Abstract The overall aim of this study is to show how phonological awareness develops during the first school year and how this can be affected by different teaching materials and working methods. Two classes are compared in the study. One of the classes has digital teaching material and the other class has traditional teaching material. The study seeks to show to what extent there are differences between the groups’ phonological awareness. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in the case study. Quantitative methods are used to present the result of a test of phonological awareness, compared with the pupils’ results on a previous test. The qualitative part consists of interviews with the class teachersabout their view of the pupils' development of phonological awareness. The results show that there were differences between the two groups in the earlier test, but that these were levelled out after the first school year. Another finding is an advantage for girls over boys in the earlier documentation, but that difference too was reduced during the first school year. Yet another conclusion is that the teachers work with different methods but thecontent of the teaching is relatively similar.