The Development Of Implicit And Explicit Phonological Awareness Of Chinese Children Aged 4-6

Background:Phonological Awareness(PA)is the ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of language,involving working with the sounds of language at the word,syllable,and phoneme level.In terms of the amount of conscious cognitive control required to complete PA-related tasks successfully,PA is classified into two types:implicit phonological awareness(unconscious awareness of the phonological system)and explicit phonological awareness(intentional control of phonological segments).Both types of PA have been found to predict reading ability.Yet,no study have compared the developmental trajectories of implicit and explicit phonological awareness and the relative importance of them in predicting reading ability.The key aim of this study is to explore the development of the implicit and explicit phonological awareness of kindergarten children and examine which type of awareness is more important in predicting children’s reading ability.Methods:One hundred and nineteen Chinese children with 35 children from K1(first year kindergarten),42 children from K2(second year kindergarten),45 children from K3(third year kindergarten)in Xi’an were included in the study.Study 1 examined the developmental trajectories of the two types of phonological awareness abilities:implicit PA(syllable detection;rime detection;onset detection)and explicit PA(syllable deletion;rime deletion;onset deletion)across the three grades.Study 2 used phonological segmentation guidance on explicit PA tasks of rime deletion task and onset deletion task to examine if explicit PA performance of children can be improved.Study 3 further explored if implicit PA and explicit PA can predict children’s reading ability.Results:(1)Children in K1 began to develop syllable PA,no matter it is implicit or explicit(81%and 75%separately),with the performance gradually increasing to ceiling until K3.(2)Implicit awareness of rime and onset has developed well since K1(65%and 64%separately)and increased gradually and steadily across ages 4-6 years(75%and 73%in K2,79%and 75%in K3),however,explicit awareness of rime and onset performance was close to floor in K1 and K2 but developed significantly at K3 when children first received phonological coding(Pinyin)instruction to some extent(44%and 67%separately).(3)Explicit PA of rime and onset deletion performance significantly increased after phonological segmentation guidance(22%and 13%at K1,55%and 48%at K2,93%and 94%at K3).(4)Three tasks(syllable/rime/onset deletion)of explicit PA and explicit PA of rime/onset deletion tasks after phonological segmentation guidance explained variances on Chinese character recognition.Findings underscore the unique importance of explicit PA for early character acquisition in Chinese children.Conclusions:(1)Implicit PA develops earlier than explicit PA in Chinese children.(2)Implicit PA develops naturally and gradually with age increase,while explicit PA is the product of the common influence of physiology(e.g.,age)and environment(e.g.,literacy instruction)and K3 is the key period of its development.Patterns suggest different influences of age and literacy instruction for different PA levels.(3)Phonological segmentation guidance can improve the performance of Chinese children’s explicit PA.(4)Variance in Chinese character recognition was best explained by tasks of explicit syllable awareness,rime awareness and gain of rime awareness after instruction.Syllable deletion,onset deletion and gain of explicit rime awareness after phonological instruction are good predictors to children’s reading ability.