Effects of Rule-Consistent Examples in Learning Letter-Sound Correspondences

Groups of preschool children receiving either whole word instruction or letter-sound instruction were taught a vowel cluster-to-sound decoding rule, and an interaction between letter instruction and the rule-bound example treatment for the vowel transfer measure indicated a limited effect of instruction.

Abstract

Groups of preschool children receiving either whole word instruction or letter-sound instruction were taught a vowel cluster-to-sound decoding rule. Half of each group learned to recognize (read) a list of words which followed the rule while the other half learned words which contained the vowel but did not obey the rule. Those who were trained with the rule-bound list transferred the rule to a new set of words which followed the rule while those trained with the inconsistent list did not transfer the rule to the new list. An interaction between letter instruction and the rule-bound example treatment for the vowel transfer measure indicated a limited effect of instruction.