Effect Of Letter Blending And Sound Synchronisation On Early Literacy Development Among 3–5 Year Old Children In Eccde Centres In Makurdi Metropolis
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study examined the effect of letter blending and sound synchronisation on early literacy development among 3–5-year-old children in Early Childhood Care and Development Education (ECCDE) centres in Makurdi Metropolis. The study was guided by four research questions. A quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test non-equivalent control group design was adopted. The population consisted of 18,601 pupils aged 3–5 years in public and private ECCDE centres in Makurdi Metropolis. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a sample of 118 children (60 in the experimental group and 58 in the control group) from intact classes. The experimental group received structured phonemic awareness instruction incorporating letter blending and sound synchronisation, delivered by teachers who had undergone a two-week professional orientation, in prepared classrooms, while the control group continued with regular instructional practices. Data were collected using an Early Literacy Skills Test, a Teacher Professionalism and Instructional Practices Questionnaire, and a Classroom Environment Observation Checklist. The instruments were validated by experts; reliability coefficients obtained through pilot testing were r = .86 (test–retest) for the literacy test and Cronbach's á = .81 and .79 for the questionnaire and checklist respectively. Mean, standard deviation, Pearson correlation, and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were used for data analysis at the 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that phonemic awareness strategies incorporating letter blending significantly improved children's early literacy skills. Letter-sound knowledge positively influenced children's ability to synchronise and blend sounds. Teacher professionalism enhanced instructional quality and pupil outcomes, while prepared classroom environments provided essential support for effective practice. The study concluded that systematic letter blending and sound synchronisation, delivered by trained teachers in print-rich classrooms, effectively strengthen foundational literacy skills. It was recommended that teachers receive regular professional development, classrooms be adequately resourced, the ECCDE curriculum integrate systematic blending activities, and parents be sensitised on supportive home literacy practices.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
References
Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. MIT Press.
Anzaa, J.T., Nwosu, N.P., & Udu, T.T. (2017). The influence of mothers' literacy level and gender on allocation of domestic chores in the household to boys and girls in Benue State, Nigeria. International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 1 (9), 707-720. Available at www.journal-ijah.org.
Ball, E. W., & Blachman, B. A. (1991). Does Phoneme Awareness Training in Kindergarten make a Difference in Ea rly Word Re cognition and Developmental Spelling? Reading Research Quarterly, 26(1), 49–66.
Blachman, B. A., Ball, E. W., Black, R. S., & Tangel, D. M. (1994). Kindergarten Teachers De v e l o p P h o n eme Awareness in Low-Income, Inner-City Cl a ssrooms: Doe s it make a difference? Reading and Writing, 6(1), 1–18.
Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Willows, D. M., Schuster, B. V., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z., & Shanahan, T. ( 2 0 0 1 ). P h o n emi c Awareness Instruction Helps Children Learn to Read: Evidence From the National Reading Panel's metaanalysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 250–287.
Engel de Abreu, P. M. J., Fricke, S., & Wealer, C. (2020). Effects of an Early Literacy Intervention for Linguistically Diverse Children: A Quasi-Experimental Study. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 5 6 9 8 5 4 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.56 9854
Erbeli, F., Rice, M., Xu, Y., Bishop, M. E., & Goodrich, J. M. (2024). A MetaAnalysis on the O p t i m a l Cumulative Dosage of Early Phonemic Awareness Instruction. Scientific Studies of Reading , 2 8 ( 4 ) , 3 4 5 – 3 7 0 . https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438/202 4.2309386
Karipidis, I. I., Pleisch, G., Röthlisberger, M., Hofstetter, C., Dornbierer, D., Stämpfli, P., & Brem, S. (2017). Neural Representation of Letter-Speech Sound Associations in Young Beginning Readers: An Audiovisual M is match Response Study. Developmental Science, 20 ( 5 ) , e12439.
Karipidis, I. I., Pleisch, G., Brandeis, D., Roth, A., Röthlisbe rge r, M., Schneebeli, M., & Brem, S. ( 2 0 1 8 ) . Simulating Reading Acquisition: The Link Between Reading Outcome and Multimodal Brain Signatures of Letter-Speech Sound Learning in Prereaders. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 1–13.
Lonigan, C. J., Schatschneider, C., & Westberg, L. (2008). Identification of Children's Skills and Abilities Linked to Later Outcomes in Reading, Writing, and Spelling. In Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel (pp. 55–106). National Institute for Literacy.
National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and its Implications for Reading Instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Rice, M., Erbeli, F., Thompson, C. G., Sallese, M. R., & Fogarty, M. (2022). Phonemic awareness: A Meta-Analysis for Instruction from Preschool through Second Grade. Journal of Educational Psychology.
Webber, C., Patel, H., Cunningham, A., Fox, A., Vousden, J., Castles, A., & Shapiro, L. (2023). An Experimental Comparison of Additional Training in Phoneme Awareness, Letter-Sound Knowledge and Decoding for Struggling Beginner Readers. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 94 (1), 282–305 . https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12641