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Poster P2

Friday stream 1-4 Session 09.50 - 11.10 Length 25 minutes

Teaching the subskills: blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation

Tita Beaven and John Walker

(1) The Open University (2) The Reading Centre, Buckingham M.C.Beaven@open.ac.uk

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to analyse the relationship between literacy and the teaching and learning of the three subskills of blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation as described by McGuinness (1998). The research is based on the analysis of tests carried out on children with reading difficulties (some of whom had previously been diagnosed as dyslexic) and children with no reading difficulties. The tests include sub-tests on blending, segmenting, phoneme manipulation and code knowledge, as well as standardised NFER reading tests. Preliminary findings seem to indicate that there is a strong correlation between performance in the sub-skills and reading ability. This has profound implications for both the teaching of reading at whole class level and for remedial instruction.