Development Of Phonological Awareness Research Articles

Promoting phonological awareness in pre-primary education: possibilities of the ‘awakening to languages’ approach

This article aims at evaluating and understanding the effects of an awakening to languages (AtL) programme, carried out with a group of 21 Portuguese children aged three to six, in the development of phonological awareness (PA). Using mixed-methods research, data was gathered from video recordings of seven AtL sessions and PA tests for an experimental and a control group. Post-test results reveal that the experimental group increased their PA significantly, whereas the phonological abilities of the control group remained unaltered. Content analysis of the sessions supported these results, indicating that the experimental group was keen to observe, manipulate, and reflect upon languages and sounds. Findings suggest that exploring and working with linguistic diversity early on may develop metalinguistic skills conducive to literacy and language learning.

Phonological Awareness: Explicit Instruction for Young Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

The goal of this study was to explore the development of spoken phonological awareness for deaf and hard-of-hearing children (DHH) with functional hearing (i.e., the ability to access spoken language through hearing). Teachers explicitly taught five preschoolers the phonological awareness skills of syllable segmentation, initial phoneme isolation, and rhyme discrimination in the context of a multifaceted emergent literacy intervention. Instruction occurred in settings where teachers used simultaneous communication or spoken language only. A multiple-baseline across skills design documented a functional relation between instruction and skill acquisition for those children who did not have the skills at baseline with one exception; one child did not meet criteria for syllable segmentation. These results were confirmed by changes on phonological awareness tests that were administered at the beginning and end of the school year. We found that DHH children who varied in primary communication mode, chronological age, and language ability all benefited from explicit instruction in phonological awareness.

Consciência fonológica e a memória de trabalho de crianças com e sem dificuldades na alfabetização

To investigate phonological awareness and working memory skills as well as their influence on the literacy process in a group of intellectually normal children. Forty intellectually normal children (7.6-8.0 years) from the second and third grades of elementary school participated. Children were organized in two groups (20 children each): one with and another without literacy difficulties. These participants underwent RAVEN's intelligence quotient test, audiometric assessment, CONFIAS test of phonological awareness, written spelling task, and working memory test. Children in the alphabetic phase presented a good development of phonological awareness, and 85% of them showed a high-performance working memory. Children in the syllabic-alphabetic phase had changes in phonological awareness, and 91.6% of them showed an average working memory performance. The subjects at pre-syllabic and syllabic phases demonstrated more difficulties in phonological awareness than those at syllabic-alphabetic and had a poor working memory performance. Between-group differences were observed for CONFIAS and working memory tests (p<0.0001). There was also a significant correlation (r=0.78, p=0.01) between the skills of phonological awareness and working memory for the total sample of individuals. Based on these results, it was found that as phonological awareness and working memory levels increased, the literacy phase also advanced, therefore showing that these are directly proportional measures.

Preschool Early Literacy Programs in Ontario Public Libraries

This paper reports on research examining how library staff in 10 Ontario libraries’ preschool literacy programs support three- and four-year-old children’s early literacy and school readiness as well as their parents’ and caregivers’ literacy interactions with their children. Multiple data sources included surveys of 82 parents/caregivers, observations of a sample of 65 of the 198 children at the sessions we visited, and interviews with10 library staff. Observations were analyzed for evidence of children’s development of print motivation, phonological awareness, vocabulary, narrative skills, and print awareness: early literacy skills and knowledge that have been shown to be reliably and significantly correlated with future reading success. Analysis of the observational and interview data showed that the programs have been very successful in fostering children’s readiness to participate in school activities and their motivation to read. Participating children learned new vocabulary, demonstrated an awareness of rhymes and sounds of language, and showed an understanding of books that were read by library staff: all early literacy behaviours that are foundational to later literacy development. The programs have also provided parents/caregivers with new ways to interact with children to engage them with books and with print at home. The development of children’s school readiness skills and parents’ awareness of how to support their children’s literacy are outcomes extending beyond library staff goals for their library programs and should be included in literature advertising the programs. Print awareness is an area of literacy development that library staff could encourage to a greater extent, however. Very few instances of such behaviour were observed, with most of the observations taking place in two of the preschool early literacy programs. Concomitantly, developing children’s print awareness is a recommended topic for professional development of library staff.

Explicit Phonological Knowledge of Educational Professionals

This study examined the phonological awareness skills of 699 education professionals and paraprofessionals working in New Zealand primary schools. Performance in a phonological awareness test was compared across speech-language pathologists (SLPs, n = 34), primary school teachers (n = 208), teacher aides (n = 49), Resource Teachers of Literacy (RTLits, n = 80), Resource Teachers of Learning and Behavior (RTLBs, n = 26), early childhood educators (ECEs, n = 51), third year College of Education students (3YRBT, n = 98), and first-year College of Education students (1YRBT, n = 153). The results indicated large variability in New Zealand educators' capacity to segment words into sounds. SLPs performed at near ceiling (98% accuracy), whereas junior school teachers performed at 74% accuracy, teacher aides at 63%, ECEs at 56%, RTLits at 89%, RTLBs at 78%, 3rd year College of Education students at 68%, and 1st year College of Education students at 55%. The data suggest professional development in phonological awareness for all the educators as well as pre service teachers and teacher aides is warranted.

Examining the Double-Deficit Hypothesis in an Orthographically Consistent Language

We examined the double-deficit hypothesis in Finnish. One hundred five Finnish children with high familial risk for dyslexia and 90 children with low family risk were followed from the age of 3½ years until Grade 3. Children's phonological awareness, rapid naming speed, text reading, and spelling were assessed. A deficit in rapid automatized naming (RAN) predicted slow reading speed across time and spelling difficulties after Grade 1. A deficit in phonological awareness predicted difficulties in spelling, but only in the familial risk sample. The effect of familial risk was significant in the development of phonological awareness, RAN, reading, and spelling. Our findings suggest that the basic premise of the double-deficit hypothesis—that RAN and phonological awareness are separable deficits with different effects on reading and spelling outcomes—holds also in a consistent orthography.

Development of Phonological Awareness and Letter Knowledge in Bosnian Preschool Children

A study was carried out on a group of 505 preschool children. The children were given tests measuring their phonological discrimination, rhyme, initial phoneme detection and letter knowledge. In general, phonological discrimination and initial phoneme tasks are easier than the rhyme task. As children increased in age, phonological awareness and letter knowledge both increased. There are differences in phonological awareness between children according to their number of letter known. Letter knowledge is associated with all phonological measures and all variables of phonological awareness were good predictors of letter knowledge.

Development of phonological awareness in English–Mandarin bilinguals: A comparison of English–L1 and Mandarin–L1 kindergarten children

Phoneme awareness is critical for literacy acquisition in English, but relatively little is known about the early development of phonological awareness in ESL (English as a second language) bilinguals when their two languages have different phonological structures. Using parallel tasks in English and Mandarin, we tracked the development of L1 (first language) and L2 (second language) syllable and phoneme awareness longitudinally in English–L1 and Mandarin–L1 prereaders (n=70, 4- and 5-year-olds) across three 6-month intervals. In English, the English–L1 children’s performance was better in phoneme awareness at all three time points, but the Mandarin–L1 children’s syllable awareness was equivalent to the English–L1 children’s syllable awareness by Time 3. In Mandarin, the English–L1 children’s phoneme awareness, but not their syllable awareness, was also significantly better than that of the Mandarin–L1 children at all three time points. Cross-lagged correlations revealed that only the English–L1 children applied their L1 syllable and phoneme awareness to their L2 (Mandarin) processing by Time 2 and that the Mandarin–L1 children seemed to require exposure to English (L2) before they developed phoneme awareness in either language. The data provide further evidence that phonological awareness is a language-general ability but that cross-language application depends on the similarity between the phonological structures of a child’s L1 and L2. Implications for classroom teaching are briefly discussed.

Grain-size units of phonological awareness among Russian first graders

This article presents the results of a study of phonological awareness development with 43 grade 1 children in Russian primary school. It is suggested that languagespecific factors, such as the complexity of syllabic structure, as well as the salience of consonant-vowel (CV) units in Russian phonology and orthography influence the course of phonological awareness development of Russian schoolchildren. The findings suggest that the special cohesion of CV units in Russian orthography promotes rapid development of explicit awareness of CV units in Russian-speaking beginning readers, while the instability of syllabic boundaries slows down the process of developing explicit syllabic awareness. The results are discussed in terms of phonological units prominent at different levels of explicitness in connection with the qualitative shift in phonological awareness brought about by the onset of literacy acquisition. Keywords: reading development; phonological awareness; language-specific phonological patterns; orthographic depth; grain-size units; Russian-speaking beginning readers

Reading Acquisition and Phonological Awareness: Beyond the Segmental Level

Problem statement: Phonological awareness is a major contributor to reading development. While the literature has primarily focused on the segmental aspect of phonology, suprasegmental information, namely prosody, has been largely underexplored in comparison. Approach: This review focuses on recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies on the development of prosody sensitivity during early childhood and the influence of prosody on reading processes. Results: Overall, the literature highlights the importance of prosodic information, not only during reading acquisition in children, but also during silent reading in skilled readers. This contribution is independent of segmental phonology, but may influence the development of phonological awareness. Conclusion: The current findings open the door to the development of new reading assessment tools that can allow determining whether pre-literacy students are at risk for reading development difficulties.

The relationship between prosodic perception, phonological awareness and vocabulary in emergent literacy

Studies have begun to focus on what skills contribute to the development of phonological awareness, an important predictor of reading attainment. One of these skills is the perception of prosody, which is the rhythm, tempo and stress of a language. To examine whether prosodic perception contributes to phonological awareness prior to reading tuition, we assessed 49 prereaders. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we found that measures of prosodic perception and phonological awareness loaded onto separate factors. Our regression analyses revealed that prosodic perception accounted for significant variance after partialling out definitional vocabulary and memory for digits, but not after accounting for receptive vocabulary. Based on the independence of prosodic perception from definitional vocabulary, we concluded that prosodic perception contributes to the development of phonological awareness indirectly through receptive vocabulary, by improving speech‐processing skills, but independently of semantic knowledge. Further studies should examine the role of prosody in children at risk of later reading difficulties.

A follow-up study on word and non-word reading skills in Down syndrome

The current study was designed to trace changes in the relationship between non-word reading and irregular word reading on the one hand, and between phonological awareness and non-word reading on the other, through a follow-up study of a group of individuals with Down syndrome. Twelve individuals with Down syndrome, whose data were originally reported in Roch and Jarrold (2008), were seen four years later, and were given the same tasks as in the previous study evaluating phonological awareness, non-word reading and irregular word reading. After four years, an improvement was observed in all the skills of interest. Furthermore, the pattern of relationships among the three skills was observed to change considerably across the four year period. At the first time point, a weak association between non-word and irregular word reading was found, but there was a strong association between these two measures at the second time point. In contrast, a strong relationship was found at Time 1 between non-word reading and phonological awareness, which became weaker at Time 2. Longitudinal associations between the three skills were also examined in order to explain this changing pattern of associations. The results indicated that the ability to decode non-words plays a marginal role on later irregular word reading. In contrast, irregular word reading is a longitudinal predictor of later non-word reading. Phonological awareness was not longitudinally related to non-word reading. The results indicate that developing word knowledge can facilitate later non-word reading in Down syndrome, perhaps by a process of reading by visual analogy to known lexical items.Learning outcomes: Readers will be able to (a) explain the development of word reading, non-word reading and phonological awareness in Down syndrome; (b) explain the longitudinal changes in the relationships among the three skills; (c) explain the relevance for education of the influence of word reading for the improvement in non-word reading.

The relationship between speech impairment, phonological awareness and early literacy development

Although children with speech impairment are at increased risk for impaired literacy, many learn to read and spell without difficulty. Around half the children with speech impairment have delayed acquisition, making errors typical of a normally developing younger child (e.g. reducing consonant clusters so that spoon is pronounced as ‘poon’). A smaller group make disordered speech errors that are atypical of normal development (e.g. marking all consonant clusters with /f/ so bread is pronounced as ‘fed’). Profiles of surface speech errors may provide a way of identifying underlying deficits that account for differences in literacy development. This paper investigates the relationship between type of speech impairment, phonological awareness and literacy acquisition. Thirteen children, aged 5;2–7;9, with either delayed or disordered speech and six typically developing controls were compared on tasks measuring onset-rime awareness, letter knowledge, phonological rule knowledge, real and non-word reading. Children with delayed speech development performed like typically developing controls on all phonological awareness and reading measures. Children with speech disorder, who consistently made errors atypical of normal development, had difficulties on all phonological awareness tasks with the exception of syllable awareness. They showed no measurable emergent reading ability. The results suggest the need to differentiate between speech delay and disorder when planning intervention, particularly for literacy skills.

Development of Phonological Awareness in Korean Children Aged between 4-7 throughout Korea

Development of Phonological Awareness in Korean Children Aged between 4-7 throughout Korea

Morphological Awareness, Phonological Awareness, and Literacy Development in Korean and English: A 2-Year Longitudinal Study

Eighty-one Korean children were tested once a year across Grades 4, 5, and 6 on Korean phonological and morphological awareness, speeded-naming, Hangul word recognition, Hangul spelling, and English word reading. With age, gender, and Korean vocabulary knowledge statistically controlled, both phonological awareness and speeded-naming were uniquely associated with Korean spelling and English reading; this phonological awareness link was stronger for older children than younger ones. In contrast, the only unique predictor of Hangul reading was morphological awareness; morphological awareness also significantly predicted Hangul spelling but not English reading. Of interest, morphological awareness was more strongly associated with Korean literacy skills for younger as compared to older children. Girls outperformed boys on both Hangul measures, but the groups did not differ on English reading. Results support the idea of phonological transfer to reading in a second language and underscore the importance of morphological compounding awareness for early literacy development in Korean.

Aprendizaje de La Lectura y Conciencia Fonológica: Un Enfoque Psicolingüístico del Proceso de Alfacetización Inicial

The aim of the present article is to identify and describe the level of development of phonological awareness in children who study the first year of Elementary Education, by means of oddity tasks, synthesis and analysis of phonemes, sensibility to rhyme and knowledge of the letters of the alphabet. Also, it was described the level of reading achievements that the children attain in reading of words and it was evaluated the degree of existent association between the degree of development of phonological awareness, level of reading development, non verbal intelligence and the level of maternal education at the end of the first year of education. The central hypothesis of our investigation postulated that the children that have achieved a minimum development in phonological awareness, would have a superior performance in reading, at the end of the first year of general elementary education. The results of this investigation tend to make us think that the relationship between reading and phonological awareness is more complex of what some investigators assume and that it could not be treated simply like cause or consequence, but rather should be considered as an interactive process where both interact constantly.

Brain Basis of Phonological Awareness for Spoken Language in Children and Its Disruption in Dyslexia

Phonological awareness, knowledge that speech is composed of syllables and phonemes, is critical for learning to read. Phonological awareness precedes and predicts successful transition from language to literacy, and weakness in phonological awareness is a leading cause of dyslexia, but the brain basis of phonological awareness for spoken language in children is unknown. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of phonological awareness using an auditory word-rhyming task in children who were typical readers or who had dyslexia (ages 7-13) and a younger group of kindergarteners (ages 5-6). Typically developing children, but not children with dyslexia, recruited left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) when making explicit phonological judgments. Kindergarteners, who were matched to the older children with dyslexia on standardized tests of phonological awareness, also recruited left DLPFC. Left DLPFC may play a critical role in the development of phonological awareness for spoken language critical for reading and in the etiology of dyslexia.

Singaporean kindergartners' phonological awareness and English writing skills

This article describes the phonological awareness and English writing skills among a sample of 297 Singaporean kindergarten children, stratified by ethnicity (Chinese, Malay, and Indian), and examines the relationship between oral language and writing skills in this multilingual population. Overall, Singaporean kindergartners, nearly all of whom were bilingual, scored higher on English writing but lower on English oral language skills than U.S. norms. Despite literacy instruction that emphasized whole-word memorization, phonological awareness statistically significantly predicted English writing scores, controlling for English vocabulary, ethnicity, sex, and an interaction between English vocabulary and sex. The current study's findings highlight the possibility of developing high literacy skills among bilingual learners with low oral language skills. In addition, the study demonstrates children's development of phonological awareness in the absence of phonological awareness or phonics instruction and supports the theory that both alphabetic (phonological) processes and logographic (whole-word) processes contribute to successful English literacy achievement.

Enhancing Phonological Patterns of Young Children With Highly Unintelligible Speech

Enhancing Phonological Patterns of Young Children With Highly Unintelligible Speech

Niveles de dificultad de la conciencia fonológica y aprendizaje lector

Although there is a relationship between phonological awareness and reading, the reasons for this relationship are controversial. Phonological knowledge is a necessary skill for learning to read, but the process of learning to read can facilitate the development of this knowledge. Previous studies have provided training in phonological awareness, but few have evaluated the development of phonological awareness in students with no previous training in reading. The main aims of this study were (1) to analyze levels of difficulty in phonological awareness in relation to the identification, addition and omission of syllables and phonemes, and (2) to identify differences in phonological awareness as a function of reading development. A total of 299 preschool and first-grade students, aged between 5.6 and 7.6 years (52.6% boys and 47.4% girls), from distinct public schools were assessed by the Phonological Awareness Assessment Test. Participants were distributed in three different groups according to their reading skills. The results showed significant differences in phonological awareness as a function of reading development among the groups when syllabic and phonemic phonological knowledge were assessed. Approximately 18% of participants (53 students) were identified as having learning difficulties (55% boys and 45% girls). These results suggest the advisability of implementing intervention programs when reading problems are related to phonological knowledge. The sequence of phonological development identified allows us to design tasks with different levels of difficulty in order to train students with learning problems in reading.