The Effect of Supporting Word Recognition in Early Literacy Instruction on Reading Accuracy and Speed

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of supporting students' word recognition during the early reading and writing instruction process, particularly at the stage of “forming syllables from letters, words from syllables, and sentences from words”, on their reading accuracy and reading speed performance. The independent variable in this study is the support provided for word recognition in early reading and writing instruction, while the dependent variables are reading accuracy and reading speed performance. The study was conducted with 13 students in the experimental group and 14 students in the control group, 27 first grade students in total, according to the non-equivalent between groups post-test design of the experimental method. An intervention was implemented in the experimental group based on the following principles: The goal of early literacy instruction should not be just to teach students to decode. Students should be prevented from becoming accustomed to reading letter by letter or syllable by syllable. Word recognition should not be considered separate from the process. Students should be encouraged to search for meaning. Morphological awareness should be supported by providing words with morphological variety. The findings for both hypotheses of the study revealed that supporting word recognition during the early reading and writing instruction process significantly increased both reading accuracy and reading speed performance, with a large effect size. These results are important for improving the quality of the current Early Literacy Phonics Instruction process and serve as a reference for different implementations.