Reading and Phonological Awareness in Africa

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Education

Background:

• Low literacy levels and poor school outcomes are prevalent in Africa.
• A significant number of African children lack formal schooling.
• The relationship between phonological awareness (PA), literacy acquisition, and schooling remains unclear, especially for unschooled children.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the longitudinal relationship between schooling, phonological awareness (PA), and literacy in Tanzanian children.
• To determine whether PA is acquired through literacy, schooling, or both.
• To examine PA development in children with and without formal schooling.

Main Methods:

• A longitudinal study retesting 85 children from a previous baseline study after approximately two years.
• Assessment of phonological awareness (PA) and literacy skills in schooled and unschooled children.
• Statistical analysis to determine independent predictors of PA and literacy.

Main Results:

• More unschooled children acquired reading skills over the two-year period.
• Phonological awareness (PA) did not significantly improve in unschooled children who learned to read.
• Schooling emerged as an independent predictor of both PA and literacy at the two-year follow-up.
• PA remained a predictor of literacy, and vice versa.
• Explicit phoneme awareness was notably poor, even in proficient readers.

Conclusions:

• While unschooled children can learn to read, potentially due to first-language instruction, formal schooling is crucial for developing phonological awareness (PA) and improving reading skills.
• The findings highlight the independent role of schooling in fostering cognitive skills essential for literacy.
• Interventions focusing on explicit phoneme awareness may be beneficial, even for children who appear to be accurate readers.