Phonological awareness and the minimising of reading problems: a South African perspective

Abstract

In South Africa and in many other countries there is a concern that many learners in our schools do not have well developed reading abilities. Research in overseas countries has indicated that phonological awareness as a pre-reading skill influences the development of reading abilities. In order to verify overseas research, the authors undertook a research project to determine the relation between phonological awareness and reading success of a group of young learners in three primary schools. The results of the research findings verified overseas research in which a meaningful relation between preschoolers' phonological awareness and later reading success was indicated.

Keywords: phonological awareness, phonological structure of language, emergent literacy, reading abilities, reading success

Journal for Language Teaching Vol. 39(2) 2005: 210-225