Children's Grasp of Phonics Terms vs. Sound-Symbol Relationships.

nature of language about language. For long vowels: "The vowel is long. " [Motioned with arms. ] "Like look. " "The vowel is long instead of short. " "When you try to sound it out. " "A word that's long. " For short vowels: "Short word. " "When it's a word, it's silent. " A number of the incorrect respons es came from second graders and show the difficulty that some children have disassociating linguistic terms from everyday concepts. This is also a problem for certain older children? the responses "A word that's long" and "A word that's short" were given by a sixth grader. No child in the fifth and sixth grades was able to verbalize the meaning of vowel digraph, even though teachers indicated that chil dren had learned this term. Only one child (fifth grader) remembered hear ing it. Similarly, when sixth graders were asked about diphthong, no one remembered hearing it before. Final -e rule and r-controlled vowel. Teachers indicated that chil dren in grades 2-6 and 3-6 had learned the final -e rule and r-con trolled vowel, respectively. Surpris ingly, however, only two out of 25 children (8%) were able to verbalize the meaning of "the final e rule" in some minimally acceptable way. "A letter and a consonant and the e makes it long. " "Like in bite. " None of the other 23 even tried. Children, however, were much more willing to define the meaning of "bossy r. " (These teachers substituted the term "bossy r" for r-controlled vowels.) Eleven students made an attempt but only 4 (20%) out of the 20 children who received such in struction were able to articulate its meaning: "Like ar, er. " "When it's in a word it makes the r sound. " "Like in fur. " Three of the four correct responses were examples rather than defini tions. On the other hand, the three incorrect responses again demon strate certain children's inability to verbalize the meaning of such lan guage rules: "I think it's the one that starts at the beginning. " "In third grade we had signs up and my teacher said it makes the other letters in the word silent. " "The r is always bossy. " Calling r-controlled vowels "bossy r" didn't seem to help these chil dren overcome the abstractness of such a rule. Irregular consonants and silent letters. Even though the sixth grade teacher indicated that her students had learned the meaning of irregular consonants, no sixth grade child even attempted a definition. However, silent letters were de fined acceptably by 15 children (60%) with at least two from each grade level. Five responses referred to the VCE-pattern. For example: "Like like? can't hear the e. " "Like an e 434 The Reading Teacher January 1980 This content downloaded from 207.46. 13.83 on Sun, 23 Oct 2016 04:57:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. org/terms are in a word. " "Like you clap your hands to find out how many syllables are in it. " "Like when the word's divided. " "Like in calendar, calis one syllable. " This last definition, an example, was given by a sixth grader. One fifth grade boy replied, "Syllable! Syllable! That's all we did last year, but I forget. " Of the three incorrect responses to syllable, two children viewed syllables in terms of words and one viewed them as letters: "A word you can clap or make a beat to it. " "Like when you have two words put together. " "Like an i, I think. " Only one sixth grader (20%) un derstood what accent means: "Like in monster, mon gets the accent. " Most of the incorrect responses referred to a foreign accent in speech. Again, students seem to be drawing upon their general knowledge of their world rather than on an under standing of phonics terms. Instruction regarding prefixes and suffixes was received by children in grades 4-6 and 5-6, respectively. The acceptable responses, however, came from fourth and fifth graders only. No responses were offered by sixth graders. Prefixes: "At the front of a word. " "The word in front like un in unusable. " "Like un in unsuccessful. " Suffixes: "At the end of a word. " "At the end of a word, like er. " "ed, er and so on. " "Like/w/ in unsuccessful. " No unacceptable responses were given for suffixes. Three were offered, though, for prefixes: "Not sure? is it a root word? ' "Like/w/ in helpful. " "Used to do last year but I forgot about it. " Here, as throughout the study, responses using examples were much more accurate and precise than those using definitions. Thirty-nine of the 47 responses based on examples were acceptable (83%), while only 31 of the 80 based on definitions were acceptable (39%). Based on the responses of children that's at the end is silent sometimes. " Four children gave examples: "Like in know, the k is silent. " "Like in laugh and write. " In the remaining six responses, children's general knowledge of what a letter is and what "silent" means might have been used to produce the definitions, rather than a specific knowledge of phonics rules: "Letters that don't say their names. " "When you can't hear them. " "Like a silent vowel. " It is interesting to note that the only two acceptable responses from second graders in the whole study dealt with silent letters? "There's an e and it's silent" and "Letters that don't say their names. " Structural analysis terms. Only three (20%) of the 15 students receiving instruction regarding the meaning of plural (grade 4-6) were able to produce an acceptable defini tion, even though they all said they had heard of it before. These three responses were: "Means es or s or something like that. " "By adding s. " "Like apple and apples. " Only one sixth grader (10%) was able to produce an acceptable definition of possessive, although at least one child at each grade level (2-6) had heard of the term. Again, possibly children related this word to its everyday use rather than to its role in linguistics. One second grader might have been referring to demon posses sion when she said, "When you possess somebody. " Even though the sixth grade teach er indicated that her students had learned the term inflectional ending and its meaning, not one response was forthcoming and only one child remembered hearing the term before. The term syllable was familiar to all but two children in grades 3-6. However, only four students from grades 4, 5 and 6 (20%) were able to provide an acceptable definition. "Like make out how many syllables TO VE Y: Children's grasp of phonics terms 435 This content downloaded from 207.46. 13.83 on Sun, 23 Oct 2016 04:57:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. org/terms