Sound Linkage An Integrated Programme for Overcoming Reading Difficulties

The updated edition of this successful resource has been developed to support children with reading delays and dyslexia. It contains a phonological training programme, an explanation of how this programme can be embedded within a broader reading intervention, a standardized test of phonological awareness and a methodology to grade children’s reading books.

• This third edition has been revised throughout to include the latest developments in the field
• These resources have been used with a wide range of children and found to be suitable for use with any reading-delayed children, irrespective of cognitive ability and age
• All activities are accompanied by a set of photocopiable record sheets, a set of pictures, and an appendix of additional activities useful in helping children master a particular skill or to reinforce existing learning
• The ten sections of activities within the guide include: identification of words and syllables; identification and supply of rhyming words; identification and discrimination of phonemes; and blending, segmentation, deletion, substitution and transposition of phonemes within words.

Peter J. Hatcher was, until his retirement, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of York. He also worked as a Senior Educational Psychologist with the Cumbria Education Authority. His work in the area of understanding and helping children with reading difficulties master the skills of reading, with Charles Hulme and Andrew Ellis, culminated in their groundbreaking research (1994) that supported the Sound Linkage Hypothesis.

Fiona J. Duff is a Research Associate at the University of Oxford. She was previously a research fellow at the University of York, and during these studies, she was awarded the British Psychological Society Postgraduate Award and was seconded to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, where she authored a briefing note for parliamentarians on teaching children to read. 

Charles Hulme is Professor of Psychology at University College London. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Scientific Studies of Reading and is currently Senior Editor of the Association of Psychological Science’s flagship journal, Psychological Science. His publications include four authored and four edited books, over 180 journal articles, as well as several psychometric tests, including the United Kingdom’s new standard test of reading comprehension, the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension.

Acknowledgements x

Foreword xi

About the companion website xii

Introduction 1

Test of phonological awareness 3

Programme administration 10

Phonological training activities 10

Phonological linkage activities 12

Section 1: Identification of words as units within sentences 15

Activity 1: Introduction to the concepts of ‘beginning’, ‘middle’ and ‘end’ 16

Activity 2: Comprehension of the concepts of ‘beginning’, ‘middle’ and ‘end’ in sentences 16

Activity 3: Transferring the concepts of ‘beginning’, ‘middle’ and ‘end’ to an aural activity 17

Activity 4: Production of initial, fi nal and medial words in sentences of two to four words 18

Activity 5: Matching counters to words in sentences of two to five words 19

Section 2: Identification and manipulation of syllables 21

Activity 1: Introduction to syllabic rhythm in poems (A) 22

Activity 2: Introduction to syllabic rhythm in poems (B) 23

Activity 3: Syllable blending (two to four syllables) 24

Activity 4: Introduction to syllable segmentation 25

Activity 5: Segmentation of words into syllables (two to four) 26

Activity 6: Syllable counting in words of two to four syllables 27

Activity 7: Syllable deletion 28

Section 3: Identification and supply of rhyming words 29

Activity 1: Introduction to rhyme 30

Activity 2: Discrimination of pairs of rhyming and non-rhyming words 31

Activity 3: Supplying rhymes (A) 31

Activity 4: Supplying rhymes (B) 32

Activity 5: Supplying rhymes (C) 33

Activity 6: Rhyme supply (riddles) 35

Activity 7: Discrimination of one of three words that rhymes with a target word 36

Section 4: Identification and discrimination of phonemes 37

Activity 1: Introduction to ‘saying a word slowly’ 38

Activity 2: Picture sound association (initial sounds of words) 38

Activity 3: Word pair discrimination 39

Activity 4: Identification of initial sounds in words 40

Activity 5: Identification of final sounds in words 42

Activity 6: Identification of medial sounds in words 44

Activity 7: Discrimination of two of three words with the same initial sound 46

Activity 8: Introduction to the concept of ‘same end’ sound 47

Activity 9: Discrimination of two of three words with the same final sound 48

Activity 10: Discrimination of two of three words with the same medial sound 48

Activity 11: Discrimination of word pairs with the same initial sound 49

Activity 12: Discrimination of word pairs with the same final sound 50

Activity 13: Discrimination of word pairs with the same medial sound 51

Activity 14: Discrimination of one of three words with the same initial sound as a target word 51

Activity 15: Discrimination of one of four words with a different initial sound 52

Activity 16: Discrimination of one of three words with the same final sound as a target word 54

Activity 17: Discrimination of one of four words with a different final sound 55

Section 5: Phoneme blending 57

Activity 1: Production of words from two to four sounds 58

Activity 2: Production of words from two sounds 59

Activity 3: Production of words from three sounds 59

Activity 4: Production of words from four sounds 60

Activity 5: Production of words from fi ve sounds 61

Activity 6: Sound linkage: Blending of two sounds 62

Activity 7: Sound linkage: Blending of three sounds 63

Activity 8: Sound linkage: Blending of four sounds (initial blends) 64

Activity 9: Sound linkage: Blending of four sounds (final blends) 66

Section 6: Phoneme segmentation 69

Activity 1: Production of the initial sound of target words 70

Activity 2: Production of the final sound of target words 70

Activity 3: Production of the medial sound of target words 71

Activity 4: Introduction to the concept of breaking up a word into sounds 72

Activity 5: Introduction to segmenting a word while pushing counters into boxes 73

Activity 6: Phoneme counting with two to four counters (A) 74

Activity 7: Phoneme counting with two to four counters (B) 75

Activity 8: Segmenting words into sounds 75

Activity 9: Sound linkage: Discrimination of two of three words with the same initial ‘sound’ 76

Activity 10: Sound linkage: Discrimination of two of three words with the same final ‘sound’ 77

Activity 11: Sound linkage: Discrimination of two of three words with the same medial ‘sound’ 79

Section 7: Phoneme deletion 81

Activity 1: Introduction to the concepts of ‘missing from’ and ‘without’ 82

Activity 2: Introduction to the concepts of ‘taken away’ and ‘left’ in relation to sounds in words 83

Activity 3: Specification of the initial sound deleted from a word 85

Activity 4: Specification of the final sound deleted from a word 85

Activity 5: Specification of a medial sound that has been deleted from a word 86

Activity 6: Deletion of the initial sound of a word to produce another word (A) 87

Activity 7: Deletion of the initial sound of a word to produce another word (B) 88

Activity 8: Deletion of the fi nal sound of a word to produce another word 89

Activity 9: Deletion of the medial sound of a word to produce another word 89

Activity 10: Sound linkage: Discrimination of a word produced by deleting the initial sound from a stimulus word 90

Activity 11: Sound linkage: Discrimination of a word produced by deleting the final sound from a stimulus word 92

Section 8: Phoneme substitution 95

Activity 1: Introduction to the concept of changing the beginning item of a sequence 96

Activity 2: Revision of the concept of ‘first sound in a word’ 96

Activity 3: Changing the initial sound of a word 97

Activity 4: Phoneme substitution (initial sound) 98

Activity 5: Phoneme substitution (final sound) 98

Activity 6: Phoneme substitution (medial sound) 99

Activity 7: Sound linkage: Substitution of initial letters/phonemes in words 100

Activity 8: Sound linkage: Substitution of final letters/phonemes in words 102

Activity 9: Sound linkage: Substitution of medial letters/phonemes in words 103

Section 9: Phoneme transposition 105

Activity 1: Defining the concept of backwards (using pictures) 106

Activity 2: Defining the concept of backwards (in relation to words) 106

Activity 3: Defining the concept of backwards (in relation to sounds in words) 107

Activity 4: Reversing the sequence of sounds in a word 108

Activity 5: Introduction to spoonerisms 109

Activity 6: Spoonerisms 110

Activity 7: Sound linkage: Reversing the sequence of sounds in a word 111

Activity 8: Sound linkage: Spoonerisms 112

Section 10: Phonological linkage activities 115

Instructions 116

Establishing a link between sounds and the written form of words 116

Using letters as clues in text reading 117

Multisyllabic words and words with suffixes and prefixes 118

Playing with words 118

Sound Linkage: Theoretical background to the programme 120

Phonological awareness and learning to read 120

The Hatcher, Hulme and Ellis study 121

Evidence from subsequent studies for the effectiveness of ‘reading with phonology’ programmes 126

Using sound linkage as one component of an integrated approach to teaching reading 128

Grading children’s early reading books 132

Summary 132

Test development and standardisation 133

Appendix 1: Additional activities 142

Section 2: Identification and manipulation of syllables 142

Section 3: Identification and supply of rhyming words 142

Section 4: Identification and discrimination of phonemes 143

Section 5: Phoneme blending 144

Section 6: Phoneme segmentation 145

Section 7: Phoneme deletion 146

Section 8: Phoneme substitution 146

Section 9: Phoneme transposition 146

Appendix 2: Table of percentages (observed score / possible score) × 100 148

Appendix 3: Grading children’s early reading books 149

Sound linkage training programme: Record Sheets 156

Record Sheet A: Test of phonological awareness 156

Record Sheet B: Identification of words as units within sentences 158

Record Sheet C: Identification and manipulation of syllables 160

Record Sheet D: Identification and supply of rhyming words 162

Record Sheet E: Identification and discrimination of phonemes 164

Record Sheet F: Phoneme blending 171

Record Sheet G: Phoneme segmentation 174

Record Sheet H: Phoneme deletion 177

Record Sheet I: Phoneme substitution 180

Record Sheet J: Phoneme transposition 183

References and Bibliography 185

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