| Research has shown phonological awareness to be a strong predictor of literacy. To support literacy development, a phonological awareness project was piloted in several West Virginia schools in 2001. This study compared WV educators based on employment setting (schools participating and those not participating in the phonological awareness project) and professional category (classroom teacher, reading specialist, speech-language pathologist) on answers to survey questions related to phonological awareness. Results showed no significant relationships between employment setting and responses. However, reading specialists reported spending more minutes per week providing phonological awareness instruction to children at risk for reading difficulty than did speech-language pathologists. Of concern was that over half of the responding speech-language pathologists reported no involvement in phonological awareness instruction in the regular curriculum, and over one-quarter reported that they did not provide phonological awareness instruction to children on their caseloads, who may be at risk for reading failure. |
