The developmental nature of the reflective concept of in young children (ages 4.0 to 1.8) was investigated, and the degree to which these developmental aspects of metalinguistic awareness correspond to levels of cognitive development as described by Piaget (preoperational, transitional, and cognitive operational) was studied. Results showed that conscious awareness of the structural and significatory aspects of words follow what Papandropoulou and Sinclair have termed a long and slow elaboration characterized by an initial inexact notion equating a with the totality of an utterance to the conceptualization of word in terms of component letters. It is suggested that the printed word, by virtue of being stable, ilobjectified referent, plays significant role in turning the child's conscious attention to language as an opaque object of study. Implications for instruction are offered. In order to deal with the requirements of most programs of beginning instruction, children must be able to step back and treat language as an object that can be studied in its own right; they must be metalinguistically aware (e.g., Mattingly, 1972; Gleitman & Rozin, 1973). Challenged by the need to identify necessary prerequisites for undertaking formal instruction, researchers have sought to determine young children's ability to deal analytically with language. If cracking the is an integral part of the acquisition of reading, then necessary prerequisite for the neophyte reader is to grasp the understanding that there in fact exists code that needs to be cracked. This conceptual understanding of the nature and purpose of is not given for many young children (Downing, 1976; Vernon, 1971); they may not share their teachers' understanding of what reading is (Reid, 1966) much less what terms such as word, sentence, and sound refer to (Francis, 1973). For example, first grade teacher's request to Tell me which word doesn't The authors wish to express their appreciation to Pamela Lemer for her assistance in the collection of the data, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the original draft of this article.

Preview this article: Spelling First, Sound Later: The Relationship between Orthography and Higher Order Phonological Knowledge in Older Students, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/13/3/researchintheteachingofenglish17863-1.gif