Review of Literature

Introduction

Learning to read is easily developed by many children during their early years. This

complex process occurs when optimal learning conditions are present. These conditions include

strong language skills. However, it can become an overwhelming process for some young

children, especially those who are identified with special needs such as deaf or hard-of-hearing

(DHH) students (Narr & Cawthon, 2011). Students enter school with various levels of pre-

reading skills; therefore, it is often challenging for teachers as they struggle to meet the needs of

their diverse learners (Cihon, Gardner, Morrison, & Paul, 2008). For beginning readers, students

must understand the alphabetic principle in which sounds are represented of letters from the

alphabet and that letters are used to represent these sounds. Letter sound knowledge is the ability

to produce the sound(s) associated with a particular letter. It is the nearest relationship used in

order to decode, or sound out words (Huang, Tortorelli, & Invernizzi, 2014).

The intent of this study was to examine the effectiveness of implementing visual phonics

on student knowledge of letter- sound relation of kindergarten students. Based on the literature

that was reviewed, there were a number of literacy areas that could be impacted from the use of

visual phonics with kindergarten students. The literature in this review was divided into three

sections, including (a) impact of visual phonics instruction on letter-sound recognition, (b) letter-

sound recognition in students writing development, and (c) parental perspectives and

involvement of childrens education. Each of these sections was focused in this literature

review. After reviewing the literature, I believe that further investigation of the impact of visual

phonics instruction on student letter-sound relations would be beneficial. Much of the research

found the effects of using visual phonics with deaf or hard of hearing students, however, there

was limited amounts of research involving hearing students.

Letter-Sound Knowledge

Narr and Cawthon (2011) found through a national survey of 200 teacher participants that

using visual phonics as a reading instructional tool increased phonemic awareness, decoding

skills, vocabulary, and reading comprehension for students with or without special needs. The

purpose of this study was to investigate the teachers perspectives of using visual phonics with

their reading curriculum through the completion of a mixed-methods survey. The survey was

composed of checklists, multiple choice, Likert scale, and open-ended questions designed for

participants who had completed the visual phonics training. The results of the study found that

the majority of teachers used visual phonics with elementary-aged students who were DHH or

had other disabilities, but was not limited to this population. Nearly fifty-seven percent of the

participants were teachers of deaf or hard of hearing students, twenty-two percent were special

education teachers and thirteen percent were elementary general education teachers all varying in

the years of experience using visual phonics. Overall, participants agreed strongly or somewhat

that visual phonics improved phonemic awareness, decoding skills, vocabulary, and

comprehension skills. Outcomes from this study suggested that teachers tend to have a difficult

time knowing when best to implement visual phonics into their everyday reading instruction.

Also, teachers at times struggled with learning the system and found they would benefit from

workshops or more resources on how to effectively implement visual phonics.

Visual phonics instruction was used with a wide variety of diverse students. In 2008,

Cihon, Gardner, Morrison, and Paul found that the use of See the Sound/Visual Phonics

(STS/VP) intervention in the general education kindergarten classroom could be successful for

hearing students who were at-risk for reading difficulties and were falling behind. The purpose

of this preliminary study investigated the effectiveness of STS/VP with these students. This
study consisted of twelve teacher recommend participants. From those twelve, the lowest five

participants from the DIBELS, 6th edition assessment, of initial sound fluency, letter naming

fluency, phoneme segmentation fluency, nonsense word fluency, and word use fluency were

selected for the intervention. The intervention took place from late March to mid-May. During

the intervention, students were shown the hand sign to teach each letter sound that the majority

of participants were unable to produce. Students were also taught the written symbol for each

letter sound that was representative of the hand sign. The small group intervention that consisted

of two to four students was fast paced and met at least three times per week for the duration of

the study. During the intervention, revisions were made as participant data displayed low levels

of retention. The results from this study indicated that visual phonics was an appropriate

intervention to use with children who were falling behind with the general education curriculum.

At the time of this study it was suggested that STS/VP should be further investigated and that it

should not replace existing reading curriculums.

This study built on the previous findings from Cihon and colleagues (2008). In 2013,

Gardner, Cihon, Morrison, and Paul researched an additional study that found the use of visual

phonics instruction to be beneficial to hearing kindergarten students who were deemed at- risk of

reading failure. The study took place in a general kindergarten classroom that consisted of

eleven participants. Prior to the implementation of the study, students were assessed using the

DIBELS 6th edition, on letter-sound fluency and letter identification fluency. Additionally,

students were assessed after learning each letter-sound in the general education classroom.

Students who were unable to correctly identify given letter-sounds entered Tier 2 intervention for

additional instruction. Over the course of the study, there were five students who consistently

remained in intervention. During the intervention, students received instruction through the
STS/VP reading instructional tool. Students watched and listened as the researcher said the letter

sound and demonstrated the hand sign. The written symbol of the hand sign was also drawn

under each letter to help students remember what sound the letter made. The results from this

five month study indicated that visual phonics was beneficial to at-risk kindergarten students

letter-sound knowledge and that letter-sound knowledge is sustained over time.

While the focus of Chion and colleagues (2008, 2013) investigations were dedicated on

the effects of visual phonics with hearing kindergarten students, Smith and Wang (2010) studied

the impact of visual phonics on the phonological awareness and speech production of a deaf four

year old preschool student who had a cochlear implant. This study focused on using visual

phonics together with a modified version of the Fountas and Pinnell phonics curriculum. During

the intervention, visual phonics hand cues were used to represent beginning and medial sounds

whenever a target sound or word was meant to be heard or said. Modified Fountas and Pinnell

Kindergarten Phonics curriculum mini lessons were also used. The beginning weeks of

intervention focused on naming the letter and sound of beginning consonants. As the intervention

progressed through the fourth, fifth, and sixth weeks, the focus was on learning medial vowel

sounds and eleven new words. The findings indicated that that when visual phonics was used

together with a phonics-based curriculum, phonological awareness and speech production

increased.

A similar study researched by Wang, Spychala, Harris, and Oetting (2013) looked at the

effectiveness of using a phonics-based intervention in part with visual phonics for deaf or hard of

hearing preschool students. Many of these studies presented similar findings for the use of visual

phonics with deaf or hard of hearing students to increase phonemic awareness skills needed for

reading. This study focused on three preschool students who were deaf or hard of hearing. The
intervention consisted of individual or small groups that used the reading program Reading

Mastery 1, Smart Board technology that used starfall.com and visual phonics. Early intervention

lessons consisted of instruction on individual sounds. As lessons progressed, they became more

difficult. Students were expected to orally, or use the visual phonics hand signs, to say the sound

of letters to blend a given word. Through repetition and mastery of the visual phonics hand

signs, students blended and segmented words quickly. At the completion of this 40-week

intervention (50-week in one case), all participants phonemic awareness and phonics skills had

increased. These skills sustained throughout early elementary school as well.

Unlike the previous studies that involved preschool or kindergarten participants, this

next study used visual phonics for ten deaf or hard of hearing kindergarten through third-grade

students. The purpose of Narrs (2008) study was to examine the relationship between

performance on a phonological awareness task, performance on a decoding task, reading ability,

and length of time in literacy instruction with visual phonics (p. 405). The intervention

consisted of students using visual phonics to learn phonemic awareness and phonics skills to

support reading development. Students were made aware of the visual hand sign for the letter

sounds and the symbol that represented these sounds. Visual phonics was used in many of the

literacy activities throughout the day. While students were writing, the researcher would use the

visual hand signs to provide support to students as they worked on sounding out and writing

words. The results from this study found that using visual phonics as an additional instructional

tool supported students phonological awareness and decoding skills. It was also found that

there was no correlation between the length of instructional time using visual phonics with

students performances on various reading skills such as rhyming, decoding, and reading

abilities.
 The research reviewed supported the importance of developing strong phonemic

awareness skills at an early age through the use of STS/VP to acquire reading skills. Valbuena

(2014) studied the visual phonics program called Tucker Signing strategies to develop phonemic

awareness skills for twenty-five Spanish speaking first grade students to learn English in Bogota,

Colombia. Tucker Signing strategies were very similar to STS/VP in which students were taught

hand signs for all letter sounds. Tucker signing strategies were implemented for one hour to the

whole class as their reading program three times a week for six months. During the process,

students learned the hand sign for each letter sound. They looked at a word, performed the hand

sign, and made the sound. After viewing the pre-diagnostic and post-diagnostic test results, the

findings indicated that the use of Tucker Signing strategies helped students to develop phonemic

awareness skills through the relationship between letters and sounds.

After reviewing these studies, it was evident that students needed strong phonological

awareness skills including letter-sound correspondence to become successful readers and writers.

These phonological awareness skills developed with the use of visual phonics as part of everyday

reading instruction. When visual phonics is used, it is developing phonemic awareness skills for

students who may be at-risk for reading failure.

Writing Development

Just as reading is a huge accomplishment to young learners, writing is a tremendous

accomplishment as well. Writing requires knowledge of the alphabetic principle. This

knowledge can be learned through various home or school literacy experiences. Effective

classroom literacy instruction includes learning the names of sounds of alphabet letters and

developing phonemic awareness skills such rhyming, blending, and decoding of words. Writing

and spelling of words involves students to use this phonological knowledge to match each sound
to its corresponding letter or letters (Ritchey, 2008). Ritchey (2008) examined the development

of beginning writing skills in sixty kindergarten students. The relationship between writing and

reading was also studied. The study took place during the second half of kindergarten with the

majority of data collected in the months of April and May. The study included writing, reading,

and phonological awareness measures. The writing measures included: letter writing, sound

spelling, real word spelling, and nonsense word spelling. Students also completed four reading

measures that included: letter name fluency, letter sound fluency, phoneme segmentation

fluency, and early reading abilities assessment (alphabetics, conventions, and meaning). The

phonological awareness assessment focused on the identification of initial and final sounds in

spoken words and word blending. The results from this study found that early reading skills

such as letter-sound knowledge, letter identification, and phonological awareness skills

supported beginning writers development.

From the previous study it was found that early reading skills supported writing

development. Diamond, Gerde, and Powell (2008) found in their study that the more letters,

sounds, and print concepts a student knows or is exposed to, the more sophisticated writing will

follow. Two hundred thirty six low income Head Start preschool students participated in this

study to examine early writing knowledge. Researchers Diamond, Gerde, and Powell (2008)

examined two components of childrens writing: written forms and writing processes. Student

writing data was collected at the beginning, middle, and end of the academic school year. During

the study students completed a number of assessments including name writing, letter naming,

initial sound, and concepts about print to collect and analyze data. It was found that students

made growth in all literacy areas assessed over the school year. An important component of

writing is the understanding of letters and letter sounds. Researchers found that the students who
wrote more letters in their name also knew more letters and were able to pick up on learning

letters faster compared to their peers who were not writing letters.

As I began to imagine how this study would take place in my own classroom, I kept

thinking to myself what impact it would have on my students writing. Because the study

occurred during the fall, I focused my writing instruction on teaching students how to write their

first names. In the previous study, Diamond and colleagues (2008) found that low income Head

Start preschool students who wrote more letters in their name were able to know and recognize

letters faster than peers who did not write letters. Recently in another study, Diamond and

Baroody (2013) suggested that prekindergarten students who were able to write their first name

had a better understanding of letters and letter sounds. This study was done with a larger

participant group of 502 at-risk prekindergarten students and was focused only on writing of

letters in students names and not on conventions. Students were observed from the fall of

prekindergarten to the spring of kindergarten. The following emergent literacy assessments were

conducted throughout the study and were followed-up in the spring of kindergarten: Name

writing, letter knowledge, and letter-sound knowledge (word decoding). On the name writing

assessment, students only completed this during prekindergarten because the majority of students

knew how to write their names already by the spring of kindergarten. Researchers coded

students writing to view the sophistication of skills being used. The letter knowledge

assessment had students identify uppercase letters. Again, most students were able to identify all

the letter names by the spring of kindergarten, so this assessment was only used in

prekindergarten. The last assessment was the letter-sound knowledge assessment. Students were

shown standard English letter combinations and had to read the word by sounding them out

phonetically. This was used in prekindergarten and kindergarten. The results confirmed that
early writing is a predictor of emergent literacy skills. The correlation between these studies was

a valuable tool for promoting early reading skills for my students.

The connection between writing development and knowledge of letter-sounds relations

was apparent throughout a number of research studies. As part of my study, I collected students

writing samples during writers workshop to observe students writing abilities with the use of

visual phonics. The research conducted by Snyders (2014) explored the development of writing

for kindergarten students during writers workshop. Three participants were randomly chosen

for this study and attended an all-day kindergarten program three days per week. Over the 10-

week qualitative study, the researcher collected student writing samples, videotaped student-

teacher conferences, and held participant interviews. Towards the beginning of the study,

students were asked to draw a picture of a writer and then share with the researcher about their

writing. Students were asked interview questions to tell their perceptions about writers and

writing. Students and the researcher continued to confer with each other for five minutes, once

every three days, throughout the study. Student writing samples were used as part of the data

analysis and were collected each week. The results from this study found that the writers

workshop environment supported writers development. During this authentic writing

experience, students writing stamina continually increased as they viewed themselves more

confidently as writers.

After reviewing these studies, it was evident the connection between writing development

and knowledge of letter-sounds relations for beginning writers. Early writing was a predictor of

early reading skills. With strong phonological awareness skills and letter-sound correspondence,

students become successful readers and writers.

Parents in Education

Jane Dee Hull, the first female governor of Arizona, once stated At the end of the day,

the most overwhelming key to a childs success is the positive involvement of parents.

Effective teaching begins with building a strong relationship with students parents. In a study

conducted by Rodriguez, Blatz, and Elbaum (2014), ninety-six parents of students with

disabilities were interviewed to discuss their views of the schools efforts to involve and engage

them in their childs education. Focus group sessions took place either in the morning or

afternoon at the school. To remain confidential, no school personnel were present. A total of

seventeen focus group sessions and one individual interview session were held at eighteen

different school locations. The number of participants ranged from one to twenty-one and lasted

approximately ninety minutes. During the sessions, parents filled out a parent survey of twenty-

five questions that would guide the group discussion. All focus sessions had a moderator and

were audio-recorded for transcription. The results found eight prominent themes. The most

prominent theme noted was the extent to which schools collaborated with parents in their

childrens education (Rodriguez et al., 2014, p. 85). Parents who spoke positively of this theme

stated that teachers were accessible, accommodating to parents for Individualized Education

Program (IEP) meetings, and were knowledgeable in answering questions. Parents who spoke

unfavorably about this theme reported having a difficult time getting services for their child.

As found in the last study, parent and school collaboration plays an important role in a

childs education. Sukhram and Hsu (2012) conducted a study that reflected an overview of the

Reading Together Program. This program was designed for parents and children, ages six

months to thirty-six months, to learn basic literacy skills together to help set the child up for

school and life reading success. The results from this study found that parents appreciated the
program and that it helped them to understand the value of these early literacy skills. The

program was for six weeks and met weekly for forty-five minutes, fifteen parents and fifteen

children participated. Prior to the start of the program, parents filled out a pre survey to help

decide the topics that would be presented in each session based on parent concerns or specific

needs. During each of the sessions, facilitators modeled the strategies to be learned for the day.

Parents then individually read with their child while practicing the strategies as facilitators went

around offering guidance and support. At the end of each session, children, with the help of

parents, were able to pick a free book to take home to continue reading and implementing the

learned strategies. Parents also received a handout from the days session recapping the learned

strategies. At the final session, parents were given a survey to tell what they liked best or least

about the program, what they learned from the program, and how the program influenced the

reading partnership with their child. The results from the study found that parents appreciated

the program and were very positive about the support and guidance received.

Keeping parents informed of what their school-aged child was learning while in school

was important to my study so parents were aware of the research that took place. ad and

Gurbuzturk (2013) investigated the involvement of parents in their childs education. The study

involved 1,252 parent participants whose children were between first-grade and fifth-grade in

Malatya province, Turkey. Parent participants were given a thirty-nine question, Likert-type

(always-never), Turkish Parental Involvement Scale-TPIS measuring the performance of parental

involvement tasks. The results found that parent involvement was high on communication with

child, enabling home setting, supporting personality development, and helping with homework as

parents answered always. Parent involvement was low for volunteering in curricular or
extracurricular activities, as seldom was the highest response. This study supported the previous

literature reviews that parental involvement was important to parents in their childs education.

One of the last studies viewed was research done by Garbacz, McDowall, Schaughency,

Sheridan, and Welch (2015). In this study, researchers wanted to clarify and test the direct

effects of school year, parent education, family structure, and child gender on parent

involvement in elementary school (Garbacz et al., 2015, p. 384). Participants for this study

included 421 primary caregivers of elementary school aged children in New Zealand.

Participants were given a forty-six question, Likert-type (1 rarely to 4 always), Family

Involvement Questionnaire-New Zealand Version, measuring the parent involvement behaviors

in their childs education. A demographic questionnaire was completed by all participants. Data

collected from this survey found that there was no significant correlation between the childs

year in school and parental involvement. Findings revealed a positive relation between parental

school involvement and parent education, which suggested that parents who had a higher level of

education were more likely to be involved. It was also found that parents with two or more adults

at home were more engaged with school involvement; however, it did not impact home

involvement or the communication between school and home. The final finding from this study

suggest a trend toward greater home-school communication reported by parents of boys than

parents of girls (Garbacz et al., 2015, p. 400).

Conclusion

From the reviews of literature, several connections were made. The majority of the

studies took place with students who were deemed at-risk of reading failure and who were deaf

or hard of hearing. There had not yet been much researched on the effects of visual phonics with

hearing students. It was evident that students need strong phonological awareness skills
including letter-sound correspondence to become successful readers and writers. These

phonological awareness skills took place with the use of visual phonics as part of everyday

reading instruction. The literature I reviewed found that when visual phonics was used,

phonemic awareness skills developed for students who were at-risk for reading failure. Those

early reading skills also supported the development of beginning writers. The studies supported

the implementation of visual phonics in my own kindergarten classroom. Overall, the reviews

permitted me to build a strong foundation for the design of this study.

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