Running Head: social validation of services for youth with ebd

Table 1:

One way ANOVA of participant’s performance according to the grade level and variables of phonological Awareness tasks

Variable	Grade	N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Sig.
Initial sound identification	Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3	58 51 31	7.70 8.90 8.42	2.195 1.897 2.161	.019
Rhyme oddity	Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3	58 51 31	8.10 8.45 8.84	1.917 1.419 1.635	.144
Syllable deletion	Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3	58 51 31	7.03 7.88 8.58	3.392 3.083 1.727	.050
Phoneme segmentation	Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3	58 51 31	5.24 4.55 6.42	3.817 4.487 4.154	.144

In the rhyme oddity task, there were no significant differences among the means for the three grades. This may be due to the fact that rhyme tasks are considered easy and therefore mastered early (Yopp & Yopp 2000; Adams, 1990). The fact that the rhyme oddity task implemented in the present study turned out to be the easiest may be due to the fact that the final phoneme is easier to isolate than initial phoneme. In fact, in another research on Arabic phonemic awareness, it was reported that initial phonemes were harder to isolate than final phonemes (Saiegh-Haddad, 2003). In addition, Arabic students’ early exposure to Quranic texts stimulates their awareness of rhyme and alliteration. Quranic verses have a high percentage of rhyme that facilitates memorization and recitation of Quran even if one does not speak the Arabic language.

In the syllable deletion task, the mean score for students in grade three was significantly higher (mean = 8.58) than for grade one students (7.03) as seen in Table 2. This may be due to the difficulty of the task. That is, deleting a syllable and producing a new meaningful word with a different meaning from the original word requires higher language skills when dealing with the form and content of the word. Also, syllable deletion is a higher order of phonological awareness and more sophisticated than simple tasks such as rhyme or initial sound identification.