| Summary: | Phonological-awareness skills have been found to predict childrens reading skills, and phonological-awareness instruction has been found to improve their phonological awareness and reading skills. Markviss málörvun (MM) is such an instructional program, and is based on Ingvar Lundbergs theories on phonological awareness. Follow-up studies had been conducted on MM instruction in Scandinavia, Germany, and the United States but prior to this study not in Iceland. Traditionally, the MM program has been delivered as a classroom package in Grade 1. Of the 160 Icelandic preschool children who participated in this study of the effects of phonological-awareness instruction, 123 received either traditional or an adapted MM instruction. In the adapted instruction, 96 children got assignments commensurate with their skills (3 levels). Measures of their reading skills at the end of preschool were of limited value, however, because approximately 4 out of 5 children could not read at the time. Results of this study indicate that phonological awareness can be taught. Comparing the children who had received MM instruction with children who had not, revealed differences between their phonological-awareness skills in preschool and their reading skills in first grade. Indications of reduced need for remedial reading in the group that had received MM instruction were found, but further research is needed accordingly. More research on gender differences is also required because the question was raised on the basis of data obtained in this study as to whether boys might profit more than girls from MM. A comparison of the use of adapted and traditional instruction indicated that children receiving the adapted MM did better on first grade reading. Differences in language development and grapheme knowledge between the two groups, both before and after the MM intervention, were indicated. When reading skills in first grade were predicted from preschool measures, grapheme recognition was the strongest predictor, followed by language skills and age. Because phonological awareness overlaps other skills, the overall conclusions based on phonological awareness only, might imply differences where detailed empirical evidence is missing. The overall assumptions derived from this study might also have hidden valuable gender differences in the effects of phonological-awareness instruction.
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