VASSILIOS KOTOULAS

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS THROUGHOUT THE SCHOOL YEARS: THE CASE OF A TRANSPARENT ORTHOGRAPHY

ABSTRACT. This article discusses phonological awareness, reading decoding and spelling of 280 Greek elementary school students of all grades, with and without reading diculties. Phonological awareness was assessed by using ten oral activities. Decoding was assessed for accuracy and uency by using 80 real words and 20 non-words. Spelling was also assessed by using two dierent scoring methods. We explored dierences in performance and developmental images between children with and without reading diculties. The results revealed that the level of written language manipulation as well as of phonological awareness of children with reading diculties was signicantly lower than that of their peers without reading diculties. This trend was recorded for all primary school grades. The dierences were not eliminated despite the transition from grade to grade. Results pertaining to the development of phonological awareness are discussed in light of the transparent orthography of Greek language. KEY WORDS: dyslexia, Greek language, phonemes, phonological awareness, reading and spelling diculties, transparent orthography

1. INTRODUCTION Written language is directly related to oral language since the latter is transferred and reproduced through it. Therefore, to learn the structure of the written language presupposes awareness that is, consciousness of the structures of oral language. By phonological awareness we mean the awareness of the phonological segments in speech the segments that are more or less represented by an alphabetic orthography (Blachman, 2000: 483). Greek language orthography as all other European languages is alphabetic based on the alphabetic concept that every grapheme represents a phoneme. A phoneme includes the minimum speech unit, which although it has no meaning of its own, dierentiates the meaning of words. The role of the phonemes in learning how to read and write in an alphabetic system is critical because the graphemes represent phonemes. Hence, learning how to read and write in an alphabetic system requires specic understanding of the phonemes.
L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature 4: 183201, 2004. 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Greek orthography could be characterized as more phonetic and transparent than other alphabetical orthographies such as English or French, since in most cases, each grapheme represents one phoneme. This transparency does not always apply some phonemes are represented by more than one grapheme. These orthographic inconsistencies are covered by spelling rules. Consequently, knowing the spelling rules can overcome these inconsistencies. It has been argued that the more transparent the orthography of a language, the easier and more quickly students can create orthographic representations based on the phoneme level (Goswami, 1997). Yet, studies on various languages with transparent orthographies suggest a relationship between lack of phonological awareness and reading diculties of elementary school students (De Gelder & Vrooman, 1991; Porpodas, 1999; Wimmer, 1993). Several studies indicate that phonological awareness comprises a powerful element in predicting reading diculties (Vellutino, 1991; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987; Wagner, Torgesen & Rachotte, 1994). Some studies characterize phonological awareness as the strongest predictor for the reading performance, and consequently, for indications of reading diculties (Liberman & Shankweiler, 1985, 1991; Share, Jorm, Maclean & Matthews, 1984; Stanovich, 1988, 2000; Stanovich & Siegel, 1994). These results led to The Orton Society Research Committee denition of dyslexia (Lyon, 1995). That is, Dyslexia is one of several distinct learning disabilities. It is a specic language-based disorder of constitutional origin characterized by diculties in single word decoding, usually reecting insucient phonological processing (Lyon, 1995: 9). Various views on the nature of phonological awareness exist. Gough proposed: An early hypothesis was that it was elemental, an insight that the child could acquire suddenly (1996: 14). Later, it was characterized as ability, a skill, which the child develops over a period of years (Liberman & Shankweiler, 1985: 10) during schooling. Liberman, Shankweiler and Liberman (1989) emphasize that such awareness is not an automatic consequence of speaking a language because the biological specialization for speech manages the production and perception of these structures below the level of consciousness (p. 1). Studies focusing on the developmental nature of phonological awareness seem to suggest a preference to a multileveled approach. Children initially acquire the manipulation of syllables, then the onset and rhyme, and nally, phoneme manipulation. This can result from a gradual development of written language since the alphabetic orthographies are based on phonological and especially phonemic analysis of words. Although the logic of a gradual attainment is clear, particular methodologies inuence the ndings of these studies; for instance, in the case of appropriate samples for specic

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ages of children and the use of specic activities for the evaluation of the level of phonological awareness. A Greek body of research on phonological awareness can be grouped into two methodological categories. The rst concerns the study of phonological awareness as a cognitive skill, and focuses on the nature and the internal structure of phonological awareness as well as other factors that aect phonological awareness. Such studies use oral protocols and tests to evaluate the elements that aect the skill. The second category examines the relationship between phonological awareness and the acquisition of the ability of how to read and spell and tests both phonological awareness and manipulation of written language, employing paper and pencil tests (e.g., reading decoding, spelling). The rst methodological category of research proved that the manipulation of syllables is very easy for Greek kindergarten and entry-school aged children to accomplish, even without specic teaching, while, it is harder for them to manipulate phonemes (Padeliadu, Kotoulas & Botsas, 1998; Padeliadu, 2001; Papoulia-Tzelepi, 1997; Tsotsorou, 1992) especially if a phoneme belongs to a consonant cluster (Papoulia-Tzelepi, 1997). They need, it seem, specic teaching. In the second methodological category, phonological awareness facilitates reading accomplishment (Aidinis & Nunes, 1998; Kariotis, 1997; Manolitsis, 2000; Porpodas, 1992) and is related to spelling skills, since children with high phonological awareness make less phonological errors (additions, subtractions, replacements, permutations) than those of their age-mates with low phonological awareness (Kotoulas & Padeliadu, 1999; Porpodas, 1989, 1992). Some research examined the relationship between phonological awareness and reading accomplishment. Results suggest that phonological awareness can be taught in kindergarten (Kotoulas, Manousi & Anthi, 2001; Tafa, Kaliva & Fragia, 1998), and such teaching makes children acquire reading and writing skills (Porpodas, Paleothodoros & Panagiotopoulos, 1998). In a recent study (Porpodas, 1999) comparing rst graders of both genders with and without reading diculties indicated that children with reading diculties perform signicantly lower in tests of phonological awareness than their peers without reading diculties. However, the studies mentioned above include students from kindergarten and the two rst grades of primary school. Yet, a number of students express diculties in manipulating written language even if they attended the rst two years of primary school. The ocial curriculum mandates the acquisition of the basic elements of written language during these 2 years. These studies use only a small number of activities to assess the level of phonological awareness, which were inadequate for providing an accurate assessment.

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The present study aimed to record the way phonological awareness develops in relation to (a) school attendance and (b) the evidence (or not) of reading diculties. It also investigated dierences in performance of children with and without diculties in phonological awareness tasks. 2. METHOD 2.1. Sample From March to April 2000, 280 children from 40 elementary schools who studied in every grade participated in the study. The identity of the sample is presented in Table 1. The selection of schools was based on three conditions: (a) an integration class should operate in the school. The term integration class in the Greek educational system refers to classes functioning within ordinary schools with the purpose to support students with special educational needs for some time of the school day. The rest of the day these children join their regular classes. We used this class to locate children with written language diculties since no standardized diagnostic criterion currently exist; (b) an empty classroom available to do the tests; and (c) consent from teachers, parents and the selected children. 2.2. Procedure Students performances/data was collected over three sequential days. During the rst day, we tested the childrens perceptive ability using the Raven

TABLE 1 Participants per group, class and sex. Class RD group Boys/Girls (Total) 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade 6th grade Total 13/6 25/8 22/8 12/8 13/6 9/10 (19) (33) (30) (20) (19) (19) Mean age in years (SD) 6.8 (0. 34) 8.05 (0.64) 8.99 (0.55) 9.97 (0.52) 10.95 (0.49) 12.03 (0.62) 9.29 (1.73) Non-RD group Boys/Girls (Total) 12/7 (19) 20/13 (33) 17/13 (30) 11/9 (20) 12/7 (19) 11/8 (19) 83/57 (140) Mean age in years (SD) 6.86 (0.42) 7.87 (0.43) 8.85 (0.34) 9.79 (0.35) 10.66 (0.38) 11.73 (0.49) 9.12 (1.60)

94/46 (140)

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Standard Progressive Matrices Test (Georgas, 1971) as well as their abilities to hear and dierentiate sounds. The former excluded elements such as learning disabilities (Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, 1996). The latter excluded possible hearing impairment and provided the knowledge of the basic phonological language elements. In this second procedure, children listened to a pair of words and stated whether or not they were similar. The words varied in phoneme or stress position. This activity summed up the phonological characteristics of the Greek language, and operated as a prerequisite for the oral speech perception. If a child could not accomplish this or scored low in the Raven test, he/she was excluded from the remainder of the study. During the second day, we evaluated phonological awareness. The examiner explained a successful performance using three examples. The examiner helped the child understand what to do. Before giving any answer, the child repeated what he/she had heard to assure the examiner she understood. On the third day, we recorded the level of written word manipulation. We evaluated word decoding, uency, and spelling ability. The absence of a standardized diagnostic criterion led to this evaluation in order to standardize qualication of participation. 2.3. Instruments 2.3.1. Phonological Awareness Research suggests that phonological awareness can be measured with validity and reliability using a variety of tests and activities (Stahl & Murrey, 1998; Stanovich, Cunningham & Cramer, 1984; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987; Yopp, 1988, 1995). The protocol devised here included ten activities and tests. Each activity consisted of six words for the child to manipulate. The words were chosen from the glossary of the Greek language school books (basal reader); most structures followed a consonant-vowel (CVCV) sequence. All phonological awareness tests were given orally. The rst two tests examined syllable manipulation through the word game odd one out previously used by Bradley & Bryant (1983). In the rst test, the child chose among three alliterative words the one that started dierently. In the second test, the child pointed out which of the three words ended dierently (rhyme). The third and fourth tests discriminated/segregated rst and last phonemes. Researchers asked the children to repeat the word and then pronounce either the initial or the nal phoneme of a word. The fth test phoneme synthesis required blending of separately pronouncing phonemes into words. The examiner pronounced every phonological unit of a word with a one second break between and then asked

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the child to pronounce the complete word. This test, based on a prototypes designed by Perfetti, Beck Bell and Hughes (1987), used only actual (no nonsense) words. Word analysis in phonemes was an adapted activity based on a prototype designed by Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer and Carter, (1974) and a phoneme analysis protocol designed by Yopp-Singer (Yopp, 1988). The child listened to a word and attempted to pronounce it phoneme by phoneme in the correct order without omitting any phonemes. The next test required deleting initial, nal and middle phonemes. Two activities, described by Perfetti et al. (1987), required presenting words to the child who had to repeat them without including the initial or nal phoneme. The child made a partial analysis, identied the rst phoneme and subtracted it, while simultaneously storing the rest of the word in her memory. We altered two activities described by Rosner (1974). We asked the child to subtract a specic phoneme from the middle of the word, and then pronounce the rest of the word (Say letter without the t). These tests also included only actual words. The tenth and last activity required phoneme reversal. We adapted the Alegria, Pignot & Morais (1982) protocol. The examiner asked the child to reverse the phonemes of a syllable or a word and then pronounce it. 2.3.2. Word Decoding The test consisted of 100 words, 80 actual and 20 pseudo-words. The pseudo-words were created after replacing or swapping the syllables or letters of real words to make their reading possible and simulate decoding of an unfamiliar word. The actual words were chosen from the basic glossary of the ocial Curriculum taught in elementary school. All phoneme grapheme correspondences of the Greek language were represented in these words. The words were sorted out according to the number of syllables and ranged from one to six syllables. Their order was xed meaning so that all children decoded the words in the same order. Each student received the following instruction: Here, on the computer screen, you will see some words, one after another. I want you to try and read them as fast, clearly, and correctly as you can. The rst four words are examples so you can understand what you have to do. As soon as I tell you get ready, start reading whatever you see on the computer screen. We tape-recorded each word presented on the computer screen as well as the decoding. After the word decoding, the examiner used the computer mouse to present the next word. The time between two mouse-clicks was recorded by the computer and measured the decoding time of each word. The timing of the reading decoding criterion was necessary since the great majority of children who learn to read in a transparent orthography manage

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to successfully break the code. Hence, the identication of poor and good readers should depend on the time they need to decode. This means that poor readers may have acquired decoding skills but apply them slowly and hesitatingly (Porpodas, 1999), though this characteristic is not exclusive to transparent orthographies since the timing of decoding has been used to characterize ecient readers in other studies (Perfetti, 1985). In this way, we evaluated: (a) decoding accuracy and (b) decoding uency through the actual time spent decoding. 2.3.3. Spelling Fifty of the 80 actual words read by the children in the earlier test constituted the spelling criterion. The choice of words included possible knowledge of historical elements in spelling, e.g., names in the possessive case, type of inexion of verbs, and words with letter combinations and consonant clusters. The words ranged from one to six syllables. Their order was xed. The children wrote down the words dictated to them as individual units and in sentences. 2.4. Criteria for Inclusion Two criteria had to be met for participation in the research: (a) ability to perform in the Raven Progressive Matrices and, (b) ability to comprehend similar or dierent real words modied in one of their phonological characteristics. Although the dierences between the two groups mean performance in RPM were statistically signicant (Mean RD-group 111.07, SD 11.26, Mean non RD-group 120.94, SD 16.52, t-test: t 5.351, P < 0.000), they both corresponded to scores above the mean of mental ability of the general population. Those excluded from the study had RPM scores that corresponded to lower mental aptitudes relative by Greek standards. All participants in the study discriminated the similar or dierent words without error. 2.5. Reliability The Cronbachs Alpha reliability coecients of the criteria used in collecting the research data were: (a) Phonological Awareness (N of Items 10) 0.92, (b) Decoding (N of Items 100) 0.98, (c) Fluency (N of Items = 100 0.99, (d) Spelling (N of Items 50) 0.99. Such high reliability coecients allowed further processing.

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3. RESULTS 3.1. Performances in all Criteria At the time of the research, the ocial Greek Curriculum required that the basic instruction of grapho-phonemic correspondence and reading mechanisms should have been completed. We could expect that all the children had acquired written language skills. In the criterion for phonological awareness, every correct answer received one point; errors, none. Test scores were calculated into percentages. Accuracy and aptitude in word decoding were evaluated using a three-point scale of 0, 1, and 2 as well as the time needed to decode. Fluent reading of a word was rated with 2; hesitant reading a 1; 0 corresponded to a wrong decoding. Summing up the scores of words decoded uently or hesitatingly comprised the score of an accurate decoding. Some children, mainly in the rst grade, could not decode all one hundred words. Specically, one rst grade student from the non-RD group correctly read 45 words while another read 50. As for the RD group, 8 students of the rst grade read 33, 34, 41, 45, 50, 65, 69, 80 and 92 words and one pupil in the fth grade, read 45 words. Some students interrupted the process because they did not wish to proceed. They may have been tired and/or had diculties in word decoding. To overcome this problem and make an accurate decoding assessment, we assumed that, by the criterion conditions, those were scored 0. The computer calculated the time it took to read the words to measure decoding uency. In cases where children did not decode all the words, the average decoding time was calculated. The spelling ability of the children was evaluated in two ways. The rst follows the traditional school evaluation; that is, every word has a correct spelling. Every correct word rated a 1; each error, 0. The sum performance in each of the 50 words constituted the rst performance in spelling. The second scored every segment of a written word. This scoring style, often called invented spelling, coded the childrens writing style and describes the development of the ability to spell correctly. The scoring style of spelling ability on the basis of the invented spelling scale was judged necessary because our sample included children from integration classes, who had not fully acquired all standard writing mechanisms. We constructed a scoring scale for word formation from 0 to 6 based on two invented spelling scales (Ball, 1993; Tangel & Blachman, 1992). All data gathered by those two scoring scales could be described as follows: the development starts with conceiving the outline/image of letters, goes on to the phoneme awareness and is completed by the morpheme awareness. Specically,

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orthography starts with the conception of letter outline, which children reproduce accidentally. Later, when they learn some letters, they reproduce the initial word letter and after that random letters may follow. When they have gained more experience in writing, they reproduce more than one correct letter, though not all or they try to reproduce all word phonemes but use the wrong graphemes. In the next stage, they reach phonetic spelling, where words are reproduced with letters corresponding to the same reading result (with the meaning of the same acoustic result) and nally, they reach conventional spelling, where all spelling rules are applied correctly (Ball, 1993; Tangel & Blachman, 1992). The mean performance and standard deviation by group and by grade for the phonological awareness, the decoding accuracy, the average decoding time, and for the two ways of spelling evaluation (school & invented spelling) are presented in Table 2. 3.2. Comparisons of the Two Groups Performance The performance of RD students in the tests assessed the manipulation of written language, and conrmed the need for special education support. Non-RD children showed higher performance in all activities and in all grades than their RD peers. Performance in all tests led to skewed distributions. Thus, nonparametric statistical tools were employed to assess any dierences. In regard to variation of performance in the phonological awareness criterion, comparison indicated higher performance of the non RD group than the RD group in all grades. This trend is signicant in all grades at P < 0.001 (Kolmogorov Smirnov Test Z values were 2.8, 2.8, 2.4, 1.9, 1.9 and 2.3 for grades 16). Signicant dierences were recorded between the performances in each of the rest of the tests. Dierences in reading decoding accuracy were statistically signicant at P < 0.005 (KolmogorovSmirnov Z values were 1.8, 2.7, 2.4, 1.9, 1.9 and 2.3 for grades 16). In all grades decoding time of the non R.D. group was shorter than the time their peers with reading diculties needed. The dierences noted in both the comparisons between the two groups of participants and among the students of each grade were statistically signicant at P < 0.005 for all grades except the rst one (Kolmogorov Smirnov Z values were 2.3, 2.6, 1.7, 1.8 and 2.4 for grades 26). Performance of children with reading diculties was signicantly lower in the spelling criterion than their peers without reading diculties. The dierences between the performance of the two groups showed by the KolmogorovSmirnov test were statistically signicant in all grades at P < 0.005 (KolmogorovSmirnov Z values for School Spelling, were

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TABLE 2 Mean performance and standard deviation by group and by grade for each test. First grade N = 19 Mean (SD) 38.33 42.84 11.29 2.26 136.32 (17.32) (40.04) (4.72) (2.16) (70.94) 56.26 103.57 4.89 7.97 212.64 (21.49) (49.81) (2.81) (7.63) (54.79) 68.94 149.20 3.58 10.53 241.30 (17.74) (27.16) (2.11) (7.39) (23.42) 85.66 162.75 3.20 15.90 257.05 (10.90) (17.47) (2.63) (9.14) (12.38) 73.50 142.16 3.11 16.68 238.21 (24.75) (49.09) (1.96) (14.63) (50.13) Second grade N = 33 Mean (SD) Third grade N = 30 Mean (SD) Fourth grade N = 20 Mean (SD) Fifth grade N = 19 Mean (SD) Sixth grade N = 19 Mean (SD)
VASSILIOS KOTOULAS

RD Group (N = 140) Phonological awareness Decoding (accuracy) Fluency (time) School spelling Invented spelling

77.19 (17.25) 158.95 (41.39) 2.99 (2.57) 17.05 (13.17) 248.32 (56.87)

Non-RD Group (N = 140) Phonological awareness 73.59 (15.94) Decoding (accuracy) 116.79 (44.69) Fluency (time) 6.71 (2.87) School spelling 9.42 (6.05) Invented spelling 233.68 (25.29) 86.51 161.76 2.71 20.91 263.48 (12.92) (18.95) (0.55) (9.09) (13.17) 91.38 184.07 2.02 32.63 280.30 (8.96) (11.64) (0.41) (8.56) (12.41) 93.75 184.80 1.85 38.35 285.45

(10.52) (12.34) (0.40) (7.67) (9.70)

97.01 192.47 1.60 39.32 287.11

(6.46) (7.73) (0.23) (8.17) (9.47)

96.66 192.31 1.51 40.16 288.47

(4.40) (5.72) (0.44) (5.52) (6.71)

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2.3, 2.6, 3.4, 2.7, 2.8 and 2.4 for grades 16 and for Invented Spelling, were 2.8, 2.9, 3.6, 2.8, 2.8 and 2.4 for grades 16). These dierences were represented in ve diagrams, one for every test. The knowledge of the manipulation of the alphabetic code appears to develop simultaneously with school attendance and can be described as a gradual process. The graph of phonological awareness progress appears to gradually increase for both groups, at least up to the fourth grade. For the last two grades, we recorded a decline in the RD group. Although there is a resemblance in the progress of phonological awareness, a great dierence exists between the levels in both groups. The lowest mean percentile performance is recorded for both groups in the rst grade of elementary school, though the children with RD begin attending school much earlier and reach the rst grade during their third year of school attendance. For children not manifesting RD, we recorded a successful performance up to 90% from the third grade, while mean performance was above the mean performance of any grade in the RD group. The maximum mean performance is recorded for the fourth grade of RD group with gures that can be compared to the mean performance of children from the second grade of the non-RD group. A similar picture was recorded in the word decoding and invented spelling tests. These two tests are thought to have a strong relationship with the test of phonological awareness as a resemblance among these three curves is obvious. 3.3. Written Language and Phonological Awareness A correlation table was created to examine the relationship between phonological awareness and written language manipulation. In this analysis, we considered all the measures derived from the manipulations of the written language tests. The correlations between performances in the studys criteria

TABLE 3 Spearmans R correlations between phonological awareness and scores on the tests of written language manipulation. (1) Decoding accuracy (1) School spelling (2) Invented spelling (3) Phonological awareness (4) Decoding uency (time) (5)
a

(2) 0.881a

(3) 0.917a 0.976a

(4) 0.802a 0.783a 0.815a

(5) )0.867a )0.826a )0.854a )0.712a

Correlation is signicant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

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shown in Table 3 are very high and signicant. Phonological awareness correlates very strongly with all the measurements of the criteria. This correlation showed that a relationship between these variables conrming a similarity in their development as shown in Figure 1. 4. DISCUSSION This research aimed to describe the development of phonological awareness as described and expressed through the manipulation of 10 dierent tasks in

110 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30

4 CLASS

Non-RD Group RD Group

320 300 280 INVENTED SPELLING SCHOOL SPELLING 1 2 3 CLASS 4 5 6 260 240 220 200 180 160 140 120 Non-RD Group RD Group

45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5
1 2 3 4 CLASS 5 6 Non-RD Group RD Group

1000 900 800

WORD DECODING 1 2 3 4 CLASS 5 6

220 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20

Non-RD Group RD Group 1 2 3 4 CLASS 5 6 Non-RD Group RD Group

700
DECODING TIME

600 500 400 300 200 100 0

Figure 1.

Mean performance of children by group and by grade for every test.

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primary school in relation to diculties in the use of written language. In order to achieve this, students were divided into two groups those with reading diculty (RD) and those without (non-RD). According to our results, children manifesting reading diculties at each grade level of elementary school attendance, performed lower in activities involving syllable and phoneme manipulation than their peers with no reading diculties. This conrms other research conclusions, both from international (e.g. Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Juel, 1994,) and Greek studies (Kotoulas & Padeliadu, 1999; Porpodas, 1999). This decit in phonological awareness persistently appears throughout elementary school and seems unrelated to the fact that the children have been explicitly taught the grapho-phonemic correspondences and reading mechanisms. Phonological awareness development for children having diculties has been referred in the literature of English language learners as well. Bruck (1992) and Pennington, Van Orden, Smith, Green, and Haith (1990) showed that phonological processing decit of dyslexic students persist even after they have developed reading and writing skills (Bruck, 1992 ages 1927 years; Pennington, et al., 1990 ages 25.6 and 30.9 years; Pratt & Brady, 1988 ages 32.4 and 34.9 years). Similar studies of the Greek language seem to concur with the results of such studies (Kotoulas & Padeliadu, 2003 mean ages 17.9 and 20.8 years). There are two critical points for discussion concerning the relationship between phonological awareness and written language manipulation. The rst concerns the particularly low level of the mean performance of children with reading diculties attending the rst grade of elementary school. The second concerns the break in the developmental line as it is expressed by the curves of the grapheme 1 of phonological awareness recorded in the same group from the performance of children attending the two last grades. In regard to the former, the particularly low ability of manipulating word phonological structure of RD children seems to dene the childrens subsequent progress in the acquisition of written language. This happens due to childrens weakness to apprehend the alphabetic concept which leads to a deciency in achieving reading and writing. This delay unfortunately functions negatively as a catalyst in a school with rigid structures and expectations (Stanovich, 1986). These children will gradually fall behind. Consequently their indierence towards school and learning deepens. Schools attempt to remedy this delay in literacy performance by oering additional tutorship in integration classes (or special classes or resource rooms). However, a controversy (Allington, 1998) regarding the eectiveness of rehabilitating tutorship focusing solely on teaching the usage of code exists. This kind of teaching often aicts the child with repetitive exercises,

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somewhat meaningless to him/her, and wastes valuable teaching hours. The above criticism of the USA educational system may be relevant to the Greek system, as the Greek integration classes work under similar situations. If theory does not aect practice (instruction), then writing and reading diculties as the ones of RD group expressed in elemental knowledge or skills (the analysis of words to their constituent phonemes) may well exist even after a ve year instructive support. A question also arises on the alleged progress resulting from the data of this research because they derive from dierent children, especially taking into consideration the fact that the research was not a longitudinal study. The development curve for mean percentile performance quoted above is in accordance with the curve from a longitudinal research monitoring children from rst to fourth grade (Juel, 1994). This similarity indicates that, regardless of the language and the graphemic system, children manifesting reading diculties perform lower in phoneme manipulation than their peers with no reading diculties. We believe that the break in the development curve for phonological awareness (Diagram 1) of children manifesting diculties in manipulation written language happens because their orthographic and spelling knowledge aects the manipulation of the oral language structure. Teaching intervention, at some time, will lead children with deciencies to reach, in spite of a considerable delay, their peers performance in manipulating oral language structure. This happens in the fourth grade, a point at which alphabetic principle seems to take hold and the child is able to manipulate written language. Performance, however, in the two last grades is lower, which contradicts the view that phonological awareness and reading share a reciprocal relationship. We do not reject this view; on the contrary, our results conrm it. In regard to the decline of performance in the two last grades, we consider that this happens because of the childrens spelling ability. Two studies have strongly indicated the inuence of spelling on phonological awareness (Ehri & Wilce, 1980; Tunmer & Nesdale, 1982). Children try to manipulate phonological awareness activities by thinking mainly letters the orthographic structure of the word. Scarborough, Ehri, Olson, & Fowler (1998) examined the way students of pedagogical schools analyzed a word into its phonemes. Real words were used, some with transparent and other with more complex grapho-phonemic representations. The activity, conducted with paper and pencil, required participants to underline the letter or letters expressing the word phonemes and consequently, note the number of phonemes in each word. Results indicated that participants manipulated fewer than half of the given words correctly. This was attributed to knowledge of spelling structures. We suggest that something similar

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happened with the children that attended the two last grades of the RD group. They manifested signicantly more spelling errors both of conventional and phonological type than their non-RD peers. This piece of wrong knowledge denes their performance in the phonological awareness criterion. The particularly high and statistically signicant correlations between the criteria for written language manipulation and phonological awareness supports the issue of the signicance of teaching phonological awareness. The numbers in this table express a kind of logic for the manipulation of the written language, which means, for example, that the uent decoding of a word expressed through the variable of decoding uency/time, correlates negatively with the performance on the rest of the tests. This means that the longer the decoding time, the lower the performances on the other tests, which in turn implies some characteristics of uent decoding. Phonological awareness related very strongly to the manipulation of the written code. Given this high correlation between decoding and phonological awareness, it is possible to ascribe the gap recorded in the performances of the manipulation of the written language tests between the two groups to the persistent lack of phonological awareness described above for the RD group. This conclusion suggests teaching phonological awareness before or simultaneously with the onset of teaching written language and at the educational intervention level for children with diculties in the manipulation of written language.

5. EPILOGUE This study reveals that children with reading diculties have diculties understanding phonemic structure, which seems to remain until the end of primary school. Ignoring this decit results in children continuing to fall behind their peers in the manipulation of phonological awareness tasks and they nally reach them after at least three years of school attendance. The relationship of phonological awareness to the acquisition of alphabetic principles suggests the teaching of phonological awareness to make it easier to acquire alphabetic principles (Byrne, 1998). This view is operationalized in teaching reading and writing based on holistic, phonics or balanced, organic approaches (Adams, 1990; Adams & Bruck, 1995; Beck & Juel, 1995; Brady & Moats, 1997; Clay, 1993; Cunningham & Allington, 1999; Gough, 1996; Weaver, 1997). By organic, we mean that phonological awareness and grapho-phonemic correspondences be included as central points and that a suitable context is created to make teaching and learning eective.

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Department of Special Education University of Thessaly 20 Nikitara str. 43100 Karditsa Greece E-mail: vaskotoulas@sch.gr