Beginning Readers Have No Prior Experience with Sound Segmentation

Abstract

This article reviews the research literature regarding the overpowering impact of the interactive whiteboard on improving EFL beginning readers’ phonemic segmentation skill. EFL beginning readers must be exposed to phonemic awareness from the very beginning of their education in order to gain the required foundation needed to become better readers. Teachers of beginning readers should use different methods in order to help students become phonemically aware. In order to support EFL beginning readers in becoming phonemically aware, one of the recent educational trends is to use technology inside classroom. It is obvious that literature support the technology of integrating the interactive whiteboard as an instructional tool and its leading role in enhancing the educational process.  It can also motivate and boost student engagement. Although there has been a growing body of research that shows a general positive relationship between instructional technology and reading achievement since the last two decades, there is little research about integrating interactive whiteboard as an instructional tool into the EFL classrooms to help students develop their phonemic segmentation skill.

Keywords: Phonemic awareness, Phoneme segmentation, Interactive whiteboard (IWB), EFL                        beginning readers.