Rhythmic rhymes for boosting phonological awareness in socially disadvantaged children

This study evaluated the ability for two rhythmic rhyming programs to raise phonological awareness in the early literacy classroom. Year 1s (5-6 year olds) from low socio-economic status schools in Bedfordshire, learned a program of sung or spoken rhythmic rhymes, or acted as controls. The project ran with two independent cohorts (Cohort 1 N= 98, Cohort 2 N= 136). Gains from pre to post tests of phonological awareness (Rhyme Detection, Rhyme Production and Phoneme Deletion), were statistically significant with the exception of Rhyme Detection in the Spoken group (Cohort 1) and Rhyme Production in the Sung group (Cohort 2). The Spoken program achieved medium and large effect sizes for Cohort 1 on measures of rhyming awareness (although the effect size was small for Cohort 2). Comparatively, the Sung program was associated with smaller effects (small, negligible or with a small positive effect for controls) across tasks and cohorts.