Ellefson, Michelle R., Rebecca Treiman & Brett Kessler. 2009. Learning to label letters by sounds or names: A comparison of England and the United States. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 102(3). 323–341. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2008.05.008

Abstract

Learning about letters is an important foundation for literacy development. Should children be taught to label letters by conventional names, such as /bi/ for ‹b›, or by sounds, such as /bə/? We queried parents and teachers, finding those in the U.S. stress letter names with young children whereas those in England begin with sounds. Looking at 5- to 7-year-old children in the two countries, we found that U.S. children were better at providing the names of letters than English children. English children outperformed U.S. children on letter-sound tasks, and differences between children in the two countries declined with age. We further found that children use the first-learned set of labels to inform the learning of the second set. As a result, English and U.S. children made different types of errors in letter-name and letter-sound tasks. The children’s invented spellings also differed in ways reflecting the labels they used for letters.

Paper

Unofficial submitted manuscript, PDF format.

APA citation:

Ellefson, M. R., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2009). Learning to label letters by sounds or names: A comparison of England and the United States. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 323–341. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2008.05.008