The development of phoneme awareness and letter knowledge: A training study of Czech preschool children
Abstrakt
This study investigated the development of phoneme awareness (PA) and of letter knowledge (LK) among Czech preschool children, in the context of a training study. The results suggest that, while both skills are amenable to direct training, phoneme awareness and letter knowledge are separately arising skills, which are additionally subject to different developmental influences.
Phoneme awareness emerged bimodally with a relatively advanced and a delayed PA group; evidence of bimodality persisted to some extent over time in all groups, whether they received PA training or not. Moreover, growth in phoneme awareness was predicted in all groups by earlier levels of phoneme awareness, but not by earlier letter knowledge.
Letter knowledge, on the other hand, seemed to emerge unimodally, and gradually shifted from a positively skewed distribution toward a normal distribution, specifically as a consequence of direct training. Growth in letter knowledge was predicted in all groups by earlier levels of letter knowledge and phoneme awareness.
In turn, training in letter knowledge promoted not only letter knowledge itself but also benefited growth in phonemic awareness.