The effect of school training on skills of phonological awareness in bilingual Lak-Farsi speaking 6 year old children

Document Type : Original article

Authors

1 PhD student of speech therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

2 MSc student of Speech therapy, Esfahan University of Medical sciences, Esfahan, Iran.

3 MSc student of Rehabilitation Management, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Background and Aim: Development of phonological awareness is essential for literacy and it is a vigorous predictor of reading. Meanwhile, bilingualism is a factor that affects cognitive and language skills and consequently reading and writing skills, thus it seems necessary to do more studies to understand the effect of this social factor on educational performance. Considering the prevalence of bilingualism in Iran, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of school training on phonological awareness of Lak-Farsi bilingual 6 year old children.
Materials and Methods: The current study is a quasi-experimental study using a descriptive analytic method. Participants were 30 bilingual six-year-old lak-farsi speaking children randomly selected from among the children who took part in the elementary school entrance measurement project in Noorabad and Aleshtar city. In the current survey, we used the Soleimani-Dastjerdi validated phonological awareness tool. The children’s performances were evaluated again after three months.
Results: The findings indicated that the differences of the mean scores between test-retest were significant in all the skills (p≤0.001).
Conclusion: The differences between test-retest scores emphasized the importance of school training for bilingual children. Due to the interconnection between phonological awareness and literacy, authorities should seriously support the training programs for bilingual children in kindergartens and preschools.

Keywords

References

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The Scientific Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine
Volume 4, Issue 4 - Serial Number 4
November and December 2015
Pages 28-33

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History

  • Receive Date: 16 October 2014
  • Revise Date: 06 February 2015
  • Accept Date: 11 July 2015
  • First Publish Date: 22 December 2015

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