Effects of English Phonological Awareness Training on English Reading Ability among Thai EFL Primary Students

Abstract

Reading and pronunciation are essential skills for learning English at the elementary school level. Beginner English learners need to have knowledge and awareness of the phonological awareness in order to read clearly. This present study aimed to investigate whether the participants with phonological awareness instruction performed better at post-test than the participants in the control group on (a) phonological awareness skills at syllable, rhyme and phoneme levels and (b) word reading and pseudo word reading, and investigate the relationships between phonological awareness instruction and the English word reading ability of Thai EFL primary students. The participants consisted of 90 third graders, aged 8-10 years old, studying at a primary school located in a province in Northeastern Thailand. Phonological awareness training was implemented with the participants in the experimental group which lasted 8 weeks whereas traditional teaching was used with the participants in the control group. The data were collected from scores of a pre-test and a post-test. The findings of this study revealed that the participants in the experimental group outperformed the participants in the control. Positive correlations were found between phonological awareness instruction and English reading ability at the level 0.5 for word reading but for pseudo word reading was not found. The findings suggest pedagogical implications for developing phonological awareness among beginner English learners.

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