Letter Naming Knowledge, Phonological Awareness, and Spelling Knowledge of Kindergarten Children at Risk for Learning to Read

David D. Paige; William H. Rupley; Grant S. Smith; Crystal Olinger; Mary Leslie

David D. Paige Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA.
William H. Rupley Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture, College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Grant S. Smith Bellarmine University, USA.
Crystal Olinger Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA.
Mary Leslie Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA.

Keywords: Letter naming knowledge, phonological awareness, spelling knowledge, kindergarten children

Abstract

This study measures letter naming, phonological awareness, and spelling knowledge in 2,100 kindergarten students attending 63 schools within a large, urban school district. Students were assessed across December, February, and May of the kindergarten year. Results found that, by May, 71.8% of students had attained full letter naming knowledge. Phonological awareness emerged more slowly with 48% of students able to reliably segment and blend phonemes in words. Spelling development, a measure of phonics knowledge, found that, by May, 71.8% of students were in the partial-alphabetic phase. A series of regression analyses revealed that by the end of kindergarten both letter naming and phonological awareness were significant predictors of spelling knowledge (?=.332 and .518 for LK and PA, resp.), explaining 52.7% of the variance.