A Research Of Within-Language Effects Of Phonological Training On English Reading Ability Among Chinese Primary Students

According to English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education 2011,Chinese primary students need to master four basic language skills: listening,speaking,reading and writing,to form the ability to interact with people in English.A large number of domestic and abroad researches have proved that the mastery of effective reading skill lays the foundation for the other three basic language skills and more English knowledge learning in the future.At the same time,an important factor affecting effective reading is the development of English phonological awareness(PA).Most foreign studies have confirmed that there is close relationship between English PA and reading ability,but it is not suitable for Chinese primary students,while many Chinese researches are only limited to exploring whether there is relationship between English PA and reading ability,not to study the specific relationship between them.Therefore,this study mainly focuses on how the interventional English phonological training of Chinese primary students can affect the reading ability.This study mainly involves three aspects.Firstly,what's the relationship between Chinese primary students' English PA and their reading ability? Secondly,what changes will occur in the primary students' English PA after training? Thirdly,what effects does the English phonological training have on English reading ability? In order to solve these three problems,this study selected 60 students who have studied systematic English for one year in fourth grade,and divided them into three groups(Segmental group: 20 students,Suprasegmental Group: 20 students,Control Group: 20 students).During the stage of pretest,the 60 students in the three groups participated in English phonological test(syllable deletion,phoneme blending,phoneme deletion and stress)and reading ability test(words,sentences and passages test);during the stage of training,the 20 students in Segmental Group received English segmental phonological training(syllable deletion,phoneme blending and deletion)for 8 weeks,and the 20 students in Suprasegmental Group accepted English suprasegmental phonological training(stress)for 8 weeks,while the 20 students in Control Group only took the normal English course,no phonological training;during the stage of post-test,the 60 students in the three groups received the English phonological and reading ability test again.Finally,this research compared the data of Segmental Group and Suprasegmental Group before training to that of after training respectively and the data of Segmental Group and Suprasegmental Group to that of Control Group respectively to get the answers of the three questions.The experimental results show that there is close correlation between Chinese primary students' English PA and their reading ability,and the improvement of English PA can enhance the reading ability effectively after training;next,after training,the English PA is improved a lot,especially syllable awareness;finally,after segmental phonological training,students' sentence and text reading ability are improved a lot,and after suprasegmental phonological training,the words,sentence and passage reading ability all have obvious change,and the change of syllable and stress awareness can predict the change of reading ability effectively.The results show that phonological training is very beneficial to Chinese primary school students who use English as foreign language.