论文题目:Summary of Journal
论文语言:英语论文 English
论文专业:Elementary Education
字数:1500
学校国家:美国
是否有数据处理要求:否
论文用于:Master assignment 硕士课程作业
补充要求和说明:
Summary of Journal Assignment:
(should includ **)
1.Title of Study:
2.Participants:
3.Instruction/Methods:
4.Results/Findings
In this journal article, the author discussed different groups of educators whom have different level of phonemic awareness, which may leads to various outcome when they teach. The terms phonemic awareness and phonics are often used interchangeably with phonological awareness
There are several groups of educators being tested to prove the hypothesis. The study procedures and methods are shown in detail. Then a series of implications are given according to the study. At the end of the journal, some limitations are stated.
Title of study
The title of this journal assignment is Phonemic Awareness Skill of Speech-Language Pathologists and Other Educators.
Participants
In this survey, there are mainly five parts of participants, they are: speech-language pathologists, kindergarten teachers, first-grade teachers, reading teachers and special education teachers.
Methods
According to the author, there are distinct differences between educators. The results showed that phonemic awareness skill of the educators has a great influence both in the educators themselves and when it comes to their teaching process, the difference became much more distinct. In the journal, the author showed the following aspects: firstly the purpose is to give a test on five groups of educators to compare their ability of phonological awareness. Secondly the author showed the methods that were used when proving their hypothesis. Paper-pencil measure was used to test the five groups of educators how their Phonemic Awareness Skill was, thus assessing their ability in teaching process. Thirdly the journal showed the results of the study. According to the measure, five groups of educators scored differently, and the speech-language pathologists ranked first ,demonstrating a better performance on the measure of phonemic awareness skill. While the other groups of educators seemed less proficient. The results also told us that reading and special education teachers behave better than that of kindergarten teachers and first-grade teachers. As there is a difference in orthographic and phonologic, it is referred that orthographic knowledge had an opposite influence to the groups measured, but the speech-language pathologists seemed to have been less impacted by this phenomenon. In the end, the author gave some implications: first is to increase the phonemic awareness skills of all educators. Second is to make a modification of the current teaching materials to improve the phonemic awareness skill of the educators. Thirdly is to let specialists such as speech-language pathologists to join in the teaching teams to provide teachers with professional suggestions . the suggestions are all based on the measuring results, the purpose is to help change the situation and to improve the ability of teaching and thus meeting the needs of all learners so that improve proficiency and efficiency.
Procedures
As for the procedures of the study, the phonemic awareness measure was made to test the educators skills. As oral measure was much limited, the form of the task is to do a paper-pencil measure. The author designed three steps, which is adapted from Moats(2000) In each step there is a task for the 5 groups of the educators. Three tasks were drew: the first task was phoneme segmentation, which included 21 items, educators were supposed to count how many sounds were involved in each word. Then comes to phoneme identification,5 items included, all of whom were about finding out the same pronunciation given in the following 4 other words. The third task was phoneme isolation, 6 items included, this task was interesting, like a continue following game. (Muter,1997) In each of the tasks, there were different emphasis to test the educators’ skills in different aspect.
By analyzing the results if the 3 tasks, we can see difference and similarity of the 5 groups of participants.
Results
Phonological awareness is deemed as an important and reliable prediction of reading ability in the later days and has been the focus of much research (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) The results of the 3 tasks were scored by several research assistant, so that they can reduce errors and make the result much more reliable and objective.
As for the data analysis, an analysis of variance was used to see difference between groups. The researchers were trying hard to make the research much more scientific and practical.
The final results were made up of 2 comparisons and a conclusion. At the very beginning of the test analysis, the researchers put forward their hypothesis, and then by analyzing the tasks they got their conclusions. (Nittrouer, S. 1996)
Firstly the researchers made a comparison in the speech-language pathologists and other educators. According to the analysis of the scores each groups got in the task, great difference was showed. In all of the 3 tasks: phoneme segmentation, phoneme identification, and phoneme isolation, speech-language pathologists ranked first in all of the tasks. The result was totally coincided with what the researchers presumed in the beginning.
Second comparison was made between reading teachers and special education teachers and kindergarten teachers and first-grade teachers. The data showed that these two groups of participants performed relatively identical , no difference was showed. This result was opposite to what researchers presumed.
There are differences in the patterns of the performances. As the level of the tasks was not all the same. By doing tasks, the participants got improved and their ability and potential were explored.
After analyzing the results, the researchers made a discussion about the study. In the first task, we can learn that even speech-language pathologists can not reach a perfect expert skill, there is much room for improvement for all of the educators. According to Moats, it is necessary to let student take courses about analyzing the sound structure of words. And those who have a better phonological awareness concentrate much more on word sound activities.
In the second task, a worrying finding was that reading teachers and special education teachers performed worse than kindergarten teachers and first-grade teachers. This outcome worth thinking deeply by all the educators. (Perfetti, 1987).
Since the educators do not have a professional teaching knowledge, how can they teach their students well? The study also showed that all these groups shared one thing in common: they are all showing a better behavior when identifying the number of sounds in the easy words. But when facing with hard words, group differences were easy to see. As you can imagine, speech-language pathologists got the highest scores again.
And the third task phoneme isolation showed that participants were easily disturbed by prints.
Suggestions
At the end of the study, the author put forward three suggestions to apply into their careers. The suggestions that they drew was based on their study as well as current studies from other research groups.
First, increase the phonological awareness skill of all educators. An improvement in the phonological awareness skill can help to enhance children’s literacy achievement, so it is a must to do. (Kurtz, R. 2010).
Second, design instructional and curricular materials to enhance educators’ efforts to provide effective phonological awareness instruction.
Third, include the speech-language pathologists in early literacy instruction and intervention. In this term, there are 4 tips given: first speech-language pathologists may be the team member who is best suited to providing targeted phonological awareness intervention to struggling learners. Second,
speech-language pathologists might lead study groups at their schools to enhance all educators’ phonemic awareness knowledge and skills. Third, speech-language pathologists might work collaboratively with classroom teachers to minimize current barriers to effective phonological awareness instruction. Fourth, coteaching of even a limited scope can provide an opportunity for teachers and speech-language pathologists to share strategies to enhance students learning.
As educators, it is their responsibility to improve and enhance self quality and ability so that they can receive better outcome when teaching learners. Though there are still some limitations or flaws in the study, the results and the suggestions are of great values.
Conclusion
According to the whole journal, it is clear that there is a relationship between language learning as well as teaching and the phonological awareness of the educators which has a great impact when educators are teaching. To be a good educator, one has to firstly be a good learner himself or herself. One has to increase his or her phonological awareness skill so that he can receive a better efficiency when teaching children’s’ literacy. Teachers can take some courses related to phonological awareness skill, some training books also help.#p#分页标题#e#
Also there are some efforts that can be made by schools. (Carroll & Stevenson, 2003). Change the current teaching projects, add courses related to phonological awareness skills. And educators in different areas are supposed to cooperate, which benefits a lot to both sides.
From the study, we can also learn something about studying instructions and methods. When choosing way of researching, we can firstly put out research hypothesis, by proving or disproving our hypothesis, a relatively true conclusion is drew. Also we have to take into consideration of factors that may influence the study, that is to say, we have to consider the limitations and state it clear at the end of the study. A scientific attitude is needed any time we want to do a research.
References:
Moats : speech to print: language essentials for teachers. 2000
Muter, V., Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. (1997). Phonological Abilities Test (PAT) . London: Psychological Corporation
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000b). http://www.ukassignment.org/mgzydx/ Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Report of the Subgroups (NIH Publication No. 00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Nittrouer, S. (1996). The relation between speech perception and phonemic awareness: Evidence from low-SES children and children with chronic otitis media. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 39, 1059–1070
Perfetti, C. A., Beck, I., Ball, L. C., & Hughes, C. (1987). Phonemic knowledge and learning to read are reciprocal: A longitudinal study of first grade children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 33, 283-319.
Kurtz, R. (2010). Phonemic awareness affects speech and literacy. Speech-Language-Development
Carroll, J. M., Snowling, M. J., Hulme, C., & Stevenson, J. (2003). The development of phonological awareness in preschool children. Developmental Psychology
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