Phonological awareness: Implications for whole language and emergent literacy programs

This article reviews the relationship between phonological awareness and early reading. Follow-up data from a group of first-grade children who had low letter-sound knowledge (n = 38) in kindergarten are presented from a phonological awareness intervention that included three groups: 1) phonological awareness, 2) language activities, and 3) a no-intervention control group, These data indicate that although differences in phonological awareness were not maintained in first grade, the group that received the phonological awareness intervention in kindergarten performed significantly better than their first-grade peers an word recognition and reading decoding measures. The importance of integrating phonological awareness activities into classroom literacy programs, including whole language classrooms, is addressed. Attention is given to the speech-language pathologist's contribution to a classroom literacy program that might better accommodate the needs of children with language/learning disabilities.