Abstract
Phonological awareness is part of a more general awareness of language, called metalinguistic awareness, which refers to the ability to think about the form of language as distinct from its content. A person who has metalinguistic awareness knows that talk can be broken down into utterances which follow grammatical and pragmatic rules, that utterances can be broken into words, and that words can be broken into their component sounds (Tunmer & Bowey, 1984; see Tunmer’s review in Volume 2). In Piagetian terms, metalinguistic awareness coincides with the emergence of concrete operational thinking, where the child is able to think about problems from two different perspectives.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bertelson, P. & de Gelder, B.: 1993, ‘The emergence of phonological awareness: Comparative approaches’, in I.G. Mattingly & M. Studdert-Kennedy (eds.), Modularity and the Motor Theory of Speech Perception, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale New Jersey, 393–412.
Bradley, L. & Bryant, P.E.: 1978, ‘Difficulties in auditory organisation as a possible cause of reading backwardness’, Nature 271, 746–747.
Bradley, L. & Bryant, P.E.: 1983, ‘Categorizing sounds and learning to read — A causal connection, Nature 301, 419–421.
Brady, S.A. & Shankweiler, D.P (eds.): 1991, Phonological Processes in Literacy, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale New Jersey.
Bruce, D.J.: 1964, ‘The analysis of word sounds by young children’, British Journal of Educational Psychology 34, 158–170.
Bryant, P., Bradley, L., Maclean, M. & Crossland, J.: 1989, ‘Nursery rhymes, phonological skills and reading’, Journal of Child Language 16, 407–428.
Castle, J.M., Riach, J. & Nicholson, T.: 1994, ‘Getting off to a better start in reading and spelling: The effects of phonemic awareness instruction within a whole language program’, Journal of Educational Psychology 86, 350–359.
Ehri, L.C.: 1996, ‘Researching how children learn to read: Controversies in science are not like controversies in practice’, in G.G. Brannigan (ed.), The Enlightened Educator, McGraw-Hill, New York, 179–206.
Elkonin, D.B.: 1971, ‘Development of speech’, in A.V. Zaporozhets & D.B. Elkonin (eds.), The Psychology of Preschool Children, MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 111–185.
Elkonin, D.B.: 1973, ‘USSR’, in J. Downing (ed.) Comparative Reading: Cross-National Studies of Behavior and Processes in Reading and Writing, Macmillan, New York, 551–580.
Golinkoff, R.M.: 1978 ‘Phonemic awareness skills and reading achievement’, in F.B. Murray (ed.) The Acquisition of Reading: Cognitive, Linguistic and Perceptual Prerequisites, University Park Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 23–41.
Gough, P.B., Larson, K. & Yopp, H.: 1993, The Structure of Phonemic Awareness, paper presented to the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Recife, Brazil.
Hatcher, P.: 1994, Sound Linkage: An Integrated Programme for Overcoming Reading Difficulties, Whurr, London.
Hatcher, P.J., Hulme, C. & Ellis, A.W.: 1994, ‘Ameliorating early reading failure by integrating the teaching of reading and phonological skills: The phonological linkage hypothesis’, Child Development 65,41–57.
Juel, C.: 1988, ‘Learning to read and write: A longitudinal study of 54 children from first through fourth grades’, Journal of Educational Psychology 80, 437–447.
Juel, C., Griffith, P.L. & Gough, P.B.: 1986, ‘Acquisition of literacy: A longitudinal study of children in first and second grade’, Journal of Educational Psychology 78, 243–255.
Layton, L., Deeny, K., Tall, G. & Upton, G.: 1996, ‘Researching and promoting phonological awareness in the nursery class’, Journal of Research in Reading 19, 1–13.
Leong, C.K.: 1991, ‘From phonemic awareness to phonological processing to language access in children developing reading proficiency’, in D.J. Sawyer & B.J. Fox (eds.), Phonological Awareness in Reading, Springer-Verlag, New York, 217–254.
Liberman, A.M.: 1997, ‘When theories of speech meet the real world’, Applied Psycho-linguistics.
Liberman, A.M., Cooper, F.S., Shankweiler, D.P. & Studdert-Kennedy, M.: 1967, ‘Perception of the speech code’, Psychological Review 74, 431–461.
Liberman, I., Shankweiler, D., Fischer, W.F. & Carter, B.: 1974, ‘Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child’, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 18,201–212.
Lundberg, I., Frost, J. & Petersen, O.P.: 1988,’ Effects of an extensive program for stimulating phonological awareness in preschool children’, Reading Research Quarterly 23, 267–284.
Mann, V.: 1991, ‘Phonological awareness and early reading ability: One perspective’, in DJ. Sawyer & B.J. Fox (eds.), Phonological Awareness in Reading, Springer-Verlag, New York, 191–216.
Nicholson, T.: 1997, ‘Closing the gap on reading failure: Social background, phonemic awareness and learning to read’, in B.A. Blachman (ed.), Foundations of Reading Acquisition and Dyslexia: Implications for Early Intervention, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah New Jersey.
Nicholson, T.: 1994, At the Cutting Edge: Recent Research on Learning to Read and Spell, New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Wellington.
Nicholson, T.: 1996, The Struggletown Project, unpublished manuscript, School of Education, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Read, C.: 1978, ‘Children’s awareness of language, with emphasis on sound systems’, in A. Sinclair, R.J. Jarvella & W.J. Levelt (eds.), The Child’s Conception of Language, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany, 65–82.
Sawyer, D.J. & Fox, B.J. (eds.): 1991, Phonological Awareness in Reading, Springer-Verlag, New York, 191–216.
Share, D.L.: 1995, ‘Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition’, Cognition 55, 151–218.
Stanovich, K.E.: 1986, ‘Matthew effects in reading: some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy’, Reading Research Quarterly 21, 360–407.
Tunmer, W.E. & Bowey, J.: 1984, ‘Metalinguistic awareness and reading acquisition’, in W.E. Tunmer, C. Pratt & M.L. Herriman (eds.), Metalinguistic Awareness in Children, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany, 144–168.
Turner, I., Factor, J. & Lowenstein, W.: 1978, Cinderella dressed in yella, Heinemann, Richmond, Victoria, Australia.
Zaporozhets, A.V. & Elkonin, D.B. (eds.): 1971, The Psychology of Pre-School Children, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Zhurova, L.Y.: 1973, ‘The development of analysis of words into their sounds by preschool children’, in CA. Ferguson & D.I. Slobin (eds.), Studies of Child Language Development, Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, New York, 141–154.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nicholson, T. (1997). Phonological Awareness And Learning To Read. In: Van Lier, L., Corson, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4533-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4533-6_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-4933-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-4533-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive