RESEARCH OF ABILITY TO IDENTIFY THE FIRST SOUND IN THE WORD AS A PART OF PHONEMIC AWARENESS ASSESSMENT IN SLOVAK PRESCHOOL AGE CHILDREN

Phonemic awareness is one of the key abilities necessary developed in preschool age. It is an ability to work with word segments consciously; to be aware of audible word structure; to identify order of sounds in a speech flow; to do sound analysis, synthesis and complex manipulation with speech sounds, e.g. add, remove, change the order of the sounds in the word etc. We can say that it is an ability to hear, identify and manipulate with phonemes. These key abilities are important in initial learning of reading and writing. Presented study deals with theoretical starting points, issues and research findings in the area of phonological awareness in relation to the elementary linguistic literacy of preschool age children in Slovakia. Theoretical-empirical study is focused on child's ability to identify initial phonemes in words. The research was conducted with 866 respondents at the age of four to seven years. The aim was to find out children's ability to identify the first phoneme in words: pen (bole), fuka (blow), osa (wasp), ryba (fish), vlas (hair). The results are part of a more extensive research focused on the development of a complex tool used to evaluate the level of phonemic awareness. The paper is the outcome of the VEGA project no. 1/0637/16 entitled The Development of the Diagnostic Instrument for the Assessment of the Level of Phonemic Awareness of Pre-School Age Children.