Phonological Awareness Development

This entry discusses Chapter 3 of Phonological Awareness by Gillon (2004), entitled Phonological Awareness Development.

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Children learning English as their second language are able to demonstrate phonological awareness skills in English after a relatively short period of study (Chiappe & Siegel, 1999), suggesting that the development of phonological awareness skills in one alphabetic language transfer to understanding phonological awareness in a second alphabetic language (pg 40).

Language experience can influence
1) performance on specific phonological awareness tasks;
2) the rate at which phonological awareness increases;
3) the use of phonological awareness knowledge in the reading and spelling process.

The researchers suggested that adequate exposure to an alphabetic scripts appears necessary for the use of phonological knowledge.

Variables Contributing to the Development of PA
1) Influence of Reading and Spelling Experiences
A reciprocal relationship exists between PA and litearcy development. Exposure to formal reading and spelling instruction seems to more fully develop phoneme awareness knowledge (Perfetti et al., 1987). Cognitive maturation alone cannot easily account for later developing competency at phoneme level.

2) Alphabet Knowledge
Learning the names of the alphabetic letters and their associated common phonemes may help children understand the sound structure of words. Studies demonstrated stronger effects on enhancing reading when PA training is combined with letter-sound knowledge training.

Personally, I think that the most important section of PA is that we make prints availabe for the students. This is related to what Krashen mentioned (as in my arlier entries). At the very basic level, it is important to introduce the sound of each alphabet to the students. I remember when I was in Year One, our tasks was to write the letters over and again, and to say it in the class. When we have finished the letters book, we would proceed to the next book- words book. Our teacher would write words in the book, and we need to copy the words like 30 times each. That was the way I learn my vocabs. Now I can say I am proud of my vocabs, though it may not covers engineering fields, or medicine, but at least I know that my vocabs are more than sufficient for my daily conversations, and to deliver my ideas across.

Regarding what Krashen mentioned in one of his writtings, we must make prints available for the students. But not just available, but interesting prints. Library should be equipped with interesting books, suitable for the students' levels. It is important to make the students interested in reading first, before we can make them read the boring History texts, or the complicated Biology notes.

How would this help in my research proposal?
As I have mentioned in my earlier entry on the revised proposal outline, phonological awareness would come in in the Literature Review. It is important to define the elements in MBI as to understand what's happening in the classroom. Are the teachers teaches all these? Or at least include parts of it? Do they take these into consideration when they plan their lessons?

Yes, I can deny that there is less connection of PA development for SBPs students, as many of them have no problem in decoding the prints, but again, how about their BICS? PA is somewhat important in ensuring the development of BICS.