Letter knowledge, phonological awareness and vocabulary in italian preschool children: relationships and developmental trajectories

Abstract: A vast number of studies have documented that letter knowledge, phonological aware- ness and Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) are among the best predictors of the development of decoding skills, both in opaque and transparent orthographies (Caravolas et al. 2012). Nevertheless, there are few studies examining jointly the development of these capacities in kindergarten children, particularly in a highly transparent orthography such as Italian. In the present study, we tested letter knowledge, phonological awareness, RAN and vocabulary in children aged 4 to 6. The total sample was composed of 950 children divided into four age groups (4-4.5; 4.6-5; 5.0-5.5; 5.6-6). Children were assessed with the I.D.A. (Indicatori Difficoltà di Apprendimento - Bonifacci, Pellizzari, Giuliano submitted), an Italian test for assessing indicators of learning difficulties in preschool children. Re- sults showed a linear improvement in vocabulary across the four age classes whereas letter knowledge and the different components of phonological awareness (syllabic fusion and segmentation, first syl- lable recognition and rhymes) proved to have non-linear developmental trajectories. The discussion considered how these results fit with the existing literature and how they could give rise to suggestions applicable to intervention and teaching.