Literature Review
Typical literacy instruction in an early elementary classroom involves
the use of auditory and visual stimuli. This method has proved
successful for many children. However, the English language is one of
exceptions rather than rules, with forty-five sounds associated with
twenty-six letters. The accumulation of this sound/letter information
may be very confusing to some children. What would happen if gestures,
namely hand shapes, were added to that instruction? Would the storage of
that information become more efficient? Would the retrieval become more
accurate?
There is some evidence which suggests that gestures, used in conjunction
with typical instruction, tend to promote learning (Cook &
Goldin-Meadow, 2006). Novak, et al (2016) additionally infer that
learners are more likely to profit from instruction when it is
accompanied by gestures. Measurement of learning was done following
instruction in algebra problem-solving. Students recalled more of the
process to solve equations when instruction was accompanied with
gesture.
See the Sound/Visual Phonics (STS/VP) can be viewed as a gestural
system. Hand shapes are used to represent letter or letter combinations
within the context of a word. In addition, written symbols are used as
cuing mechanisms for spelling. We are in the process of gathering
information about the use of STS/VP as an adjunct to literacy
instruction, using both published and unpublished sources (Knox, et al,
2017).
There is, in addition, anecdotal information attesting to the veracity
of STS/VP use with a variety of children with a variety of challenges.
These include children who are hard of hearing or deaf (Trezek, Wang,
Woods, Gampp, & Paul, 2007, for example), staffed into a special
education setting (Atkinson-Cornwaite, 2012, for example), or have
communication challenges (Dyke, Gergits, Veale, Anthony, & Smitley,
2009, for example).
We were able to find several papers, combined with our own research,
which reported data gathered from the use of STS/VP with children in
regular education. Especially interesting to this project were those
studies dealing with preschool to first grade students, who were
reportedly not at risk for reading problems. The studies varied in
design, length of treatment, and use of controls. We were able to secure
both published and unpublished material.
Slauson & Carrier (1992) reported results of a randomized controlled
experiment involving forty kindergarten children. Thirty-two of the
children were categorized as being “advanced” or “typically”
developing, according to a district test. These children were randomly
assigned to either a group receiving STS/VP as part of their literacy
instruction, or to a group where this was not the case. The classroom
teacher provided literacy instruction to both groups. The
Woodcock-Johnson Revised Achievement Test was administered to all
students at the end of the school year. Analysis of the results
indicated an overall trend toward greater progress by students who were
“taught STS hand signs, with the typical students improving most.”
(Slauson & Carrier, p.3).
Haarstad (2010) was a first-grade teacher in Minnesota. She divided her
class of twenty students into three groups at the beginning of the
school year. The groups were categorized as being upper, beginning, and
nonreaders, based on her own assessment. She used a combination of daily
phonics and STS/VP throughout the first semester of the school year. At
the end of the semester she administered a posttest involving phonemic
awareness skills, letter/sound knowledge, and vocabulary. The results of
this descriptive study indicated enhanced improvement for all groups
compared to previous years when STS/VP was not used.
Marron (2010), in a correlational study, used STS/VP to augment literacy
instruction with three kindergarten students. Her program only lasted
two weeks, consisting of literacy instruction using wordless books. In
the end the children wrote the text to the books. Analysis consisted of
comparisons of pre- and posttest results from both Dibels and a CBM
probes. She did not characterize the results of these measures in terms
of STS/VP use.
Carlson and Sorensen (2010) supplemented literacy instruction with
STS/VP use with one preschool student. They used a multiple baseline
design for this single-subject study, which lasted six weeks. They
analyzed their data in terms of percent gains in sound segmentation and
sound blending skills. They concluded that the greatest gains seemed to
be in sound blending skills.
Meier, et al (2012) used retrospective data on literacy assessments done
with two groups of kindergarten students. One group was in a classroom
where the teacher did incorporate STS/VP into her literacy instruction.
The other group was in a classroom where the teacher did not use this
adjunctive instructional procedure. Data was gathered from phonemic
awareness and CBM assessments which had been administered at the
beginning and at the end of the school year. The differences were very
minimal but did trend towards the children from the STS/VP group being
at a higher reading level at the end of kindergarten compared to the
other class.
Knox & Krupke (2015) have completed a year-long, random-controlled
treatment study, comparing the single-word decoding abilities of two
randomly-assigned groups of first grade students. On group was in a
classroom where STS/VP was used. The other group did not use this
technique. Probes were devised to measure progress in the acquisition,
maintenance, and generalization of sound/letter information, using the
District-mandated spelling program. Results did indicate that the
children in the STS/VP group did have higher accuracy of correct
identification of words. This was true for the whole group, for gender,
and for literacy group enrollment. Plans are in progress for enrolling
additional subjects to this research, as well as subject these data to
statistical analyses.
The above review suggests that the addition of STS/VP to literacy
instruction may enhance that instruction. This is probably more likely
to happen during the early stages of literacy acquisition. Yet, what
would be the long-range effect of STS/VP exposure? If first grade
students could benefit from the addition of STS/VP in their classroom,
would there be any carry-over effect to second grade literacy?