A Study of the Effectiveness of Selected Syllabication Rules and Phonogram Patterns for Word Attack

Abstract

instruction and of phonogram identification as advanced decoding strategies. The study used 108 second grade pupils (who were) divided into high, average, and low readers. The subjects were distributed across syllabication, phonogram, and control treatment groups. During March, the experimental subjects received ten 25-minute lessons on the flexible application of 1 of these word analysis procedures. The small group lessons included direct instruction and practice opportunities, using both familiar and unfamiliar multiple syllable words. Analysis of covariance procedures were used to determine if pupils' post test performance on several measures differed significantly from their pretest scores. The measures were 4 subtests from the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test and 2 lists of unfamiliar stimulus words (a list of words in Context and a list of words in Isolation). The results suggested that neither syllabication instruction nor phonogram recognition strategy improved the word attack skills or the reading comprehension of the pupils tested. While the limitations of the study should be considered, the experimenter concluded that the recommendations of educators who support syllabication instruction which adheres closely to dictionary-based rules must be seriously questioned.