Metalinguistic consciousness: an approach to the evaluation and identification of phonological abilities for the learning of written language

Abstract

The theme of this research was to analyze the development of phonological skills in first-grade students, to interpret the process by which they get to appropriate written language, emphasizing reading. Understanding and specifying the type of phonological skills that children develop allows us to understand which strategies to employ for the development of literacy parting from phonological awareness. The fundamental aspect of the research was to identify the phonological skills that children put into play when faced with reading and writing tasks. The questions of inquiry were structured as follows: What represent the phonological skills that first-grade children develop in their process of appropriation of the written language? What kind of phonological skills differentiates first-grade children with different levels of conceptualization of the written language? The general objective of the study was to identify the phonological skills that children of first grade develop in their process of appropriation of the written language. The research focus was qualitative, the method used was the case study. The follow-up of 5 first-grade students was carried out during a school year. The technique was the semi-structured interview and the evaluation of phonological skills through questionnaires. The type of skills that children show differs according to their level of evolution, and are lexical, syllabic and phonemic.