The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of learning to read on developing phonemic awareness. The study was designed to determine whether a relationship exists between the development of the five levels of phonemic awareness identified by Adams (1991), and the phases of reading acquisition described by Biemiller (1970). Data pertaining to phonemic awareness and oral readings were collected in December, February, and April for 71 first grade children. Measures of phonemic awareness included five instruments; one for each level of phonemic awareness. Students were determined to be in one of the three phases of reading acquisition, described by Biemiller (1970), on the basis of their approaches to graphic and contextual cues in text.The analysis of data consisted of two procedures. The first, a series of one-way analyses of variance, examined the relationship between performance on measures of phonemic awareness and membership in one of the three phases of reading acquisition. The second procedure, a series of two-way repeated measures analyses of variance, were computed to examine differences in phonemic awareness between students who experienced a change in phases and those who did not.Results of the one-way analyses found significant group effects for each of the measures except the Rhyming task. However, when means and standard error were examined, it was determined that the Word Analysis task (measuring the ability to manipulate phonemes) was the only instrument that revealed both practically and statistically significant differences. Therefore, the ability to manipulate phonemes appeared to be the distinguishing factor between children in the phases of reading acquisition.Results of the two-way analyses of variance found that only performance on the Word Analysis task revealed significance for group membership. The performance of those students who had changed phases was found to have improved significantly, and at a more rapid pace, than those students who had remained in the same phase throughout the study. The findings indicate that it is during that period of time when children are actively attending to the graphic cues in text that they are also learning to manipulate phonemes. / Department of Elementary Education

Honors Project--Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-74).

Thesis (M.(Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-67).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-134).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M. Communication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-70).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Please read the abstract in the section, 00front, of this document / Dissertation (MA (Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

Metalinguistic sentience refers to the conscious or unconscious apprehension of, sensitivity to, and attention to language as something with form and function that can be manipulated. This includes, but is not restricted to, conscious or unconscious apprehension of, sensitivity to, and attention to the following aspects of language and literacy: pragmatics, syntactics, semantics, phonology, orthography, morphology, figurative, metalanguage, print "carries" meaning, print conventions, book conventions, text conventions, referent/label arbitrariness, purposes of literacy, and abilities. These aspects of language and literacy are part of a morphological model developed by the author for classifying the evidence provided by children of their metalinguistic sentience. The two other faces of the model, displayed as a cube, depict (1) Literacy Acguisition and Literacy Learning and (2) four Prompt States: Self-, Child-, Adult-, Text. This ethnographic study of nine verbally gifted kindergarten and first grade children was conducted with a three-fold purpose: to explore whether young verbally gifted children's metalinguistic sentience coincided with their cognitive ability, to explore whether young verbally gifted children's metalinguistic sentience influenced their literacy acquisition and literacy learning, and to explore whether young verbally gifted children's literacy acquisition and literacy learning enhanced their metalinguistic sentience. The study took place during a full school year, while the author was a participant observer in the informants' classrooms. The evidence from the research indicated that the nine verbally gifted children who served as the informants for the study had a lower threshold for metalinguistic sentience than did their agemates. This lower threshold allowed them to acquire and learn literacy more easily and more efficiently.