A study on written language learning in infancy, phonological awareness and the alphabetizer’s linguistic background

Abstract

The aim of the study is to investigate the importance of phonological awareness in writing learning in infancy and the role of the alphabetizer. Four groups in the 1^{st grade of Elementary School from a city in Piauí (Brazil) participated in the study. Teachers of two of these groups received linguistic formation, as to ensure their pedagogical intervention with phonological awareness raising and explicit alphabetic principle activities (experimental group – EG), while teachers of the other two groups did not receive this formation (control group – CG). A total of twenty-three children were selected – 12 in the experimental group, 11 in the control group. Writing samples were collected in April, June and December, immediately followed by the collection of phonological awareness samples. Results show that in December almost the totality of children in the EG had reached the alphabetical hypothesis (Level 5), while only 18% in the CG had reached this level. As a conclusion, it can be stated that the alphabetizer’s linguistic formation is crucial and that phonological awareness raising activities foster the writing system acquisition.}