The Effects of Phonemic Awareness on Developing Pupils' Reading Performance: A Case Study

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the effectiveness of phonemic awareness(i.e. the ability to hear, identify and manipulate sounds in both spoken and written words) on developing the elementary school pupils' level in reading words and short texts. The researcher selected 40 pupils, from AL Aqsa School, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and they were arranged into two groups, an experimental group and a control group. In order to assess the effectiveness of the phonemic awareness program, the pre-test and post test were assessed prior to conducting the experiment. From the previous collected data and by comparing the performance of the pupils in the pre-test and post-test this study has concluded that there is a statistical difference in favor of the experimental group in the post-test. According to what the results of pupils have shown in the post-test, the researcher has arrived at the following conclusions:

• The phonemic awareness training helped the pupils learn the phonemic values in a better way. • Training on letters-sounds correspondences developed phonemic awareness skills of the pupils. • Teaching phonemic awareness has remarkably helped in developing the pupils' ability to read words and short texts. • Teaching phonemic awareness has helped in increasing the pupils' motivation towards learning to read through the easy and playful presentation of the lessons that suited the age range. • The experiment has proved that phonemic awareness does not come naturally without direct training and instructions. The findings of the analysis and comparison of the pre-test and post-test data have come to confirm the three hypotheses of the study. The results have shown that there is a close relation between a pupil's control over sounds and his reading ability. These findings have indicated clearly that phonemic awareness training forms the foundation for learning to read words. By confirming the first hypothesis and the second one, the study has come to confirm the third hypothesis that children who receive training in PA can outperform children who do not receive such training in the ability to read words and short texts.