The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effect of explicit phonemic awareness training on phoneme blending skills in second-grade bilingual children presenting with decoding difficulties. The research design was a single-subject, A-B-A design, and it included a combination of face-to-face and virtual sessions. The virtual portion of the study was conducted as a result of government-mandated school closure due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Participants were determined eligible after pre-testing was performed, and inclusion criteria were taken under consideration. The intervention or B phase was initiated simultaneously to the three participants, followed by a withdrawal phase. Explicit phoneme blending training consisted of manipulation of magnetic color tiles that provided visual, auditory, and tactile stimulation to blends sounds into words. All three participants completed the study. An observable increase in phoneme blending skills after explicit training implementation was observed for all three participants, in accordance with the two-band standard deviation method (Portney & Watkins, 2014). Participants also showed improvement in decoding skills during post-testing activities as tested with the Acadience Oral Reading Fluency Assessment (Dynamic Assessment Group; 2011). Study procedures, limitations, and recommendations for future research are further discussed.
Keywords: phonemic awareness, phoneme blending skills, explicit phonemic awareness training, decoding
