Metalinguistic awareness: judgment and segmentation skills in preschool children
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Abstract
This study investigated the development of metalinguistic awareness in preschool children. The purpose was to observe three and four-year-old's ability to judge whether two linguistic items were identical or not and their ability to identify a segment (word phoneme or morpheme) which was present in one item but omitted in a second. The study examined the effect of task variables, (length of item, aspect of language omitted, and presence or absence of print), and the effect of experience with the task. The "Copy Cat Task", which could be presented in a print or a noprint mode , was devised to measure metalinguistic awareness in preschoolers . Twenty- two three and four- year- old children were randomly assigned to a treatment and a control group . The Copy Cat Task was administered in print and no- print conditions to all subjects as a pre test and six months later as a post test . The Copy Cat Task, using different items and providing feedback , was administered to the treatment group at one- month intervals. A parallel visual task, which asked subjects to say if two pictures were exactly alike was administered to the control group at six-week intervals . Most subjects were able to accomplish the judgment part of the task with very little experience. Very few subjects were able to accomplish the segmentation part of the task, even with experience. The length of items, the level of language omitted , and presence of print were all significant variables. Children judged phoneme- omitted items most easily but found it most difficult to segment these same items, suggesting that a variety of strategies are used to accomplish metalinguistic tasks. Print was a significant variable in both judgment and segmentation but effected the two tasks differently . A more sophisticated understanding of print was needed for children to use print to segment than to judge . Experience with the task (experimental versus control group) was a significant variable, for the judgment portion though not for the segmentation portion of the task.
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Dissertation (Ed.D.)--Boston University
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