period was one full grade level of
growth.
The Riggs Orthography scale was administered on a monthly basis to the students
in Level One who went on to Level Two, and the results compared. During the second
year I worked hard to implement seven important instructional practices.
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 9
Results
Table 4a
Monthly GLE Results of Level One and Level Two Groups
Riggs Orthographic
Scale
List B List C
List D
2001
4th
20th
28th
Sep
Sep
Nov
DB
HW
KM
List E
2002
12th
Feb
List F
List G
List H
26th
Mar
4th
Jun
12th
Jun
3.7
3.7
3.9
4.3
4.1
3.7
3.7
3.3
4.1
3.4
4.2
HA
YC
3.3
2.2
2.9
2.9
3.5
3.3
3.7
3.9
3.7
3.5
3.3
4.3
BA
GJ
NY
5.1
3.9
3.7
4.7
3
4.7
4.9
3.9
4.3
6.2
3.4
5.4
5.6
3.7
4.5
5.6
3.9
5.8
6
4.3
4.3
3
4.5
6.2
3.9
5.1
3.7
4.7
6.4
5.1
4.7
6
4.2
5.8
4.2
6
BF
DB
GC
HM
YY
6
5.8
6.2
3.9
2.9
2.9
3.4
3
2.9
3.3
3.9
3.7
6.4
4.5
4.2
3.3
5.1
VJ
NT
3.5
5.4
4.3
5.2
4.2
6.4
4.3
6
4.5
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 10
Table 4b
Riggs Orthographic
Scale
List A List B
List C
2002
4th
13th
Sep
8th Oct Nov
List D
20th
Dec
List E
2003
5th
Feb
List F
List G
List H
List I
25th
Mar
28th
Apr
M ay
29
9th
Jun
DB
HW
KM
4.1
3.7
3.9
4.9
4.5
4.3
5.1
4.5
5.1
4.5
4.7
4.2
4.3
3.7
4.5
6.2
4.9
5.2
5.1
4.5
5.1
5.1
5.1
6.2
4.9
5.1
HA
YC
3.7
3.5
4.9
4.7
3.9
4.7
3.9
4.9
3.7
4.7
5.2
5.1
5.1
4.2
5.4
5.2
6.2
BA
GJ
NY
5.1
3.4
5.8
6.8
4.3
7.3
6.4
4.7
6.4
6.4
4.1
5.8
6.6
4.5
7.3
7.7
4.2
7.5
7
3.7
6.8
7.7
5.1
7
6.8
4.3
8
BF
DB
GC
HM
YY
5.6
5.1
4.7
3.5
4.9
7.3
5.8
5.2
3.7
6.2
6.8
4.2
5.1
3.4
5.8
6.6
4.7
5.1
3.3
5.8
5.1
4.3
3.9
7
6.4
4.9
4.7
7.5
7.3
6.4
5.2
3.3
5.6
5.6
5.1
4.2
6.6
7
6.2
5.2
4.2
7.3
VJ
NT
4.1
6.8
5.4
8.8
4.9
8
4.9
8
5.6
7
4.9
7.5
5.4
7.3
4.9
8.8
7.5
Of the 15 students, 13 had bigger gains in the second year. In the first year the range of
growth was -.6 > +2.2 GLE while in year two, the range of growth was
+.5 > +2.7 GLE. See appendix for individual analysis of students.
Table 5
Amount of GLE growth from first to second year
Level One Growth:
Level Two Growth:
Negative to zero
4 students
0 students
.1 to .9
8 students
4 students
1.0 to 1.9
0 students
6 students
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 11
2.0 to 2.9
3 students
5 students
The largest, most consistent gains were made by the ESL students. In second
place were those who were already reading at or above grade level. These two groups
were extremely diligent in completing daily homework assignments. In third place were
the remedial students. Of the 4 remedial students, all 4 were negligent in completing
homework. (Appendix B)
Table 6
Comparing GLE growth of three groups of students
ESL:
At or above:
Remedial:
Level I Level II
Level I Level II
Level I Level II
+2.1
+2.7
+.4
+2.1
0
+.9
+2.1
+2.2
-.3
+1.2
+.6
+.5
-.6
+1.1
+.3
+1.2
+.8
+.7
+2.2
+2.4
0
+1.5
+.7
+.8
+.6
+2.0
+.4
+1.4
+.5
+1.7
Although not as great as predicted, the Level two group showed significant
growth over Level One. In the ESL students, in the second year, the smallest GLE growth
was 1.1 and the highest 2.7. For the students who were at or above grade level, the
smallest GLE growth was 1.4 and the largest 2.1. In the remedial group, the smallest
growth was .5 and the largest .9.
A self-evaluation compared implementation of instructional practices.
Table 7
Comparison of Use of Methods of Instruction
2001/2002
2002/2003
First 55 Phonograms;
Yes
Yes
Notebook-Dictation Recoding;
No
Yes
56-71 Phonograms;
Yes
Yes
Charts Dictation;
No
50%
Require Choral Response;
50%
75%
Methods of Instruction:
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 12
Multi-Sensory Demand;
50%
75%
Parent Pull-Out Pages;
No
No
In terms of methodology, the biggest area of difference between the two years is
in the area of “recoding.” Decoding and encoding are familiar terms to language teachers,
however “recoding” is not. Recoding is reading individual speech sounds, or a series of
sounds depicted by one grapheme, from their written printed form (grapheme).
Incorporating recoding conscientiously into the daily work was an important factor in the
student’s development. Two methodologies that were weak in the first year and then
increased in the second year were choral response and requiring the students to use the
multi-sensory approach.
Discussion
Working with the program and seeing growth in the students was very fulfilling.
The growth of the ESL students and students who already functioned well in language
was above average. However, the growth of our remedial students needed more attention.
One factor affecting their outcome, besides the methodologies, was the remedial
students’ negligent attitude toward homework. (See appendix.) Use of the Parent Pull Out
Pages could help bring more parental involvement with the child’s growth. In addition,
development of the Reading Buddies program could be helpful, fostering peer and crossage tutoring. We will continue to work towards 100% implementation of the program as
we head for the 2004/2005 school year.
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 13
References
Ehri, L. (1998). Research on Learning to Read and Spell: A Personal-Historical
Perspective. Scientific Studies of Reading, 2, 2, 97-114.
Gerber, A., & Klein, E. (2004). A Speech-Language Approach to Early Reading
Success. Teaching Exceptional Children, 36, 6, 8-15.
Iacocno, T., & Cupples, L. (2004). Assessment of Phonemic Awareness and Word
Reading Skills of People with Complex Communication Needs. Journal of
Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 2, 437-450.
McCulloch, M. The Writing and Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking.
Beaverton: K & M Publishing, 2000.
Turkeltaub, P., Gareau, L., Flowers, D., Zeffiro, T., & Eden, G. (2003). Development of
Neural Mechanisms for Reading. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 767-773.
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 14
Appendix
Detailed Individual Analysis of 15 Students
1. DB
- 2nd grade girl in 9/01
- previously instructed in WSRRT
- reading at grade level
- joined group in 2/02
- growth of .4 in Level 1
- growth of 2.1 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework
2. HW
- 2nd grade boy in 9/01
- previously instructed in WSRRT
- reading above grade level
- joined group in 2/02
- regression of .3 in Level 1
- growth of 1.2 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework
3. KM
- 2nd grade girl in 9/01
- previously instructed in WSRRT
- reading above grade level
- joined group in 2/02
- growth of .3 in Level 1
- growth of 1.2 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework
4. HA
- 3rd grade boy in 9/01
- previously instructed in WSRRT
- reading at grade level
- zero growth in Level 1
- growth of 1.5 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework
5. YC
- 3rd grade boy in 9/01
- no previous WSRRT instruction
- ESL student / English not spoken at home
- reading 1 grade level below
- growth of 2.1 in Level 1
- growth of 2.7 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework
6. BA
- 4th grade girl in 9/01
- previous WSRRT instruction
- reading above grade level
- growth of .5 in Level
- growth of 1.7 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework
7. GJ
- 4th grade boy in 9/01
- no previous WSRRT instruction
- reading 1 grade level below
- zero growth in Level 1
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 15
8. NY
- growth of .9 in Level 2
- negligent in completing homework
- 4th grade girl in 9/01
- previously instructed in WSRRT
- ESL student / English not spoken at home
- reading 1 grade level below
- growth of 2.1 in Level 1
- growth of 2.2 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework
9. BF
- 5th grade girl in 9/01
- no previous WSRRT instruction
- reading at grade level
- growth of .4 in Level 1
- growth of 1.4 in Level 2
- negligent in completing homework
10. DB
- 5th grade boy in 9/01
- no previous WSRRT instruction
- enrolled in school in 2/02
- ESL student / English spoken at home
- reading 1 grade level below
- regression of .6 in Level 1
- growth of 1.1 in Level 2
- negligent in completing homework
11. GC
- 5th grade boy in 9/01
- no previous WSRRT instruction
- reading more than 1 grade level below
- growth of .6 in Level 1
- growth of .5 in Level 2
- negligent in completing homework
12. HM
- 5th grade boy in 9/01
- previous WSRRT instruction
- reading more than 1 grade level below
- growth of .8 in Level 1
- growth of .7 in Level 2
- negligent in completing homework
13. YY
- 5th grade girl in 9/01
- no previous WSRRT instruction
- ESL student / English not spoken at home
- reading more than 2 levels below
- growth of 2.2 in Level 1
- growth of 2.4 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework
14. VJ
- 6th grade boy in 9/01
- no previous WSRRT instruction
- reading more than 2 grade levels below
- growth of .7 in Level 1
- growth of .8 in Level 2
- negligent in completing homework
Graphemic with Phonemic Awareness 16
15. NT
- 6th grade girl in 9/01
- previous WSRRT instruction
- ESL student / English not spoken at home
- reading 1 grade level below
- growth of .6 in Level 1
- growth of 2.0 in Level 2
- diligent in completing homework