PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS, RHYME AND LEARNING TO READ

• Main Author: Roazzi, Antonio
• Publication Date: 2012
• Other Authors: Dowker, Ann
• Format: Article
• Language: por
• Source: Psicologia (Universidade de Brasília. Online)
• Download full: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/revistaptp/article/view/17058

The main topic discussed in this article concems the cotroversyin recent years about the extent to which children possess phonologicalawareness and the extent and direction of causal links betweenphonological awareness and literacy. Thus, in the first part of this articlewe discuss phonological awareness and its relationship to the use ofrhyme and alliteration in children's poems. Then, we discuss the controversyabout the cause-effect relationship between phonological awarenessand learning to read. Although there is no controversy about itsexistence, there is a lot of disagreement as to the direction of this relationship,i.e. what is cause and what is effect. On the basis of the literatureanalyzed it is concluded that: (1) Rhyming and alliteration exist prior toreading and can help to develop it, however not necessarily in the sameway as explicit segmentation ability does. (2) Explicit segmentation abilitycan precede reading. It may not be as common at a very early stage asrhyme and alliteration. There are also other activities which involve focusingon the sounds of language (e.g. composing poetry). Rhyme and alliterationmay help the child to become more interested in language in general(not just in the way it sounds), and this may also be important for reading.(3) In order to better comprehend the relationship between readingand phonological awareness, it is necessary to regard phonological awarenessnot as a single, unitary and organized construct but as a generalcognitive ability, composed of a complex combination of different abilities,each one with its own particular features. (4) The combination of longitudinaldata and the results of various interventions (e.g. training studies) mayprovide greater insight into the problem.