Abstract
In this chapter, the evolution of the thoery and research in the area of phonemic awareness in reading in the last two decades is first discussed. Several related disciplines or sources of converging influences are the early work of Elkonin (1963,1973); contributions from speech perception, especially in relating phonology to reading; work in psycholinguistics, particularly generative phonology; and the cognitive componential perspective. In the broader aspect of phonological processing, some interrelated issues are seen as important. Different groups of researchers agree that phonemic awareness is necessary for early reading. Detailed task analysis is needed, however, as well as further refinement of the “units of perception” in relating speech to print. Although evidence shows that phonemic awareness presages reading, “causality” can only be inferred. Stringent methodology and modeling of the reading process are needed to tease out the direction and strength of the interactive effects. The claim that phonemic awareness develops only in learning to read and write an alphabetic language still must be empirically validated. Evidence thus far suggests that the alphabet transcribes the phoneme; the Japanese syllabary, the mora (approximation to the syllable); and the Chinese language, the morpheme. The broader aspect of phonological processing is also important in reading by older children, but the interactive effects of morphological processing of internal word structure and sentence comprehension are just as important.
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Leong, C.K. (1991). From Phonemic Awareness to Phonological Processing to Language Access in Children Developing Reading Proficiency. In: Sawyer, D.J., Fox, B.J. (eds) Phonological Awareness in Reading. Springer Series in Language and Communication, vol 28. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3010-6_8
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