The development of phonological awareness in children at an English-medium school: a cross-sectional study

The importance of phonological awareness in learning to read has been the focus of much research. Poor phonological awareness has been related to poor reading, and thus also has implications for the child's general knowledge and vocabulary. The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental sequence of phonological awareness in children attending an English-medium school. It was hypothesised that phonological awareness would develop in a fixed order, starting with syllable awareness, progressing to onset and rime awareness and finally to phoneme awareness. The results suggest that the introduction of reading training influences the development of phonological awareness. It seems that certain aspects of phonological awareness such as syllable manipulation and onset and rime detection may be acquired spontaneously, but the manipulation of phonemic units is linked to the acquisition of literacy.