Levels of phonological awareness, working memory, and lexical knowledge in elementary school children

Abstract

Relationships between oral language, phonological awareness, and working memory have been empirically demonstrated, however, phonological awareness encompasses different abilities, assessed at different levels. The present study investigated the possible associations between specific phonological awareness abilities and phonological working memory in first-grade students. In the initial phase (n = 254), the study evaluated the abilities of phonological awareness and phonological working memory and found a high positive correlation between these abilities, thus confirming the findings of previous studies. The second phase (n = 12) evaluated the vocabulary of individuals who, in the initial phase, showed low or high working memory and phonological awareness scores. Students with low working memory and low phonological awareness capacities had low scores in expressive language abilities, suggesting that phonological working memory may have direct effects on lexical knowledge. These results contribute to the understanding of the relationships investigated in this study and have important implications for planning teaching strategies.