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The aim of this five‐year longitudinal study was to examine whether 13 Greek precocious readers' performance on a variety of reading, spelling, and phonological‐awareness tasks from kindergarten through the fourth grade was different from that of 12 Greek nonprecocious readers and, if there were differences between the two groups' performances, whether these differences remained stable over the students' five years of primary school education. In addition, this study investigated whether precocious readers' literacy development followed the same path as that of the majority of children. It was hypothesized that because of the shallowness of Greek orthography, precocious readers would have an advantage in reading, spelling, and phonological‐awareness tasks in the initial grades but that this advantage would diminish by the fourth grade. The data analyses showed that precocious readers' advantage in reading comprehension and spelling remained stable until second grade, although their advantage in reading fluency was maintained up to the fourth grade. The precocious readers' performance on phonological‐awareness tasks was superior to that of the comparison group in kindergarten; however, by the end of first grade, both groups of children achieved similar scores on almost all phonological tasks. It would seem that due to the nature of the Greek language, these Greek‐speaking children acquired an explicit awareness of the language's phonological structure early in their school careers. The results also showed that the literacy development of both groups of children followed the same path; however, the precocious readers moved along this path more rapidly than their nonprecocious counterparts. 这为期五年的纵向追踪研究的目的是追踪考查13名希腊早熟读者，从幼儿园到小学四年级这五年内，他们在各种不同阅读课业的成绩表现。考查方法采用了各种不同类型的阅读、拼字及语音意识的课业。这研究把这13名早熟读者的成绩表现与另外12名非早熟读者的成绩表现相互比较而观其差别，若发现其中有差别，则再考查该差别是否在这五年期间内一直保持稳定。此外，这研究也调查早熟读者读写能力的发展过程，是否也依循大部分儿童在这方面发展所经过的途径。研究假设认为，因为希腊文字表音法显浅，就读低年级的早熟读者在阅读、拼字及语音意识课业中可占优势，但到小学四年级后，此优势便会消失。数据分析显示，早熟读者在阅读理解及拼字的优势保持稳定至小学二年级；而在阅读流畅性方面的优势则保持稳定至小学四年级。幼儿园的早熟读者在语音意识课业中的表现成绩比非早熟读者的较为优越；但到了小一学期末，两组儿童几乎在所有语音意识课业中取得相同分数。这好像说明，由于希腊语言本质的关系，希腊语儿童早已在他们的学校经历初期习得了对这语言的语音结构的明显意识。研究结果亦显示，两组儿童读写能力的发展过程是依循同一途径；但在该途径上，早熟读者进步非常迅速，而非早熟读者则落于其后。 Cette étude longitudinale d'une durée de cinq ans ‐ du jardin d'enfants à la 4ème année ‐ avait pour but de voir si les performances de 13 lecteurs grecs précoces dans diverses tâches de lecture, écriture et conscience phonologique sont différentes de celles de 12 lecteurs grecs non précoces, s'il y a des différences entre les performances des deux groupes, et si ces différences demeurent stables au long des cinq premières années d'école primaire. Cette étude, en outre, a examiné si le développement du lettrisme chez les lecteurs précoces suit le même chemin que celui de la majorité des enfants. On a fait l'hypothèse que, du fait du peu de profondeur de l'écriture grecque, les lecteurs précoces seraient avantagés en lecture, écriture et conscience phonologique au cours des premières années, mais que cet avantage dispara...

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The aim of this study was to examine whether the current literacy programmes in European Union kindergarten curricula support and enhance young children's reading and writing development. This study investigated whether the kindergarten curricula of 10 European countries: Britain, and Sweden set appropriate goals for young children's acquisition of literacy, provide methodological guidelines that support children's active engagement in reading and writing activities, provide a print-rich classroom environment, emphasise the communicative nature of reading and writing and use play in the learning process. The comparative data analysis showed that European kindergarten curricula seem to support and enhance young children's reading and writing development, and that early literacy acquisition is based on the principles of the new perspective of the emergence of literacy.