Running Head: Non-phonetic Letter Strings

Non-phonetic Letter Strings

Rebeca Kerns
EDUC 526
Professor Jennifer Courduf
High Desert Regional Center
November 5, 2015

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Abstract
Many would argue that reading and writing are one of the most important subjects being
taught to students in the classroom. If one is performing these skills far below grade level at such
an early age, their chances of success continue to decrease the older they get. That was my
concern when I met a third grade student who was unable to write a complete sentence, and was
only capable of producing non-phonetic letter strings. In an attempt to make progress on this
issue, I turned to a computer based literacy program called Lexia Reading Core5. Through the
two month time span of my research, the student spent twenty minutes on this program a day,
Monday through Friday. He began working at a pre-kindergarten level, and by the end of the
study had completed 100% of the pre-kindergarten skills, and 46% of the first level of
kindergarten skills. His writing showed noticeable improvements, and while he is still working
on spelling, he was able to write a complete sentence. This study serves as a resource to all other
elementary aged children struggling in reading and writing who are looking to improve their
overall literacy performance.

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Section One: Introduction
Our history demonstrates the evolution of words. Looking back thousands of years ago,
people used hieroglyphics to tell their stories. As time progressed, humans gave birth to the
written language. Now, in the twenty first century, the amount of words in existence is
inconceivable compared to just centuries ago. So how is one able to pass on written information
if they are unable to follow the written language patterns? The answer is simple they cant. As
a third grade teacher, I encountered a student, Jaidan, who did not possess that skill. While
twenty other students around him were writing at least half a page of information, he was writing
half a page of random letters. In my five years working in education, I have never encountered
something like this for a child his age in a regular education classroom. I was clueless as to what
was occurring or how to even label his actions.
After conducting some research, I discovered some insight on the matter. According to
Developing Early Years Practice (Miller, 2005), Children begin to compose stories or messages
using strings of letters that have no phonetic relationship with what they are meant to say. These
are known as non-phonetic letter strings. Having a better concept of the proper terminology
allowed me to delve deeper into understanding this stage of literacy development. It was
important for me to understand around what age children are at in this stage of development, in
order to better understand how to help Jaidan progress past this point. Upon reading A
Curriculum for the Pre-School Child (Curtis, 2002), I learned that these literacy patterns
typically occur just before age five, which is at a pre-kindergarten level. Being in third grade,
Jaidan is working far below grade level.
Since writing is such a crucial aspect of being successful in education, and Jaidan is so
far behind his peers, it was evident that serious intervention was needed. At a third grade level,

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Jaidan is expected to be writing at least one paragraph, which includes a topic sentence, at least
three supporting sentences, and a conclusion sentence. However, Jaidan is struggling with
writing one word, let alone multiple sentences. Therefore, through this Action Research Report
my goal is to improve Jaidans literacy development so he may ultimately be capable of utilizing
his understanding of the relationship between letters and sounds to form words in a complete
sentence.

Section Two: Implementation

While researching, I discovered a reading program that may succeed in improving
Jaidans literacy development, Lexia Reading Core5 Intervention program. One positive review
from the article Lexia Reading Core5 (Mersand) stated that, Lexia Reading Core5 is appropriate
for PreK-5 schools that wish to increase data-driven instruction while also increasing student
achievement. In an effort to find proof that this program increases student achievement, I turned
to a study done on 10,532 California students (Schechter, PhD). The results concluded that 75%
of students who used the program frequently reached their end of the year benchmark, and 95%
of those students lowered their risk for reading failure. With a promising outcome, I began Jaidan
on his Lexia Reading Core5 journey. He would use the program for roughly 20 minutes, five
days a week. The program did an initial assessment to test what level he was performing at. He
scored in the pre-kindergarten level, which was on par with the writing sample I had collected
with him. The program used that information to have him complete various exercises at his level,
ranging from picturing stories to letter names. During this time, I would be informed if there
were any specific lessons in which I needed to plan extra instruction for Jaidan if the program
noticed he was stuck on one level for too long.

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Section Three: Results

Lexia Reading Core5 provided me
with a few different skills reports
monitoring his progress. The first chart is
an overall placement and performance
predictor. The chart below explains that

Jaidan began at the PreK Skills level at the start of this year, and since then has progressed to the
first level in Kindergarten Skills. According to this current rate of progression, it is predicted that
there is a 1% chance Jaidan will be performing at a third grade reading level by the end of the
school year.
If he continues at his current pace, the trajectories (on the left) show he may be performing at a
mid-1st grade level by the end of the school year. If so, this would be nearly two whole grade
levels of improvement.
Taking a look at the Level he has already completed, at the PreKindergarten level, Jaidan
worked on the following skills (shown in the chart below): Rhyming, Letter Matching,
Categorizing Pictures, and Nursery rhymes. He accomplished Letter Matching, Categorizing

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Pictures, and Nursery Rhymes at a pace Faster than others performing the same task, and also
had a high level of accuracy in these areas. Rhyming posed a greater struggle, however he was

still able to complete the skill at an average level with medium accuracy.

Taking a look at the level he is currently working on (shown in the chart below), which is the
first kindergarten level, it is evident he is not achieving as high as he did in the PreK area. He is
currently completing Picturing Stories at a fast pace with high accuracy. However, Spacial
Concepts, Letter Names, and Beginning sounds are being completed at an average rate compared
to others working on the same level. While he is completing the Blending & Segmenting
activities at a slower rate, he is doing it with medium accuracy. Lastly, he appears to be
struggling the most with the beginning sounds, with a low accuracy.

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While I was not surprised by his low performance levels, I was surprised by the rate he is
progressing through these levels. Since he is so far below grade level, I anticipated he would be
moving

through these skills at a much slower pace. His progression became the most evident in his
writing. Despite the fact that I have been doing more guided writing with him, there have been
very obvious improvements in such a short amount of time.
In his first writing sample (Sample A) his use of nonphonemic letter strings is very
prominent, as there are no distinguishable words. It is also evident he has no understanding of
letter and sound relationships. He appears to use the following letters repeatedly in no particular
oder: a, t, n, e, r, m, f, v, q, and p. I am unable to discern any meaning in his text.
In his second writing sample, he was given a story starter and had to complete the rest of
the story. The first obvious accomplishment is the lack of the non-phonetic letter strings. He still
appears to be struggling slightly with the spacing of words at first, but does show improvement
in the rest of the prompt. He uses very simple sentences (repeatedly starting with it), and is
able to use his limited understanding of letter sounds to aid in his forming of words. However,

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there are still many mistakes. For example, the word mouth is spelled mh, which informs me
that he is unable to discern the middle sounds in the word, and is only able to hear the beginning
sound m and cannot recognize the th sound at the end of the word is a blend of two letters.
Overall, there is a noticeable improvement compared to the first writing sample.
In the last writing sample, there is also noticeable improvement from his second writing
sample. At first glance, it is evident he has become creative with his sentences, and is trying to
work past those simple sentences. The spacing between his words has greatly improved, and
there is also a distinguishable difference in the size of his letters compared to the first writing
sample. In each of the samples his letters are getting progressively smaller. The article, Your
Childs Handwriting, states that smaller and neater writing is attributed to the development of
more motor control, which is evident in Jaidans writing (Harron). It is clear the practice he has
been receiving is helping in more ways than one.
Writing Sample A
Writing Sample B
Writing Sample C

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Writing Sample B

Writing Sample C

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Section Four: Conclusion
Based on the evidence collected above, it appears that Jaidan has made obvious progress
during the course of this Action Research. Beginning at a pre-kindergarten level, and advancing
to a kindergarten level on Lexia Reading Core5 showed growth in many areas such as letter
matching, letter names, rhyming, etc. Lexi Reading Core5 not only assisted him with his reading,
but simultaneously improved his writing as well. Based on his writing samples, there was huge
growth in multiple areas. His work with letters and sounds was noticeable as he began to form
words based on the sounds he heard. Guided writing practiced helped him with the basics in
writing conventions, such as word spacing and letter sizing. In addition, his confidence in writing
improved as he grew more comfortable with developing simple sentences into more complex
sentences. While Jaidans writing skills will continue to be a work in progress, the achievements
he has made in such a short amount of time have proven he is capable of writing complete
sentences.
Since implementing the Lexia Reading Core5 program into Jaidans daily work schedule
has proven to be beneficial to literacy skills, I will most definitely continue using it. The only
changes I would make would be to incorporate more one on one lessons. Since this was a
computer based system, he received more one on one instruction from a computer than myself.
However, while in a classroom setting it can be nearly impossible to devote twenty minutes of
each day to one child. For that reason, the rewards of utilizing this computer program was greater
than the setbacks. A quote from the Reading Rockets website summed it up perfectly,
Computer-assisted instruction improves instruction for students with disabilities because
students receive immediate feedback Computers capture the students' attention because the
programs are interactive and engage the students' spirit of competitiveness to increase their

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scores moves at the students' pace and usually does not move ahead until they have mastered
the skill. Programs provide differentiated lessons to challenge students who are at risk.

Section Five: General Comments

Overall, this action research process has been much more rewarding than I anticipated.
By far I enjoyed analyzing the results of the study the most. It was then that I was able to truly
see Jaidans progress, and how hard he has work to progress so quickly. Despite the fact that he
is still far below grade level, I am so proud of how far he has come. I am also proud of myself.
At the start of this project I felt so overwhelmed wondering how I would ever be
able to help this struggling child. The research process was definitely a struggle. Trying to
understand where he was at and how to give him the intensive intervention he needs was
challenging. However, taking the time to research his development was the only way I could
better understand where Jaidan was at and how I could help him.
From this experience, I have learned that nothing is too far out of reach. A couple months
ago, it seemed impossible that Jaidan would be writing a paragraph in the near future after
witnessing the non-phonetic letter strings in his writing. I will never forget the child who came to
me with tears running down his cheeks because he couldnt write a sentence. Now I am confident
that if I continue to work with him, and if he continues to work hard, he will shine brighter than
he ever has before. I see a new sense of pride and confidence in his attitude that was not there
before. Now, I will always remember the smile and excitement on his face when he picks up a
pencil to write. I am thankful to have had this experience, so I may forever remember the
priceless rewards of hard work and determination.

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References
Computer-Assisted Instruction and Reading. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2015, from http://
www.readingrockets.org/article/computer-assisted-instruction-and-reading
Curtis, A. (2002). A curriculum for the pre-school child learning to learn. London: Routledge.
Harron, W. (2014, March 1). Your Child's Handwriting. Retrieved October 26, 2015, from http://
kidshealth.org/parent/positive/learning/handwriting.html
Miller, L., & Cable, C. (2005). Developing early years practice (p. 203). London: David Fulton.
Schechter, PhD, R. (2014). Lexia Reading Core5 Research Report California: 20132014 Student Usage
and Gains. 2-2. Retrieved October 10, 2015, from http://lexialearning.com/uploads/pagebody/

CaliforniaStateDataAnalysis13-14.pdf

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