Phonological awareness; Literacy; Reading; Writing

Abstract

Studies about phonological awareness (P.A.), made mainly with children exist in a great number and are dominant in relation to other metalinguistic abilities. Moreover, the great number of Brazilian studies is highlighted (e.g.: CIELO, 1998, 2001; FREITAS, 2004; CAPOVILLA, 1998, 2000; CARDOSO-MARTINS, 1991, 1994, 1995; MALUF, 1997; COSTA, 2002). However, there is no record of a study which gathers and compares the results of such works. The aim of this article is to obtain an outline of the publications come from researches about P.A. carried out with BP speakers with normal development, as well as their respective results, in order to establish the variables most frequently correlated with P.A., the favourable factors to its development, and also to verify whether there is or not a parameter of development for P.A abilities and for the factors correlated with the process. Besides, this paper made it possible to obtain a comparative chart of results met in the analyzed researches. For this, a data bank was formed with the papers (n=90) through the program Microsoft Office Access 2003, which allowed the analysis and categorization of the analyzed variables. The results showed that there is a predominance of papers verifying the existing relation among P.A., reading and writing, followed by P.A. and writing, the efficiency of P.A activities usage, P.A and literacy, and P.A and reading. The factors that seem to interfere directly in P.A. performance are age and schooling, being the last one stronger. There is a consensus about the P.A levels development, which happens in a continuum in which the intrassyllabic units are the first to develop. The analysis of data also brought further results, detailed in the article. It is important to point out that this paper not only reinforces the relevance of P.A. in reading and writing acquisition, once it is a helping tool in the process, but also corroborates the order of acquisition of phonological abilities and the success of intervention programs involving them.