Phonological awareness, oral language proficiency and beginning reading development among Hong Kong Chinese kindergarteners: an intervention study

Abstract

The present research investigates the causal influence of phonological awareness

and oral language proficiency on beginning reading and spelling development of

Chinese kindergarteners learning English-as-a-second-language (ESL). Three

inter-related studies using correlational and intervention design were conducted to

examine (1) the role of phonological awareness in English reading and spelling;

(2), the contribution of oral language proficiency to English reading and spelling;

(3), the efficacy of the phonological awareness instruction led by kindergarten

teachers in classroom settings, and (4) the cross-language associations of

metalinguistic skills and reading between English and Chinese.

In Study 1, 50 children from two Hong Kong ESL kindergartens were

assessed on measures of general intelligence, English and Chinese phonological

awareness, English and Chinese oral language proficiency, and English word

reading. With age and general intelligence statistically controlled, both English

oral language proficiency and English phonological awareness (phoneme

awareness) accounted for unique additional variance in English word reading.

In Study 2, the effects of phonological awareness instruction were

examined on 59 children from two local kindergartens. The phonological

awareness instruction, which taught syllable awareness and rhyme awareness, was

compared to a treated control group. The instructional programme was able to

enhance phonological awareness skills at the rhyme level but not at the syllable

level. Word reading was not significantly different between the instructional

group and the comparison group during the posttest. The results suggest that

instructional programme that solely focuses on phonological awareness skills

might not be able to enhance reading skills of Hong Kong Chinese ESL children.

Study 3 investigated the effects of a 12-week language-enriched

phonological awareness instruction on 76 Hong Kong young ESL

kindergarteners. The children were randomly assigned to receive the instruction

on phonological awareness skills embedded in vocabulary learning activities or a

comparison instruction which consisted of vocabulary learning and writing tasks

but no direct instruction in phonological awareness skills. They were tested on

oral language skills, phonological awareness at varied levels, reading, and spelling

in English before and after the program implementation. The results indicated that

children who received the phonological awareness instruction performed

significantly better than the comparison group on English word reading, spelling,

phonological awareness at all levels and expressive vocabulary on the posttest. In

addition, regression analyses on both pretest and posttest data showed that

phonological awareness (phoneme awareness) and oral language proficiency

(expressive vocabulary) are significant predictors of English reading and spelling.

Cross-language transfers of phonological awareness were found.

The present research suggests that both phonological awareness,

particularly phoneme awareness, and oral language proficiency (expressive

vocabulary) play a causal influence on English reading and spelling among

Chinese ESL children. The efficacious language-enriched phonological awareness

instruction indicates that kindergarten teachers with sufficient training and support

are able to implement instruction that aims to teach phonological awareness

directly and explicitly. The significant cross-language associations suggest that

phonological sensitivity is a common competence that children need to acquire in

learning to read two writing systems.