Levels of phonological awareness in Korean and English: A 1-year longitudinal study

The present study examined associations of levels of phonological awareness to word recognition in Korean and English in a 1-year longitudinal study of 91 children from Masan, Korea. With performances on tasks of speeded naming, vocabulary, and Korean Hangul in 2nd grade statistically controlled, only Korean syllable deletion predicted unique variance in 3rd-grade Korean Hangul reading; phoneme-level awareness did not predict 3rd-grade Korean word recognition. In contrast, only phoneme-level awareness in Korean predicted subsequent English word recognition. When English phonological awareness measures administered at Time 2 were included in regression equations, the strongest predictors of 3rd-grade Korean word recognition were 2nd-grade Korean Hangul reading and 2nd-grade syllable deletion. In contrast, the strongest predictors of English word recognition were ages in 2nd grade and phoneme awareness in English at Time 2. Results underscore the importance of different levels of phonological awareness for understanding reading across scripts.