The Relationship between English Phonological Awareness and Early Reading Performance among Chinese Preschoolers in Yunnan Province, China

Abstract

              This study aims to discover whether there is a significant correlation between English phonological awareness and early reading performance among Chinese preschoolers, and to uncover which elements among phonological awareness are significant and which are not. This research was conducted in a government kindergarten school in Dali, China. The samples were 24 third year kindergarten preschoolers who individually responded to a three-part test. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient and simple linear regression analyses were used to analyze the results. It was found that English phonological awareness had a strong positive correlation with early reading performance. In particular, English syllable awareness showed a moderate positive correlation with English early reading performance. English phoneme awareness had a high positive correlation with English early reading performance. However, onset-rhyme awareness had a low correlation with English early reading performance, which means it is not a significant element in predicting the level of English early reading performance. The results of this study suggest the importance of phonological awareness for early reading ability development and the assessment of children’s early reading performance could direct attention to the lack of phoneme awareness training or practice of the learners.