Seeing the mouth: the importance of articulatory gestures during phonics training

Substantial evidence exists suggesting that access to articulatory gestures during instruction improves students’ phonological awareness skills, but researchers have yet to explore the role of articulatory gestures in initial phonics instruction. The purpose of this study was to examine if visual access to articulatory gestures (i.e., mouth cues) of the instructor increases the acquisition and retention of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC). A secondary purpose was to examine if strategic incremental rehearsal (SIR) is an effective method for teaching GPC to preschoolers. A multiple probe across behaviors with an embedded adapted alternating treatments design was used to examine intervention effects. Results provide strong evidence of the importance of students having visual access to their teachers’ articulatory gestures during GPC training.