Professional Documents
Culture Documents
IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM
A Research Project
Presented to the
Faculty of the School of Education
Viterbo University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts in Education
by
Marisa Bauer
July, 2017
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 2
Abstract
This paper examines the use of visual phonics instruction in the kindergarten classroom. I was
concerned that my students were not able to fluently produce the primary sound for each
consonant letter. The purpose of this action research study was to examine the effectiveness of
implementing visual phonics on student knowledge of letter- sound relation for my kindergarten
students. The participants in this study were 20 kindergarten students who attended a Pre-K
through 6th-grade elementary school in a Midwestern Iowa school district. This descriptive
mixed-methods action research study was implemented from the beginning of September
assessment, a pre-and post- intervention phonetic writing assessment, and monthly student
writing samples were collected. Parent participants completed pre-and post-intervention surveys
via email correspondence and Google Forms to help examine their perspective of the use of
visual phonics on their childs letter-sound knowledge. The results from this action research
study found that implementing visual phonics increased students letter-sound knowledge.
Students writing was also positively impacted by the use of visual phonics. The results in the
parent survey indicated that using visual phonics helped their child with learning their letter
sounds and in their writing. Overall, I look forward to implementing visual phonics in the future
Introduction
The start to a new school year is always an exciting time of year for both parents and
students. Students file into freshly organized, prepared classrooms as parents wish them well for
the first day back. In kindergarten, the start of a new school year may look different from other
grades. Parents nervously drop off their child, sometimes holding back tears, as this may be their
baby who they cannot imagine is already old enough to be starting school. As the first few
days of school get underway, I meet with parents for a short amount of time after school which is
known as input conferences. During this time, parents lead the conference to discuss strengths or
concerns that I may need to know about their child as a student and learner. While talking with
parents, they often times wonder and ask, What will my child learn in kindergarten this year?
Letters and numbers? This at one time, prior to Common Core State Standards, was an
As I have found while teaching kindergarten for the past six years, our youngest
elementary students were coming into kindergarten with a wide variety of backgrounds and
skills. Some students may have attended pre-school, others may have not. Some students may
have practiced writing their name prior to school, others may have not. As one can tell, not all
students entering kindergarten have the same academic experiences. Often times, what other
students may find easy, such as learning and remembering letter sounds, can be difficult for
young children, especially for those who are just beginning kindergarten with little or no pre-
school experience. Skibbe, Hindman, Connor, Housey, and Morrison (2013) found that students
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 4
who attended prekindergarten before starting kindergarten in the fall had higher early reading
and phonological awareness scores than students who had not attended prekindergarten.
The past 2015-2016 school year held true to that, as I had many students who struggled
with identifying letters and producing letter sounds throughout the year. After reviewing
numerous letter sound assessments, I became very anxious and concerned because in order for
me to teach reading and writing, I needed the foundational piece of the alphabetic principle in
place well before the end of kindergarten. I knew I needed to have a plan to help my students
become proficient and with mastery meet the Common Core State Standard to produce the
primary sound for each consonant, including the long and short sounds for the five major vowels.
I shared my worries with co-workers on my team and we all were feeling the same
weight. What can we do to help our students learn their letters, especially their letter sounds?
And, once they have them learned, retain them in order to begin reading and writing words? This
was an all too familiar conversation we were discussing over and over again. Around the time
we were talking and thinking of a plan, I received an e-mail from our schools speech language
pathologist wondering if we used any kind of visual phonics program in our classrooms. She was
working with a hearing impaired pre-school student and wanted to add visual phonics symbols to
help her with learning letter sounds, but did not want to introduce something different than she
might learn in kindergarten. Immediately, I was interested in learning more about visual phonics
I have found that many of my students learn and retain much more if they are able to
see it, hear it, and move to it in a multisensory type way. I thought if I were able to provide
students with a visual and kinesthetic hand cue, also known as visual phonics, for learning the
alphabet sounds, this may help students to recall and master letter sounds fluently. I continued to
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 5
keep thinking then of the next skill that would build upon this letter sound knowledge, such as
beginning to write strings of letters to form words, and to understand that those words carry
meaning. With the wide variety of student needs, I looked for additional teaching strategies that
I could use to help my students learn and master their letter sounds accurately and fluently.
Problem Statement
I observed that many of my kindergarten students throughout the school year had a
difficult time learning and retaining letter identification and letter sounds, which could put them
behind in their learning. It is essential for students to be able to accurately identify and produce
letter sounds. Students rely on letter-sound relations to help them read unfamiliar words in texts
and begin the emergent writing process. Cabell, Tortorelli, and Gerde (2013) stated Each
childs writing provides teachers with a window into what that child knows about print and
sound (p. 652). When I thought about my struggling learners and the difficulties they
encountered with writing, it truly sheds even more light on the problem. It became a rewarding
accomplishment for students when they are able to bridge that gap between knowing letter
sounds in isolation to writing words with accurate sounds. I found that I needed to investigate a
better way of teaching students their letter sounds so they were able to be successful in their
learning.
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this action research study was to examine the effectiveness of
implementing visual phonics on student knowledge of letter- sound relation for my kindergarten
students. Because I was concerned that my students were not able to fluently produce the
primary sound for each consonant, including the major vowels, I studied the effectiveness of
Based on the problem that was identified, I designed an overarching question that guided
my action research study: What were the effects of visual phonics instruction on the
question for the study, I also identified sub-questions that included: (a) how did using visual
phonics instruction transfer to students writing? and (b) what were the parent perspectives of
The independent variable was the implementation of using visual phonics symbols in the
classroom. The dependent variables were the letter-sound fluency, writing and parent
perspectives.
Definitions
For the purpose of this paper, certain terms were defined. First, visual phonics was
defined as a multisensory strategy that represents all of the sounds of English with a hand-shape
cue and a corresponding written symbol (Montgomery, 2008). In this study, I used the synthetic
visual phonics program Jolly Phonics. Jolly Phonics is a program that teaches students hand
movement actions for all 42 sounds in English. Second, letter sound fluency was the ability to
correctly produce 80% of the letters taught with a three second wait time until given the correct
answer.
Limitations
As with many research studies, there were limitations that may have affected the results
from this study. First, the participants for the study were part of a convenience sample and were
not chosen at random. Second, the time allowed for the study may not have been sufficient to
adequately assess my students growth using the new strategy. Third, my students attendance
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 7
was unpredictable and it may have impacted their ability to achieve mastery of the new strategy.
Lastly, this was my first time carrying out an action research plan in my classroom.
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 8
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
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
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 9
(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
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.
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 10
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
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
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 11
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
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
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 12
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.
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
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
Writing Development
knowledge can be learned through various home or school literacy experiences. Effective
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 13
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
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,
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 14
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 15
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
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
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 16
early reading skills. With strong phonological awareness skills and letter-sound correspondence,
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 17
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
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 18
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.
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
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
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 19
hearing students. It was evident that students need strong phonological awareness skills
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
Methods
Introduction
This descriptive mixed-methods action research study examined the effects of visual
addition to the primary goal, I also investigated: (a) how did using visual phonics instruction
transfer to students writing? and (b) what were the parent perspectives of visual phonics
Participants
The participants of this study were kindergarten students from my class for the 2016-
2017 academic school year. The participants attended a Pre-K through 6th-grade elementary
school of around 600 students. The population of the Midwestern Iowa school district
community where this study took place was 40,566. Students were part of a convenience
sample, which included twenty- one students, ten females and eleven males between the ages of
five and six years old. The school district served 5,382 Pre-K through 12th-grade students. Of
these students, 2.5% were English Language Learners (ELL) with a total of 19 native spoken
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 20
languages. Nearly 25% of the students qualified for free or reduced lunch and 11.3% received
completing pre- and post -intervention surveys regarding their perspectives of the use of visual
Procedure
This descriptive mixed-methods action research study was implemented from the
beginning of September, 2016 through the middle of December, 2016. Prior to the intervention, I
completed a letter-sound assessment one-on-one with each student. I showed the student an
uppercase letter card and asked them to identify the letter name. If a student hesitated for three
seconds, I provided the letter and continued with the next. I recorded the data on the data
collection sheet as + answered correctly answered incorrectly (see Appendix A). I then showed
the student a lowercase letter card and asked them to identify the letter name. If a student
hesitated for three seconds, I provided the letter and continued with the next. I recorded the data.
The final piece of the pre-assessment was letter sounds. I showed the student a lowercase letter
card and asked them to identify the letter sound. If a student hesitated for three seconds, I
provided the letter sound and continued with the next. I recorded the data. This pre-assessment
email and Google Forms (see Appendix B). The results from this survey helped me to identify
the parents perspectives of their childs letter-sound knowledge. I also completed a phonetic
writing assessment oneon-one with each student (see Appendix C). Students listened as I read
five consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words individually. After dictating the word, students
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 21
wrote the word on paper. I recorded each letter sound correctly written within each word. This
During the study, I used a portion of the visual phonics program Jolly Phonics. Students
were introduced to the capital and lowercase letter, sound, and visual hand sign for each days
alphabet letter. During our whole-group reading instruction, I held a letter card with a letter on it
and said this is letter name and it makes this sound. I had students watch my mouth as I
exaggerated the letter sound. Students repeated the sound with me. For each letter, there was
also a short story and song that went along with the sound and hand sign. As I retold the story, I
taught students the hand sign for the letter while saying the sound. Students repeated the hand
sign and sound with me. As students were producing the sound and hand sign, I observed for
student participation. I completed the letter-sound assessment one-on-one with each student bi-
weekly.
Research Design
I designed this mixed-methods study to determine the effects of visual phonics instruction
research tools to determine the effect of visual phonics on student letter- sound identification.
The quantitative and qualitative tools that were used to collect data were: (a) letter- sound
assessment (b) phonetic writing assessment (c) parent survey responses (d) classroom
observations, (e) student writing samples and (f) FAST letter sound fluency assessment. The
letter-sound assessment was given as a pre-assessment and bi-weekly assessment during the
course of the study. Students were shown a letter card and asked to correctly identify the name
of the letter and the letter sound. Kindergarten students were expected to name twenty- one out
of twenty- six capital letters, twenty- one out of twenty- six lowercase letters, and twenty- one
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 22
out of twenty- six letter sounds by the end of the academic school year to meet the district
expectation of 80%. I also used the district FAST letter sound fluency assessment which was
given at the beginning and middle of the academic school year during the course of the study.
The phonetic writing assessment was given as a pre-and post-assessment with 15 points possible.
Students listened as five CVC words were read individually for students to write. Kindergarten
students were expected to write 12 out of 15 correct letter sounds in words by the end of the
academic school year to meet the district expectation of 80%. Student writing samples were
collected monthly during the study. As students were learning the letter sound with hand sign, I
observed for student participation. I also observed students letter-sound correspondence, the
through e-mail and Google Forms. The results from this survey helped to identify the parents
Data Analysis
Instruction and data collection took place from September through December, 2016. All
quantitative data collected, such as assessments and parent surveys, were analyzed through
descriptive statistics that included the mean, the median, and the mode. All qualitative data, such
as observations and writing samples, were analyzed to determine patterns, trends, categories, and
commonalities. All data results were presented by graphics or narrative form to analyze and
compare growth from the beginning of the year baseline to midyear post intervention of students
letter sound recognition and writing. By collecting qualitative and quantitative data I was able to
Results
Introduction
The purpose of this action research study was to examine the effectiveness of
implementing visual phonics on student knowledge of letter- sound relation for my kindergarten
students. This study took place with a class of twenty-one student participants from the
beginning of September, 2016 to the middle of December, 2016. For the duration of the study,
three research questions were investigated. The primary question that guided my action research
study was: What were the effects of visual phonics instruction on the identification of letter-
sound relations for kindergarten students? In addition to the primary question for the study, I
also identified sub-questions that included: (a) how did using visual phonics instruction transfer
to students writing? and (b) what were the parent perspectives of visual phonics instruction used
in the kindergarten classroom? The independent variable was the implementation of using visual
phonics symbols in the classroom. The dependent variables were the letter-sound fluency,
Letter-Sound Knowledge
The purpose of the primary question examined the effectiveness of implementing visual
phonics on student knowledge of letter- sound relation for my kindergarten students. During the
study, I used a portion of the visual phonics program Jolly Phonics. Students were introduced to
the capital and lowercase letter, sound, and visual hand sign for each days alphabet letter. I
completed a letter-sound assessment one-on-one with each student bi-weekly. Students also
completed the FAST Universal Screening Assessment for letter sound fluency prior to the start
of the intervention and after the intervention. The results of the students bi-weekly letter-sound
Letter Sounds
Pre Post
26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 2526 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 2626 26 26 26
24 24 24
19 20 20
18 17 17
15
11 11
9 8
5 6
4 4
0
Figure 1. Students pre and post intervention bi-weekly letter- sound knowledge assessment
56 56 57 55 58
44 43 45 46 44
40 40 42 40 38 38
31 33 31 30
28 26 27 26 27
22 23 24
16 16 18 18
14 14 13 11
8 9
4 3 5
1
Writing Development
The purpose of the first sub-question was to determine how using visual phonics
transferred to students writing. Prior to the study, students completed a phonetic writing
words individually. After dictating the word, students wrote the word on paper. I recorded each
letter sound correctly written within each word. At the end of the study, this assessment was
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 25
given again. All scores were then averaged. The results of students phonetic spelling
Figure 3. Average score for the phonetic spelling pre assessment and post assessment
In addition to the phonetic spelling assessment, students were also observed during
writers workshop. I observed students letter-sound correspondence, which are the sounds
represented by letters, and students using the visual hand signs for letter representation. Monthly
writing samples during writers workshop were collected and analyzed. During a writers
workshop session, I observed Student 17 writing the letter sounds for the sentence My house
spelled my hz. Student 17 also labeled the picture of an apple tree as ab re, stretching out the
sounds as he/she was writing them. Student 20 was observed stretching out the word monkey
bars in his/her writing. This student was hesitant with the letter sounds in that word, and wanted
to be correct, asking me Is this right? I addressed the student to not give up and to keep trying
even on hard to write words. Student 14 wrote the full sentence We went to the zoo by
listening to the letter sounds and writing WEWTOthEZO. This was one of the first sentences I
Parents in Education
The purpose of the second sub question was to identify the parents perspectives of their
childs letter-sound knowledge to help me determine the effects of visual phonics on students
letter-sound relations. I administered a pre- and post- intervention six question, Likert-type
survey through e-mail and Google Forms. The results are shown in the number of responses in
Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Figure 4. Results of how parents felt about their child enjoying reading at home.
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 27
Figure 5. Results of how parents felt about their child enjoying writing at home.
Figure 6. Results of how parents felt about their child learning through movement.
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 28
6
5
5
3
2
2
1 1
1
0 0 0
0
Strongly disagree Disagree Don't know Agree Strongly Agree
Figure 7. Results of how parents felt about their child sounding out letter sounds to help them
Figure 8. Results of how parents felt about their child using action phonics in learning their
Figure 9. Results of how parents felt about their child sharing what they were learning about new
letters at home.
Conclusion
The purpose of this action research study was to examine the effectiveness of
implementing visual phonics on student knowledge of letter- sound relation for my kindergarten
students. The results suggested that implementing visual phonics increased students letter-
sound knowledge. Students writing was also positively impacted by the use of visual phonics.
The results in the parent survey also indicated that using visual phonics helped their child with
learning their letter sounds and in their writing. In the discussion section, I will summarize and
Discussion
Introduction
After teaching kindergarten for the past six years, I noticed that our youngest elementary
students were coming into kindergarten with a wide variety of backgrounds and skills. Some
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 30
students attended pre-school, others had not. Some students had practiced writing their name
prior to school, others had not. Not all students entering kindergarten had the same academic
experiences. Often times, what other students found easy, such as learning and remembering
letter sounds, was difficult for young children, especially for those who were just beginning
The 2015-2016 school year held true to that, as I had many students who struggled with
identifying letters and producing letter sounds throughout the entire school year. After reviewing
numerous letter sound assessments, I became very anxious and concerned. In order for me to
teach reading and writing, I needed the foundational piece of the alphabetic principle in place
well before the end of kindergarten. I knew I needed to have a plan to help my students become
proficient and with mastery meet the Common Core State Standard to produce the primary sound
for each consonant, including the long and short sounds for the five major vowels.
Starting in the 2016-2017 school year, I needed to investigate a better way of teaching
students their letter sounds so they were able to be successful in their learning. With the wide
variety of student needs, I looked for additional teaching strategies that could be used to help my
students learn and master their letter sounds accurately and fluently. I thought if I were able to
provide students with a visual and kinesthetic hand cue, also known as visual phonics, for
learning the alphabet sounds, this would help students to recall and master letter sounds fluently.
I continued to think then of the next skill that would build upon the letter sound knowledge, such
as beginning to write strings of letters to form words, and to understand that those words carry
meaning.
The purpose of this action research study was to examine the effectiveness of
implementing visual phonics on student knowledge of letter- sound relation for my kindergarten
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 31
students. I was concerned that my students were not able to fluently produce the primary sound
for each consonant, including the major vowels. This problem guided me to study the
Letter-Sound Knowledge
The purpose of the primary question examined the effectiveness of implementing visual
phonics on student knowledge of letter- sound relation for my kindergarten students. During the
study, I used a portion of the visual phonics program Jolly Phonics. Students were introduced to
the capital and lowercase letter, sound, and visual hand sign for each days alphabet letter. I
completed a letter-sound assessment one-on-one with each student bi-weekly. Students also
completed the FAST Universal Screening Assessment for letter sound fluency prior to the start
of the intervention and after the intervention. After analyzing students pre and post intervention
bi-weekly letter- sound data, it was determined that all students either increased or remained
consistent at 80% in the number of letter sounds produced. I had four students who remained
consistent with little or no room for growth. These students named twenty-one or more letter
sounds out of twenty-six on the pre intervention assessment. After analyzing students FAST
Universal Screening Assessment for letter sound fluency data, it was determined that all students
In 2013, Gardner, Cihon, Morrison, and Paul found the use of visual phonics instruction
to be beneficial to hearing kindergarten students who were deemed at- risk of reading failure.
Students watched and listened as the researcher said the letter sound and demonstrated the hand
sign. The results from their five month study indicated that visual phonics was beneficial to at-
risk kindergarten students letter-sound knowledge and that letter-sound knowledge can be
sustained over time. During the course of my study, students completed bi-weekly letter-sound
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 32
assessments in which students were observed using the visual hand signs to help them with the
letter sounds. Both the research and my studys results indicated that students who receive visual
phonics instruction are able to identify and retain letters and letter sounds. I believe this
inclusion of visual phonics had an impact on students retention of their letter sounds, which
helped a substantial amount of my students to make growth during the duration of this study in
their bi-weekly letter-sound assessment and FAST Universal Screening Assessment for letter
In my own classroom experience of using Jolly Phonics, I believe this growth was due to
students receiving daily repetition of the letter and letter sounds. The process of learning letters
and letter sounds was different while using Jolly Phonics. During Jolly Phonics, students
listened to a short poem which emphasized the letter of the day, sang a song, and learned the
visual hand sign. This was a different way of teaching letters and letter sounds than what I had
done in the past with traditional flashcards. Unlike traditional rote memorization of flashcards,
Jolly Phonics provided students with multiple learning styles. The multiple learning styles
reached different learners visually, kinesthetically, and musically while keeping them engaged
with their new learning. Overall, the results from my study confirmed the effectiveness of
Writing Development
The first sub-question I investigated was to determine the effect of using visual phonics
on students writing. Students were given a phonetic writing assessment prior to the start of the
study, and also at the end. Students were also observed during writers workshop. Monthly
writing samples during writers workshop were collected and analyzed. After analyzing the
average score for the phonetic spelling pre assessment and post assessment data, it was
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 33
determined that the average class score grew eight sounds, from pre intervention assessment to
post intervention assessment, in their ability to correctly write the letter sounds within each
consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word (see Figure 3). I could not believe how many students
were able to write the letter sounds for the CVC words during the post intervention assessment
compared to the pre intervention assessment; it was more than I had seen in my previous years of
teaching at this time of the year. I believe this increase was due to the repetition of daily letter
identification and letter sounds. Students learned their letter sounds quickly and were able to
apply those sounds to their writing. I believe that using the visual phonics hand signs will
continue to help my students meet the 12 out of 15 correct letter sounds in words by the end of
the academic school year to meet the kindergarten district expectation of 80%.
After analyzing students writers workshop observations and writing samples, I found
that many students were beginning to stretch out the letter sounds in their words as they were
writing them. Student samples had strings of letters written for sentences and labels describing
their pictures. As students were writing, I observed if students were using the visual hand signs
to help them with the letter representation. I found that the majority of students were stretching
and hearing the letter sounds and writing those sounds, but very few students actually used the
visual hand sign to help them. I believe this was due to the fact that a substantial amount of
students had or were mastering their letter sounds already and they did not need to use the visual
As I tried to imagine how this study was going to take place in my own classroom, I kept
thinking to myself what impact it would have on my students writing. The connection between
writing development and knowledge of letter-sounds relations was apparent throughout a number
of research studies. The research conducted by Snyders (2014) explored the development of
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 34
writing for kindergarten students during writers workshop. 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. I observed this occurring during my own students writers
workshop as well. Even with students not necessarily using visual hand signs to support their
letter writing, students were confident in themselves as writers because they were able to stretch
out and write letters and words independently. With the strong letter-sound skills that occurred
Based on the research and the results of my study, I believe that using visual phonics
increased my students confidence in their writing during writers workshop and phonetic writing
assessment. Students viewed themselves as writers because they were confident in knowing and
using their letter sounds, which they applied to their writing. During writers workshop, I
observed that students did not use the visual hand signs to support their writing as much as I
thought they would have. I believe this was due to the fact that a substantial amount of students
had or were mastering their letter sounds already and they did not need to use the visual hand
sign to help them. They were able to fluently write the correct letter sound without needing the
additional support. As I look back on how I taught writers workshop, I never modeled for
students to use the visual hand signs to help them with stretching out and writing their words.
While teaching the letter and letter sounds during the Jolly Phonics instruction, I modeled the
hand sign many times. It may appear that since students did not see me using visual hand signs
to help with stretching out and writing words, they also did not use it. My results confirmed that
using visual phonics transferred to students writing. Students with strong letter-sound skills
Parents in Education
The purpose of the second sub question was to identify the parents perspectives of their
childs letter-sound knowledge to help me determine the effects of visual phonics on students
letter-sound relations. I received 17 parent responses for the pre intervention survey and 14
parent responses for the post intervention survey, which I believe could have impacted the results
in the survey. During the study, 57% of parents strongly agreed that sounding out individual
letter sounds helped their child with their writing compared to 12 % of parents prior to the
intervention. Forty-three percent of parents also strongly agreed that their child used action
phonics to help them with learning their letters and sounds compared to twenty-nine percent of
parents prior to the intervention. The results in the parent surveys indicated that using visual
phonics helped their child with learning their letter sounds and in their writing. As I was
interpreting these results, I believe that parents tried to observe the strategies used by their child
to learn their letters and letter sounds. If parents saw that their child was using the Jolly Phonics
hand signs, they may have answered strongly agreed to that question compared to parents whom
may not have observed their child using any strategy. This result may also have been affected by
how open their child is with sharing information about school with parents at home. If a student
does not tell their parents what they are learning at school, parents may not have been aware of
Keeping parents informed of what their child was learning while in school was important
to my study, so parents were aware of the research taking place. ad and Gurbuzturk (2013)
investigated the involvement of parents in their childs education. Their study supported the
previous literature reviews that parental involvement is important to parents in their childs
education. During the study, students were encouraged to share their new learning with parents,
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 36
siblings, or anyone who would listen to them. Students were able to show their growth of letter
sounds by singing the songs and doing the hand signs for each letter. Prior to the study, nine
parents, or 53%, stated strongly agree to the survey question asking if their child shares what
he/she has learned about new letters and sounds at home. This was a high percentage of parents
compared to my post intervention survey result of five or 36%. I believe as the study went on,
students were beginning to lose the interest or novelty of learning the new letter and hand sign,
which resulted in a lower percentage. This is also typical of the beginning of the year- students
are excited for a new school year and have a lot to share at home about their day. Fast forward to
December, students have learned all their letter sounds and hand signs and find it not as
meaningful to share with parents at home. This survey question was also dependent on the type
of child- a child who shares a lot about school versus a child who does not, played a factor into
Based on the research and the results of my parent survey, I believe that using visual
phonics played a role in the parents perspectives of their childs letter-sound knowledge (see
Figures 7 and 8). As my parent survey results came in for my post intervention survey, I was
disappointed in the number of surveys. I believe the low number of surveys was due to the fact
that it was administered during the month of December, which was an already busy time of year
for families. Since the survey was anonymous, I was not able to see which families completed
them pre or post intervention. Because the number was low, I believe only the engaged and
motivated families returned the surveys. I also believe that some of my parents may not have
been aware of what to look for while reading or writing with their child at home. Parents may
not have noticed their child using the visual hand signs to help them with learning their letter
sounds, which was reflected in the survey results (see Figure 8). My results from the parent
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 37
survey confirmed that using visual phonics had a positive impact on students learning their letter
Conclusion
It was evident that students need strong phonological awareness skills, including letter-
sound correspondence, to become successful readers and writers through the implementation of
visual phonics. By implementing visual phonics for teaching students their letters and sounds,
students letter knowledge and writing development was positively affected. It was determined
from the studys pre-intervention and post-intervention scores that substantial student growth
was made.
I began this action research study hoping to find a better way to teach my kindergarten
students their letters and letter sounds. Over the past several school years, I had many students
who struggled with identifying letters and producing letter sounds throughout the year. I knew
students who struggled with this would have difficulties with reading and writing; as that
As I began my action research, I used a portion of the visual phonics program Jolly
Phonics. The result from implementing Jolly Phonics in my classroom was evident. All
students letter knowledge and writing development increased as more letters and sounds were
learned. Cabell, Tortorelli, and Gerde (2013) stated Each childs writing provides teachers with
a window into what that child knows about print and sound (p. 652). As I was teaching Jolly
Phonics, students confidence in letter sound knowledge and writing soared. It was such a
rewarding accomplishment for students when they were able to bridge that gap between knowing
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 38
the letter sounds in isolation to applying it to their writing with the correct letter sounds. This
action research was important to me as a teacher because I was able to share my students
success with my colleagues for future implication. As a result of Jolly Phonics, I feel confident
that I found a more successful way of teaching students their letter sounds so they were able to
Lessons Learned
While conducting this action research study, there were many limitations that could have
affected the results from my study. This was my first time carrying out an action research plan
in my classroom. I was very uncertain of how to implement this plan in my room. I had the
process and a method worked out, but was unsure of how it would go with a classroom of
kindergartners! Another limitation that may have affected my study was student attendance. If a
student was absent they missed learning the letter, letter sound and visual hand sign. This
affected students bi-weekly letter sound identification results. Lastly, the participants for this
study were part of a convenience sample and were not chosen at random. Students and parents
Looking back on my study, there were many lessons that I learned which would affect
how I teach this differently for future classes. While teaching students the letter, letter sound and
hand sign, I began to notice lower student engagement towards the end of the study compared to
the beginning of the study. I believe this was because students had to go through the hand action
and song of each of the previously taught letters first before learning the new letter of the day.
This may have started to get long for students after more letters were learned, which resulted in a
loss of focus. When I use Jolly Phonics for my future classes, I would like to only review the
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 39
previous weeks letters so that students would stay more engaged until learning the new letter of
the day.
During writers workshop, I observed students not using the visual hand signs to help
them with stretching out and writing their words. I believe this may have been in part because
students did not see me modeling using the visual hand signs to help me write my words during
the workshop lesson. For future writers workshop lessons, I will model to students the
importance of using the visual hand signs to help them with identifying the correct letter sounds
to write.
One of the last take aways from this study that I would do differently is the parent survey.
I did not have as many parent responses to my pre and post intervention survey as I believed I
would have, especially since all parents signed the research consent acknowledging that they
would be part of the study by taking the survey. The results that I did get from the parent survey
clarified that visual phonics had a positive impact on their childs letter sound identification, but
many of the questions did not tie as closely to my research I thought they would have. Overall,
the success of my study had an impact on what I learned as a professional and how I will conduct
Future Implications
I have found that many of my students learn and retain much more if they are able to see
it, hear it, and move to it in a multisensory type way. Providing students with a visual and
kinesthetic hand cue using Jolly Phonics for learning the alphabet sounds has helped my students
to recall and master letter sounds fluently. With this accomplishment, students have been able to
successfully write the correct letter sounds with their work in writers workshop, increasing
kindergarteners confidence in themselves as writers. This study may help to reassure any other
VISUAL PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM 40
teacher who is working with younger elementary students that using visual phonics is beneficial
to students learning. Even though this study has come to an end, I will continue to work with
my students on using the visual phonics to help them become better writers and readers. I intend
to use my pre-intervention and post-intervention data along with my end of the year data to
further analyze the effects of visual phonics on students letter sounds and writing achievement.
While implementing action research, I saw the value of doing it in my classroom and can
see myself implementing it again with my future classes. I believe conducting this action
research helped me to open up to trying new things and become passionate in a new way of
teaching students their letters and letter sounds. I feel confident knowing that all my students
My future plan is to reach out to my kindergarten team and share my results of the study.
I believe if we implement this next year in our classrooms, we will have less kindergarteners in
letter and letter sound interventions, and they too will see the growth in their students as I have.
As I was conducting this study, I was contacted by the instructional coach at my building. She
was very interested to hear how the study was going and the results. Of course I was very eager
to share with her the growth students were making in their letter sounds and writing. She was
very happy to hear to hear this and was going to share the data and results from this study with
our districts elementary curriculum director in hopes that the district would get the Jolly Phonics
program for all kindergarten classrooms. Overall, I was very glad that I decided to do action
research in my classroom and look forward to continuing to implement it in the future to help all
References
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Appendix A
Appendix B
*Parents will indicate their observations of their childs reading and writing behaviors on a
Likert-type scale that will be completed on a Google Form.
I am conducting an action research study this fall on the effects of using the visual phonics
program Jolly Phonics on students letter- sound knowledge. I will be evaluating students letter-
sound recognition in the fall (before we begin the visual phonics instruction) and comparing it
throughout the course of this study. Part of my research also looks at parental opinions of the
effects of the Jolly Phonics program on your childs letter-sound knowledge. I would appreciate
your help in completing this part of my research study.
On the Google Form you will find a survey regarding your childs reading and writing behaviors
that you observe at home. The survey questions are made up of a set of statements. Please
answer if you agree or disagree with each statement.
Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey about your childs reading and writing
behaviors. Your responses will be kept confidential and will be only used for this part of my
study.
4. My child sounds out individual letter sounds to help them with their writing
5. My child applies action phonics to assist them with learning their letters and sounds
6. My child shares what he/she has learned about new letters and sounds at home.
Appendix C
Directions: To assess students letter/sound knowledge, say the words listed below and
have students write the letters they hear.
Say to the child: Im going to read to you some words. After I finish reading the word,
you are going to write down the word the best you can. Some of the words may be
hard. It is okay to say them slowly and think how you can write them. Begin dictating
slowly word by word.
If student is unable to complete a word say: We will leave that one. The next word is
1. Hop
2. Rat
3. Pig
4. Web
5. Rug
Credit is given for each correctly written sound in the word. The entire word does not need to be
correctly spelled.
____/15