Evidences of Factorial Structure and Precision of Phonemic Awareness Tasks (TCFe)

Abstract

Abstract:To assess phonological awareness -a decisive skill for learning to read and write -it is necessary to provide evidence about an instrument construct to present trustworthy parameters for both empirical research and the development of educational intervention and rehabilitation programs. In Brazil, at this moment, there are no studies regarding the internal structure for tests of phonological awareness. This article shows the factorial validity of a test of phonological awareness composed by three subtests: two tasks of subtraction of initial phoneme and one of phonemic segmentation. The multidimensional confirmatory factorial analysis was applied to a sample of 176 Brazilian students (M age = 9.3 years) from the first to fifth grade of elementary school. Results indicated a well-adjusted model, with items of intermediate difficulty and high factor loadings; thus, this corroborated the internal structure and well-designed theoretical conception. Keywords: phonological awareness, test validity, literacy Evidências da Estrutura Fatorial e Precisão de Tarefas de Consciência Fonêmica (TCFe)Resumo: Para avaliar a consciência fonológica, habilidade determinante para a aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita, é necessário prover evidências acerca do construto que um dado instrumento se propõe a mensurar de modo a fornecer parâmetros confiáveis tanto para a pesquisa empírica como para o desenvolvimento de programas de intervenção educacional e de reabilitação. No Brasil, até o momento, não há estudos de evidências de validade com base na estrutura interna para testes de consciência fonológica. Este artigo apresenta os resultados para a validade de um teste de consciência fonológica constituído por três sub-testes: duas tarefas de subtração do fonema inicial e uma de segmentação fonêmica. A análise fatorial confirmatória multidimensional foi aplicada a uma amostra de 176 estudantes brasileiros (M idade = 9,3 anos) de 1º ao 5º ano do ensino fundamental. Resultados indicaram modelo bem ajustado, com itens de dificuldade mediana e cargas fatoriais altas; corroborando a estrutura interna e concepção teórica adequadas. Palavras-chave: consciência fonológica, validade do teste, alfabetização Evidencias de la Estructura Factorial y Precisión de las Pruebas de ConcienciaFonémica (TCFe)Resumen: Para evaluar la conciencia fonológica, habilidad determinante para el aprendizaje de la lectura y escritura, es necesario proporcionar evidencias a cerca del constructo que un dicho instrumento se propone a medir a fin de tener parámetros fiables para la investigación empírica y para el desarrollo de programas de intervención educativa y de rehabilitación. En Brasil, hasta el momento, no hay estudios de evidencia de la validez basada en la estructura interna para pruebas de conciencia fonológica. Este artículo presenta los resultados para la validez de una prueba de conciencia fonológica constituida por tres sub-pruebas: dos de subtración del fonema inicial y una de segmentación fonémica. El análisis factorial confirmatorio multidimen...

Initial literacy: Influence of phonemic awareness and teaching method

“…The last two tasks were adapted for use in BP by Godoy (2001) from battery BELEC (Mousty, Leybaert, Alegria, Content, & Morais, 1994). Further study demonstrated the factorial structure validity of the segmentation and subtraction phonemic tasks (Godoy & Cogo-Moreira, 2015). Phonemic segmentation.…”

The dimensionality of phonological awareness among Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children: a longitudinal study

“…Regarding studies conducted with Brazilian Portuguese speakers, to our knowledge, three studies investigated the factorial structure of different measures of phonological awareness: Godoy and Cogo-Moreira (2015); Santos and Lima (2017); and Germano, César, and Capellini (2017). The study by Godoy and Cogo-Moreira (2015) included three measures of phonemic awareness (phoneme segmentation, onset deletion in nonwords with a consonant-vowel-consonant [CVC] structure, and onset deletion in nonwords with a consonant-consonant-vowel [CCV] structure); this study was conducted with 176 Brazilian 1 st to 5 th graders. The researchers assessed the fit of the data to a model in which the items of each of the three phonological awareness measures represented different factors that were correlated (segmentation, CVC deletion, and CCV deletion).…”

“…Considering the divergence among the results from studies on the dimensionality of phonological awareness conducted thus far in Brazil (Germano et al, 2017;Godoy and Cogo-Moreira, 2015;Santos and Lima, 2017), and internationally (Anthony et al, 2002(Anthony et al, , 2011Hatcher and Hulme, 1999;Papadopoulos et al, 2012;Runge and Watkins, 2006;Schatschneider et al, 1999;Vloedgraven and Verhoeven, 2009;Wagner et al, 1997;Wagner et al, 1994;Wolff and Gustafsson, 2015), we aim to investigate this issue. The present study included measures that differ in their cognitive demand (detection, blending, segmentation, and deletion) and the phonological unit (rhyme, syllable, and phoneme).…”

Reading in developmental dyslexia: the role of phonemic awareness and executive functions

“…Three instruments were used to assess reading: the Teste de Desempenho Escolar (TDE, School Performance Test), isolated word reading test (Stein, 1994), the Prova de Avaliação dos Processos de Leitura (PROLEC, Assessment of reading processes) (reading test and understanding of small texts, Capellini, Oliveira, & Cuetos, 2014), and the Teste de Leitura: Compreensão de Sentenças (TELCS, Reading Test: Understanding Sentences) (Test of reading and understanding sentences, Vilhena, Sucena, Castro, & Pinheiro, 2016). To assess phonemic awareness, the Tarefas de Consciência Fonêmica (TCFe, Phonemic Awareness Tasks) by Godoy and Cogo-Moreira (2015) were used. To assess executive functions, some subtests of the Instrumento de Avaliação Neuropsicológica Breve (Neupsilin-inf Brief, Neuropsychological Assessment Instrument for Child) neuropsychological battery (working memory, inhibitory control and verbal fluency) (Salles et al, 2016), the Trails test (Montiel & Seabra, 2012b), the Cancellation, and the Tower of London test were used, as described in Chart 1.…”