Journal of Educational Sciences > Volume 27, No. 3, 2015

Primary Grade Teachers’ Perceptions of the Relationship between Phonemic Awareness Development Activities and Reading Skill Acquisition / Abdullah M. Alseraye

The aim of this study was to identify the perceptions of primary grade teachers about the relationship between phonemic awareness activities and students success in learning to read. 233 first grade reading teachers from nearly 89 public schools in Riyadh were randomly selected and asked to response to a 25-item questionnaire that was designed by the researcher, to investigate teachers’ perceptions and beliefs in the extent that the phonemic awareness activities are important for students’ success in learning to read. The results showed that the teachers perceived the phonemic awareness activates to be either important or very important for students’ success to learn to read. However, examining the frequencies for each activity individually shows that there are 16% to 45% of the teachers perceive some of those activities to be either relatively important or “not important” for acquiring reading skill, and thus do not have a role in students’ success in learning to read. Further, no significant differences in the teachers’ responses can be attributed to their teaching experience or their academic qualifications. Examining the activities that gained the higher means raises the question of whether there is an interfering in perception between phonemic awareness activities and phonics activities among primary reading teachers. Further investigation is needed to determine the source of such perceptions and to ensure that first grade reading teachers are aware of such difference between both activities.
keywords: phonemic awareness, reading skill acquisition, first grade, reading instruction.