Developmental Patterns and Interrelationships of Preschool Children's Print Awareness

Abstract

THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY was to examine patterns and interrelationships in the development of print awareness over the preschool years. Preschool children, ages three, four, and five years, were tested on three conventional reading readiness measures (letter naming, visual discrimination, and auditory discrimination) and two concept of reading measures (knowledge about the processes involved in using print and knowledge about the purposes of print). The mean performance of the three-year-olds indicated some proficiency on all measures. While these roots of print awareness were evident among three-year-olds, knowledge increased significantly from the beginning to the end of the preschool period, with five-year-olds performing significantly better than three-year-olds on all measures. A factor analysis produced a single factor, indicating a strong degree of unity among these skills and concepts. A scalogram analysis failed to reveal a fixed order in the acquisition of these proficiencies. The findings are interpreted as support for the hypothesis that preschool children simultaneously acquire both general and specific information about print in the world around them.