Phonemic awareness and the development of early literacy

Abstract

This thesis investigates the importance of metalinguistic and phonemic awareness to reading and spelling. Both were assumed to be interacting in the development of reading and spelling in young Maltese speaking children. A one-year longitudinal study using a sample of 176 children at the ages of four and five years was conducted. The children were seen on one occasion before they were tested for literacy. During this session, measures of phonemic awareness, standardised measures of intelligence and sentence comprehension were administered to the subjects. Children's literacy development at the end of the year was assessed through a standardised reading test in Maltese and other measures for reading comprehension and word spelling. The findings of this study hold implications for the connectionist model of reading and spelling development (Adams, 1990). The study's findings suggest that phonological awareness is important for literacy development. These findings hold implications for early intervention with young children with reading and spelling difficulties.