| Young children's acquisition of literacy relies on the complex interaction and orchestration of abilities in four areas: (1) semantics, or comprehending the meaning of words, (2) pragmatics, or appreciating the social appropriateness of language, (3) syntax, or mastering the structure of language, and (4) phonology, or understanding the sound system of language (Jalongo, 2003).; In the field of speech/language pathology, there is recognition that developmental differences among children with respect to the fourth component, phonology, are often overlooked during the process of initial reading instruction. The term used to describe this influence is developmental articulation (Roesner, Pearson & Tobey, 1998). Developmental articulation refers to the physiological development of the oral muscles and the maturation sequence of speech sound development in young children (ASHA, 2001). Articulation is defined as the production of speech sounds by the stopping or constricting of the vocalized and non-vocalized breath stream by movements of the muscles in the jaw, lips, tongue, soft palate and pharynx.; The investigation compared the test scores of students trained with the developmental articulation (experimental group) approach to the test scores of these students who did not receive this training (control group) on rhyming words, onset-rime blending, matching beginning sounds, letter recognition and overall scores. The students in the experimental group received reading instruction based on the articulation development chart for speech sounds and the students in the control group received reading instruction that followed the curriculum as instructed in the teacher's manual.; The results of the t-tests indicated that there was significant difference between the control group and the experimental group for rhyming words, onset-rime blending, Difference in rhyming words, onset-rime words, matching beginning sounds, letter recognition, and total test. There was no significant difference between the control group and experimental group for matching beginning sounds, and letter recognition.; It was concluded that the reading instruction using the developmental articulation approach was effective in improving the reading achievement of Head Start students. The students in the experimental group who were instructed using the developmental articulation approach obtained significantly higher scores than did the students who received traditional reading instruction. |
