Phonological awareness refers to the ability of reflect about the language phonology at the several levels of words, syllables and phonemes. Phonological awareness skills at the most simpler levels foster the development of reading-spelling skills at the most elementary levels, which, in turn, foster more advanced reading-spelling skills, and so on, in a virtuous cycle. A sample of 363 first-to fourth-grade elementary school children were individually evaluated by the Phonological Awareness Test. Results showed that total scores as well as individual scores in all the ten phonological awareness skills measured increased with school level, especially from first to third levels. School grades were positively correlated with phonological awareness scores in all school levels, but with different subtests on each level. In latter levels, school grades correlated with the most difficult phonemic subtests. Such results give support to the importance of assessing specific components of phonological awareness.
Psychological assessment; Meta-language; Literacy; Phonology
