The Contribution of Phoneme-Grapheme Consistency and Cue Emphasis to Decoding in First-Graders.

The purposes of this study were to assess the effect of phoneme-grapheme consistency (PGC) and cue emphasis (CE) on the development of decoding skills in first graders and to determine the relationship of consistency of original lists to the recognition of new words. Subjects were 162 first graders, mean age 6.11 years and scoring above 30 on the Metropolitan Readiness Test (MRT), randomly assigned to 18 treatment groups. Original word lists and recognition new word lists were developed for both high-PGC and low-PGC words. Subjects learned one list of eight words on each of 3 consecutive days. While all subjects learned words with all the CE methods, half the groups learned consistent words, and the other half learned inconsistent words. At the end of the last session, all subjects were given the recognition new word lists to assess their ability to decode these words. It was found that (1) there were no differences in the number of words recognized by high- and low-PGC groups for the first 2 days, but by the third day the high PGC groups recognized more words; (2) subjects recognized more auditory-CE words than visual- or kinesthetic-CE words; and (3) PGC of original lists did not affect the number of words recognized. Tables, figures, and references are included. (AW)