A Study On The Relation Between English Phonological Awareness And Word Reading Ability Of Secondary Vocational School Students

Initiated in the 1960s,phonological awareness is a very hot research topic in western psychology.Many western scholars focus on the relation between phonological awareness and word reading ability and they have made fruitful achievements.However,most of the research subjects are English speakers,only few studies focused on Chinese speaking teenagers.In addition,the author found that many students had great difficulties in word reading in the daily learning process.Therefore,the author decided to explore the relation between English phonological awareness and word reading ability of secondary vocational students.Sixty-seven students of Class 3(the experiment class)and Class 4(the control class),Grade 2 from Jining Secondary Vocational School in Shandong province were chosen as participants.The research mainly discusses 3 questions:(1)What effects does phonologica awareness training have on the phonological awareness of secondary vocational students?(2)What effects does phonological awareness training have on the word reading of secondary vocational students?(3)What is the relationship between the phonological awareness and word reading ability of secondary vocational students?And what is the relationship between each component of phonological awareness and word reading ability?This study mainly adopted quantitative research method to solve the above 3 questions First,the experiment and control classes received pre-tests of phonological awareness and word reading.The independent samples T-test showed that there was no significant difference in the pre-test scores of phonological awareness and word reading between the experiment class and the control class.Second,the experiment class received 6 weeks phonological awareness training.The phonological awareness training was divided into 2 stages.The first stage was to learn basic phonological awareness,including the pronunciation of the 48 international phonetic symbols,letter and letter combinations.The second stage focused on teaching phonology,including syllable awareness,onset-rime awareness and phoneme awareness.After the phonological awareness training,the experiment class and the control class received the post-test of phonological awareness and word reading,with the same type and difficulty,but different contents from the pre-test Finally,the author analyzed the post-test data through independent samples T-test and paired samples T-test.The results indicate that(1)The post-test of phonological awareness in the EC(M=43.09)was higher than that in the CC(M=33.11),there was a significant difference between the two classes(p<.05).Therefore,English phonological awareness training can improve phonological awareness of secondary vocational school students.In the subcategories of phonological Awareness,the post-test of syllable awareness in the EC(M=14.00)was higher than that in the CC(M=9.14),there was a significant difference between the two classes(p<.05).The post-test of onset awareness in the EC(M=8.13)was higher than that in the CC(M=7.20),there was a significant difference between the two classes(p<.05).The post-test of rime awareness in the EC(M=7.67)was slightly higher than that in the CC(M=7.11).However,there was no significant difference between the two classes(p>.05).The post-test of phoneme awareness in the EC(M=13.31)was higher than that in the CC(M=9.66),there was a significant difference between the two classes(p<.05).Therefore,syllable awareness training,onset awareness training and phoneme awareness training can improve secondary vocational school students’ syllable awareness,onset awareness and phoneme awareness respectively.The training of rime awareness had no effect on rime awareness.(2)The post-test of word reading in the EC(M=31.31)was higher than that in the CC(M＝23.60),there was a significant difference between the two classes(p<.05).Therefore,English phonological awareness training can improve word reading of secondary vocational school students.(3)There is a high correlation between English phonological awareness and word reading ability of secondary vocational school students,as r=.931**.In the subcategories of phonological awareness,onset-rime awareness,phoneme awareness and syllable awareness correlate highly with word reading ability of secondary vocational school students.Pearson correlation coefficients between onset-rime awareness and word reading ability,phoneme awareness and word reading ability,and syllable awareness and word reading ability are.955**,.936**,.872**respectively.The study suggested that phonological awareness can improve word reading ability of secondary vocational students.In consequence,teachers should lay emphasis on phonological awareness training in English class.