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The Causal Role of Phoneme Awareness and Letter-Sound Knowledge in Learning to Read

Charles Hulme¹; Claudine Bowyer-Crane²; Julia M. Carroll³; Fiona J. Duff⁴; Margaret J. Snowling⁴

¹ University College London · ² Sheffield Hallam University · ³ University of Warwick · ⁴ University of York

There is good evidence that phoneme awareness and letter-sound knowledge are reliable longitudinal predictors of learning to read, though whether they have a causal effect remains uncertain. In this article, we present the results of a mediation analysis using data from a previous large-scale intervention study. We found that a phonology and reading intervention that taught letter-sound knowledge and phoneme awareness produced significant improvements in these two skills and in later word-level reading and spelling skills. Improvements in letter-sound knowledge and phoneme awareness at the end of the intervention fully mediated the improvements seen in children’s word-level literacy skills 5 months after the intervention finished. Our findings support the conclusion that letter-sound knowledge and phoneme awareness are two causal influences on the development of children’s early literacy skills.

DOI

10.1177/0956797611435921

Volume

23 (6)

Pages

572-577

Language

en

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Sources

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