Phonological awareness: The role of reading experience

A cross-cultural study of Japanese and American children has examined the development of awareness about syllables and phonemes. Using counting tests and deletion tests, Experiments I and III reveal that in contrast to first graders in America, most of whom tend to be aware of both syllables and phonemes, almost all first graders in Japan are aware of mora (phonological units roughly equivalent to syllables) but relatively few are aware of phonemes. This difference in phonological awareness may be attributed to the fact that Japanese first graders learn to read a syllabary whereas American first graders learn to read an alphabet. For most children at this age, awareness of phonemes may require experience with alphabetic transcription, whereas awareness of syllables may be facilitated by experience with a syllabary, but less dependent upon it. To further clarify the role of knowledge of an alphabet in children's awareness of phonemes, Experiments II and IV administered the same counting and deletion tests to Japanese children in the later elementary grades. Here the data reveal that many Japanese children become aware of phonemes by age whether or not they have received instruction in alphabetic transcription. Discussion of these results focuses on some of the other factors that may promote phonological awareness.