Phonological awareness

The term phonological awareness refers to the art educational psychology and general reading research a particular form of language awareness and provides the major portion of the so-called " phonological information processing" He dar. refers to the ability, linguistic in receiving, processing, retrieval and storage of information knowledge about the phonetic structure of the language to use ( Wagner / Torgesen 1987). Children have to solve this by the semantic content of language and realize that sets of words, words of syllables and syllables of sounds constructed that some words are longer and others shorter. The point is to capture what is the first sound of a word, how it ends, and that some words rhyme.

There are two main aspects: to phonological awareness in the broader sense includes the ability to break down words into syllables and syllables put together to form a word. Phonological Awareness in the narrower sense, however, refers to the ability to recognize initial sounds to make sounds of a word or to break a word into its sounds.

Importance in the early detection

The enrollment of a child is in terms of acquisition of written language is not the " zero hour" dar. Instead builds on the learning of reading and writing of precursor skills that are at the beginning of the first class differently pronounced in the children. The phonological information processing and especially the phonological awareness is of particular importance. The ability to analyze the sound structure of words and, if necessary, to be able to manipulate, is significantly promoted by school education. But it plays a huge role already in school enrollment. Children who are in this area towards the end of kindergarten problems, also run the risk of developing reading and spelling difficulties. The phonological awareness is the most important Einzelprädiktor ( = characteristic with predictive power ) of reading development ( Elbro 1996) and it was a close connection between it and the spell power be demonstrated (Schneider / Näslund 1999; Elbro 1996; Wagner / Torgesen 1987). About 2 /3 of the children who develop reading and spelling disorder later can already in preschool or at the time of enrollment identified by weaknesses in phonological awareness ( Barth / Gomm 2004; Jansen, among others 1999). For this reason, the early diagnosis of problems in the area of ​​phonological awareness by many researchers have been assigned a special role for prevention. A number of recent studies, however, puts the diagnostic and prognostic power of tests for phonological awareness - as well as the necessity or effectiveness of its promotion before the beginning of instruction in reading and writing (see summaries in Brügelmann 2005/2009, Rackwitz 2008 and 2011 and Valtin, 2010. )

Diagnostics

There are several tests for the detection of phonological awareness at the beginning of schooling, of which the Bielefeld Screening ( BISC Jansen, inter alia, 1999) certainly is the most famous. The BISC is a single test ( it is carried out with only one child at the same time) and takes about 30 minutes to complete. Since 2004 is also the " group test for early detection of reading and spelling difficulties " are available which can be carried out in small groups of a maximum of 10 to 12 children ( Barth / Gomm 2004). The test contains six sections, rhyme recognition, syllable segmentation, Anlautanalyse, sound synthesis, detection of word length and identification of Endlautes. The processing time is 45 (kindergarten ) or 60 minutes ( school entry phase ). In the test manual to cut-off criteria, see ( thresholds ) must be from when starting from a risk for reading and spelling difficulties. Using the group tests 84.7 % of children were correctly classified in the test evaluation. The sensitivity was 63 %, a specificity of 87.1 %, ie 63% of the later subjects and 87.1 % of the children later non- affected were correctly identified as such. The majority of children at risk can thus receive timely and specific support measures, and the misclassified as risk children unchallenged children suffer due to the additional support measures certainly do no harm. However, since not all children at risk are identified, the teacher should still remain vigilant in Erstleseunterricht.

Besides the two mentioned methods, there are a number of other screenings for preschool and elementary school:

Prevention opportunities before and at the beginning of reading acquisition

Back in the 80s a preschool training program was developed in Sweden, whose efficacy has been scientifically proven ( Lundberg, among others 1988). Children who participated in this training program, had the later acquisition of written language distinct advantages. This program was created by Küspert and Schneider (2003, 4th edition ) under the name " Listen, listen, learn " on the German-speaking adapted and tested its effectiveness in a number of longitudinal studies. Children who had been classified as risk preschool children on the basis of the Bielefeld screening ( Jansen et a 1999), achieved after going through the training and the adjoining school literacy learning in reading and spelling almost identical results as the non - subsidized children their unselected control group. It was thus possible to largely offset by training in the last half of kindergarten hazards ( Küspert 1998). But not only risk children benefit from this training program. Even with normal gifted children, there was a significant facilitation of reading acquisition and in significant increases in performance in reading and writing ( Schneider et al 1998). The program is designed for a period of 20 weeks and includes six sections ( eavesdropping games, rhymes, phrases and words, syllables, and phonemes initial sounds ) with a total of 57 training sessions. For each day two practice sessions of five minutes are provided. The order of the exercises is given and the tasks are graded in order of increasing difficulty. The optimal application period is the last half of kindergarten and school enrollment phase. The application is straightforward and can be performed after a short training period, for example, of teachers. In addition to the exemplary theoretical foundation and the proven effectiveness of the program is particularly the child proper implementation and ease of use to highlight ( Souvignier 2003). However, other studies show that alternative programs do not fare worse - and the variation within the programs is very large (see Brügelmann about Franzkowiak 2008 Lenel 2005, Rackwitz 2008 and the overview by Hans Brügelmann 2005/2009 ).

Bibliography

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