engleski

Development of Early Literacy in Croatian: Educational Guidelines and Clinical Implications

Early literacy is a complex mix of competencies and knowledge that start to develop prior to formal instruction in reading and writing. It strongly predicts future competencies in these academic DiJ 2017 ChiLa 11 skills (Whitehurst and Lonigan 1998). Two types of environments are important for early literacy development: formal preschool environment, which is dominantly aimed at the development of linguistic knowledge ; and informal ambient environment, which is most importantly that of the home and family environment. Early literacy is defined by six discrete skills: phonological awareness, vocabulary, narrative skills, letter naming, print concept, and interest in print, all of which a child starts to acquire at preschool age. Skills such as phonological awareness and letter naming are primarily tied to formal preschool environment, whereas narrative skills, vocabulary, interest in print, and print concept are tied to both environments. This paper stresses the importance of linguistic knowledge at the level of phonological awareness and letter naming since these two skills are repeatedly confirmed in numerous studies as the key predictors of reading and writing in languages with transparent and opaque orthography (Landerl et al. 2013). Phonological awareness refers to the ability to recognize and use units smaller than words such as syllables and phonemes as well as the ability to recognize and produce rhyme. Development of phonological awareness follows from larger to smaller units and ends in phoneme awareness, i.e. awareness that is completed only through structured instruction of reading (Goswami and Bryant 1990). Empirical evidence of high correlation between phoneme awareness and reading skill is mediated by letter naming. This ability is the strongest individual precursor of reading skills, especially in languages with transparent orthography (Anthony and Francis 2005 ; Torppa et al. 2006). In order to investigate phonological awareness and letter naming a cross-sectional study was conducted with 746 children, Croatian language speakers, one year before they started school. Factors analysis was carried out so as to define latent variables in the background to the manifest variables of phonological awareness and letter naming. The data collected points at a rhyme as equally distributed between syllable and phoneme awareness, which implies that the role of rhyme is that of a bridge to a more challenging level of phonological awareness. These findings also confirm the relationship between letter naming and phonological awareness, especially phoneme awareness. The analysis reveals that there are two factors tied to letter naming and that capital and small letters show partially different distribution between these two factors. On the basis of the data obtained, the findings will be discussed within the realm of education, such as preschool curriculum and early reading and writing instruction. Furthermore, the data gathered will be placed in clinical context since early literacy knowledge and competencies are clinical milestones in early detection of individuals potentially at risk for the difficulties in learning to read and write.

early literacy, transparent orthography, phonological awareness, letter naming

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