Alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness among preschool children: an exploratory study

Alphabetical knowledge (AK) and phonological awareness (PA) are essential skills that one must acquire in learning to read. The present study focused on exploring the AK and PA of preschool children in both private and public preschools in Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak. A total of 60 children participated in the study; 30 children from two public preschools and 30 children from three private preschools. The mean age of the children was 5.58. The following tests were administered to the children to examine their AK: letter name knowledge (LNK), letter sound knowledge (LSK) and letter naming fluency (LNF). Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP) and Yopp-Singer Phoneme Segmentation Test were administered to examine the children's PA. The data obtained for AK and PA were classified and interpreted into its percentile and composite ranks respectively. Independent samples test was used to analyse the significant difference in AK and PA among the preschool children based on the types of school. Higher achievement in AK and PA was found among the children from private preschools compared to those from public preschools. These results are consistent with findings from past researches that AK and PA are the two fundamental skills that preschool children must acquire in learning to read. Implications for practice and the ways teachers could explicitly foster AK and PA skills among pre-schoolers will be discussed