Pedagogy

Alphabet knowledge, which pertains to the familiarity of children to letter forms, names and letter sounds, is one of the most essential skills that must be mastered by young students in order for them to obtain maximum learning potential and be able to comprehend the complex academic and practical life lessons in the future. Various scientific studies have concluded that the acquisition of such kind of property is significantly correlated to the subsequent reading and spelling capabilities of the child. Pre-school and kindergarten students are the most affected population of the aforementioned literacy. Unfortunately, little is known about the effects of early instruction style to the efficiency of alphabet knowledge learning and literacy outcome in the future. To address this, the purpose of this study is to search relevant databases to investigate the relationship of learning instruction method to alphabet knowledge. Results showed that the manner by which teachers and parents instruct children is related on the literacy skill that will be manifested by the child. Furthermore, a meta-analysis method is effective but is not free of associated research biases. Hence, discussions and recommendations to improve the study are given by the researchers.

Summary
The purpose of this study is to conduct analyze the research literature from relevant databases regarding the effects of alphabet instruction method on acquired alphabet knowledge of the children and academic outcome (Piasta  Wagner, 2010).  To accomplish their goal, the researchers employed a meta-analysis in their study which involved the expansion of the National Early Learning Panels study of factors that influence literacy skills. Meta-analysis is the research design that was utilized in the study which is characterized by the extensive literature search of journals, dissertations and other scholarly publications from the databases of ERIC, Dissertation Abstracts International and ProQuest (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). These databases were searched using the keywords alphabet, letter, knowledge, sound knowledge, letter-sound correspondence and many others (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). By analysis, it can be said that this kind of data gathering procedure makes use of participants or samples which are  scientific studies in nature that are trimmed down through the usage of specific keywords. Since this is a meta-analysis, the direct data collection procedure employed was the multi-step literature search that yielded to 63 studies that met all the necessary criteria specified by the researchers (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). The 63 gathered studies were statistically treated using computations for effect sizes, random effect analyses, confidence of intervals, and file drawer statistics (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). Effect size was computed using Hedges formula as shown below

No ANOVA or ANCOVA statistical data analyses were used in the study (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). The kind of interventions employed in the gathered studies involved multiple instructional components along with phonological training, exercises on oral language, writing and printing, decoding and word identification, and the utilization of books (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). Results showed that the manner of instructions significantly influences the childrens alphabet learning as characterized by letter name knowledge, letter sound knowledge, and letter writing outcomes (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). Furthermore, multi-componential instruction method which provided literacy interventions, phonological instructions and other alphabet-related methods resulted to more favorable academic results to children as compared to pure alphabet instruction and this is because of the fact that a multi-componential approach was more likely to capture the interest and retention of the young students (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). In general, this study showed that school-based instruction is more effective that home-based instruction and that group learning yielded more positive effects that individual tutoring. Hence, it is important for parents and schools officials to seriously engage children to alphabet knowledge to become the basis of their literacy framework.  

Analysis
 The limitations and future directions section of this study was able to discuss the opportunities for future research that can be employed in connection to this study (Piasta  Wagner, 2010). However, the researchers were not able to mention the chance of conducting future studies that will focus more on the effects of independent letter sound instruction and phonology instruction. Although the paper was able to recommend studies that will investigate moderatos analyses biases and alphabet knowledge instructions (Piasta  Wagner, 2010), the need for studies that will explore on the independent effects of letter knowledge and teacher attitude is equally important. Aside from this, threats to validity that were not thoroughly discussed in the study is characterized by the reliability of the keywords that were used in the trimming down process. The researchers focused more on the effect analyses computations and they have allotted small time on the discussion of the nature of the search terms that were used, an event that is very important in a meta-analysis.

Moreover, the previously mentioned issue also describes the original criticism that can be given to this study. It is a recognized fact that the most critical part of a meta-analysis is the efficiency of the trimming down process because this may result to the inclusion of not highly related studies or exclusion of the significant research because of the ineffective trimming down process or inaccurate research criteria. Lastly, the findings of this study are of great use for educational institutions that they may recognize the importance of alphabet knowledge to a childs learning process. The utilization of the findings of this study will benefit academic institutions in the formulation of innovative learning instruction models that will help facilitate the learning process of children. In general, studies that focus on the dimension of child learning are essential in the enhancement of the educational quality of todays generation and the future as well.