Phonological awareness tasks as predictors of decoding ability: beyond segmentation

The performance of 38 male third- and fourth-grade reading disabled/poor decoders and above-average readers/good decoders was compared on a series of six measures of phonological awareness, including tasks that required the ability to segment, blend, and manipulate phonemes. Performance on these tasks was also correlated with phonetic decoding of pseudowords. Significant but varying intercorrelations were obtained among tasks in both groups. For the poor decoders, deletion was the most highly correlated with the other tasks. However, all good decoders performed at ceiling level on this task. For the poor decoders, deletion was significantly correlated with phonetic decoding (r = .74 and r = .78 for timed and untimed decoding measures, respectively). While all good decoders had good phonological awareness, not all those with good phonological awareness were good decoders. The results suggest that tasks that require blending and manipulation of phonemes, in addition to segmentation, may predict decoding ability best.