Phonological Awareness Tasks: Accuracy in Predicting Reading and Writing Difficulties

This study evaluated the accuracy of the at-risk/not-at-risk classifications of reading and writing difficulties of different measures of Phonological Awareness (PA). A total of 213 Brazilian children performed six PA tasks (varying in phonological unit and cognitive demand) when they were in kinder...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Justi, Cláudia Nascimento Guaraldo, Henriques , Flávia Guimarães, Justi, Francis Ricardo dos Reis
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2021
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM)
Repository:Psicologia (Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie. Online)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.editorarevistas.mackenzie.br:article/13791
Online Access:http://editorarevistas.mackenzie.br/index.php/ptp/article/view/13791
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:phonological awareness
phonological processing
screening
reading
writing
conciencia fonológica
procesamiento fonológico
cribado
lectura
escritura
consciência fonológica
processamento fonológico
rastreamento
leitura
escrita
Description
Summary:This study evaluated the accuracy of the at-risk/not-at-risk classifications of reading and writing difficulties of different measures of Phonological Awareness (PA). A total of 213 Brazilian children performed six PA tasks (varying in phonological unit and cognitive demand) when they were in kindergarten. One year later, 176 of those children performed a writing task and 174 performed a reading task. Receiver Operating Characteristic curves were constructed based on the scores of the reading and writing tasks. The results indicated that the full set of PA tasks presented the best area under the curve. However, two PA measures with fewer items, supra-phonemic awareness and phonemic awareness, also presented adequate sensitivity and specificity values for screening purposes. These results are encouraging since those measures could be used to detect children at risk of reading and writing difficulties in kindergarten (about one year before formal reading and writing instruction in Brazil).