Abstract:
The present study investigated the way elementary school teachers perceive the importance of phonological awareness in their classroom experiences. To achieve the aim, 75 elementary school teachers of both genders with diverse years of experience and qualifications from 25 elementary schools in Khorram Abad, Iran were selected. In order to obtain the data, the modified version of the Likert-type questionnaire designed and developed by Dahmer (2010) was used. The findings indicated that the teachers not only do recognize the importance of phonological awareness as a reading skill but they also consider it as a prevention strategy for reading acquisition which can play a vital role in elementary school students’ reading ability. The data was useful in bringing about an awareness of how theoretical understandings linked to phonological awareness relevance and usage are actually occurring in the context of elementary classroom.
Machine summary:
The findings indicated that the teachers not only do recognize the importance of phonological awareness as a reading skill but they also consider it as a prevention strategy for reading acquisition which can play a vital role in elementary school students' reading ability.
e. , Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 1999, 2002).
Additional research findings (Al Otaiba, Connor, Lane, Kosanovic, Schatschneider, Dyrlund, & Wright, 2008; Cassady, Smith, & Putman, 2008) continue to add to a growing understanding of the significance of phonological awareness to reading.
3. Results The present study was carried out to investigate whether elementary teachers perceive phonological awareness skills as a crucial factor in enhancing the reading ability among elementary students in the Iranian context.
The results of the item 1 indicated that 85% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that phonological awareness should be considered as a vital reading skill in elementary school education.
The data obtained for the questionnaire items 1-11 given a description of elementary school teachers' perceptions related to the use and significance of phonological awareness skills in the elementary school classroom context.
Phonological awareness skills establish a sort of relationship between oral communications and reading for young learners to better understand how language is used in oral and written forms, as well as, how teachers perceive the significance and use of phonological awareness can impact the behaviors showed in elementary school classrooms (Gillons, 2004).
To put it simply, in the Iranian context, elementary teachers take the phonological awareness skills into account as an important factor which can play a key role to help students improve reading ability in their first language.