Reading and Writing (2005) 18:51–79
Springer 2005

DOI 10.1007/s11145-004-1955-7

Levels of phonological awareness in preliterate and literate

Spanish-speaking children

EDURNE GOIKOETXEA
Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Science, Department of Educational Psychology,
Universidad de Deusto, Bibao, Spain

Abstract. Evidence of phonological awareness levels usually comes from

English-speaking children. The evidence in Spanish is scarce. The present study exam-
ined the phonological awareness of syllables, onsets–rimes, and phonemes, extending
the Treiman and Zukowski (1991) results to preliterate and literate Spanish-speaking
children. The sample comprised preschoolers, kindergarteners and first-graders. Chil-
dren found syllables easier than onset–rime units, and onset–rime units easier than
phoneme units (Experiments 1 and 2). Preliterate children found ending units easier
than beginning units. However, literate children were best at initial linguistic units,
particularly initial syllables. Results on the phonological awareness task and on the
masked priming lexical decision task support that the phonological awareness devel-
opment is sensitive to the orthographic units used by children from the time they
begin to read (Experiment 3). For all children, initial continuant consonants were eas-
ier than stop consonants.

Key words: Literacy, Phonology, Phonological awareness, Preschool age, Reading

ability, School age

Introduction

Phonological awareness forms part of the so-called meta-linguistic abili-

ties and refers to detecting, accessing, or manipulating sub-lexical com-
ponents of words such as syllables, onsets–rimes, and phonemes. This
complex ability develops in time: A child may realize that ‘‘parole’’ and
‘‘enroll’’ share the same ending syllable, but not that ‘‘love’’ and ‘‘have’’
share the same ending phoneme. This child presumably has syllable
awareness, but lacks phoneme awareness, a level of phonological aware-
ness that is difficult because phonemes are co-articulated in words, and
this is mainly the result of learning to read (Liberman, Shankweiler,
Fischer & Carter, 1974; Mann, 1986; Perfetti, Beck, Bell & Hughes,
1987).
52 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

Before the development of phoneme awareness is complete, perfor-

mance on tasks that measure phonological awareness is influenced by
two types of factors (Yopp, 1988). On the one hand, there are linguistic
factors, such as the linguistic level involved, the position of the linguistic
unit, and linguistic properties of words. On the other hand, there are the
cognitive or memory task demands. Since the decade of the 70s, there
has been growing evidence, mainly from the English language, on how
these two factors affect performance on phonological tasks. Clearly,
awareness of some linguistic units, such as syllables, arises early, fre-
quently before the child begins to read; in addition, research on alpha-
betic languages shows a developmental progress from syllable to
phoneme, which is consistent with the role of the syllable in the organi-
zation of phonemes (e.g., Cossu, Shankweiler, Liberman, Katz & Tola,
1988; Liberman et al., 1974; Morais, Bertelson, Cary & Alegria, 1986;
Treiman & Baron, 1981). Interestingly, Treiman and Zukowski (1991)
reported that intrasyllabic units such as onsets and rimes act as interme-
diaries between syllable and phoneme access for young children (see also
Treiman, 1992). The progress from large to small phonological units in
the acquisition of phonological awareness can be explained by the type
of linguistic unit involved, and not just by the size of these units
(Treiman & Zukowski, 1996). In addition, evidence about the effect of
linguistic units’ positions indicates that English-speaking children find it
easier to perceive rime than onset, but phonemes posed more problems
when they are in the final position than when they are in the initial posi-
tion (Kirtley, Bryant, Maclean & Bradley, 1989; Treiman & Zukowski,
1991). Finally, linguistic properties of words also affect the access to
phonemes. For example, Treiman and Weatherston (1992) found that
children find it easier to isolate the first consonant in short words than
in longer words and in simple-consonant onsets than in cluster onsets.
Furthermore, children did better when the phonemes were in unstressed
syllables than in stressed syllables, but in contrast to previous studies
(e.g., Treiman & Baron, 1981), Treiman and Weatherston did not find
any signs that continuant consonants, which can be pronounced in isola-
tion, were easier than stop consonants, which cannot be pronounced in
isolation.
In Spanish, studies on the pattern of phonological awareness devel-
opment are scarce. Jiménez (1992) reported that preliterate children find
it easier to manipulate syllables than phonemes (see also Domı́nguez,
1996a). Jiménez and Ortiz (1993) found that manipulation of rime was
easier than phonemes, concluding that phonological awareness progress
is similar in Spanish and English. However, their results are difficult to
interpret because they employed different stimuli and different tasks
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 53

across the linguistic units. Thus, stimuli and cognitive requirements of

the task, and not the linguistic units compared, could also explain the
results. Finally, results similar to those of Treiman and Weatherston
(1992) were found by Jiménez and Haro (1995) regarding the influence
of word length and syllable structure on the identification of the first
consonant segment. However, Spanish children isolated continuant con-
sonants better than stop consonants, and the ability to isolate the first
consonant did not depend on the position of the stressed syllable
(Jiménez & Haro, 1995).
All these efforts to understand phonological awareness acquisition
are mainly motivated by the fact that phonological awareness has a
strong relationship with the ability to understand the alphabet and,
thus, with success in learning to read and spell. Prior research shows
that awareness of large phonological units such as syllables and rimes
predicts reading scores when preliterate children are three or four years
old and have not yet learned to read (e.g., Bradley & Bryant, 1983;
Maclean, Bryant & Bradley, 1987), and awareness of small phonologi-
cal units or phonemes predicts their success when they are five or six
and have just begun to read (e.g., Hulme, Hatcher, Nation, Brown,
Adams & Stuart, 2002; Juel, Griffith & Gough, 1986). Previous studies
have also shown that early rime sensitivity can contribute to reading
and spelling in two ways: (a) through an indirect influence as a precur-
sor of phoneme access, and (b) through a direct influence (at least in
English) as a facilitator of analogical reading of rhyming words
(Bryant, Maclean, Bradley & Crossland, 1990; see also Goswami &
Bryant, 1990; see also Duncan, Seymour & Hill, 1997 for a fine-grained
study which found that English-speaking children use more letter-sound
correspondences than onset–rime units in their initial efforts in reading).
Finally, the studies that focused on spelling in children indicates that
phoneme awareness is one of the critical skills in spelling (Caravolas,
Hulme & Snowling, 2001; Foorman, Francis, Novy & Liberman, 1991;
Stahl & Murray, 1994; see also Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1993).
In Spanish, syllable awareness in kindergarten children is a good pre-
dictor of reading ability (Carrillo, 1994; González, 1996; Jiménez &
Ortiz, 2000). There is also evidence (from experimental studies) that
phoneme awareness is related to subsequent reading skill (Defior &
Tudela, 1994; Domı́nguez, 1996a, b). In contrast, the relationship
between onset–rime awareness and reading vanishes after one year of
reading instruction (Jiménez & Ortiz, 2000). Jiménez and Ortiz explained
this latter result by citing three differences between Spanish and English:
Spanish language has a shallow orthography, clear syllabic boundaries,
and fewer monosyllabic words (note that rime has a particular salience
54 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

in monosyllabic words). Therefore, they concluded that onset–rime

awareness could be less important in learning to read in Spanish than in
English (Jiménez and Ortiz, however, did not examine the contribution
of rime awareness to phoneme awareness). Regarding spelling specifi-
cally, a correlation study by Manrique and Signorini (1998) found that
the better kindergarten children are at detecting phonemes, the more
they use an analytical strategy to write (see also Manrique & Signorini,
1994 for similar results among first-graders).
To summarize, research evaluating phonological awareness among
Spanish children has provided support for a development similar to that
observed in English-speaking children, but further evidence is needed
due to potential confounding variables in previous research. Thus, the
present experiments sought to ascertain the awareness level of different
linguistic units, extending the Treiman and Zukowski (1991) results to
preliterate and literate children in Spanish. In Experiment 1, awareness
of syllable, onset–rime, and phoneme was compared using the same
task, so that the cognitive demands were held constant.1 The purpose of
Experiment 2 was to replicate the results from Experiment 1 with a new
set of materials. Finally, the purpose of Experiment 3 was to shed some
light on the correspondence between some particular phonological abili-
ties and reading abilities. Specifically, I asked whether the syllable plays
a role in the process of lexical access in beginning-readers.

Experiment 1

The aim of this experiment was to gain evidence on the development of

phonological awareness in Spanish preliterate and literate children, and
to compare this evidence with English data.

Method

Participants. Ninety-three children (36 females and 57 males) partici-

pated in the study: 32 in preschool (age M ¼ 4 years 7 months;
SD ¼ 5.0 months; range ¼ 4 years 0 months–5 years 7 months), 35 in
kindergarten (age M ¼ 5 years 7 months; SD ¼ 4.4 months; range ¼ 4
years 11 months–6 years 3 months), and 26 in Grade 1 (age
M ¼ 6 years 8 months; SD ¼ 3.7 months; range ¼ 6 years 2 months–
7 years 8 months).2 Nine additional children were dropped because they
did not attend the days of the sessions or they did not wish to partici-
pate in the entire experiment. All were native Spanish speakers and
none of them was known to have any impairment in vision, speech, or
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 55

motor functioning. They attended two public schools in Santander,

Spain, which served a lower-middle-class population.
None of the preschoolers and kindergarten children had received any
formal reading or phonics instruction. All were non-readers in the opin-
ions of their teachers. To verify that they were non-readers, children were
shown the target words for the writing task and were asked to read the
words. The children could not read any of the words in this reading task.
Also, children were tested on letter knowledge. All of the children knew
the vowels, and some kindergarten children knew some consonants from
their own names (range from 1 to 9 letters out of 29 Spanish letters). In
addition, the teachers reported the use of writing practices for a variety
of purposes (e.g., to write to Santa Claus), but in a laissez-faire manner
because children did not receive explicit instruction or control over how
to write well. First-graders had received formal reading instruction since
the beginning of the school year (in September). These children had
learned to read using a syllabic method (i.e., first the vowels and then the
consonants in combination with the vowels), and grapheme–phoneme
correspondences were explicitly taught. Because of limitations on the
amount of time these children could miss classroom activities, no reading
test was applied for selection purposes. All were judged, however, as hav-
ing normal progress in reading (i.e., at grade level expectation) in the
opinions of their teachers. Preliterate children were tested from Decem-
ber to February, that is, in the middle of the school year. First-graders
were tested in June, that is, at the end of the school year. Children were
randomly assigned to only one of the three conditions (i.e., syllable,
onset–rime, phoneme), so that there were approximately equal numbers
of subjects at each age level in each condition.

Materials and apparatus. Three lists of 40 pairs of disyllabic words cor-

responding to the three experimental conditions were constructed, as in
the Treiman and Zukowski (1991) study. All the words were chosen
from the basic vocabulary of elementary school age Spanish children
(Casanova & Rivera, 1989), a database of almost 80,000 words. The
stimuli were selected so that word frequency was comparable across the
linguistic conditions: Syllable stimuli had a mean frequency of 34.0 per
80,000 words (ranging between 1 and 122); onset–rime stimuli had a
mean frequency of 31.8 (ranging between 1 and 148); and phoneme
stimuli had a mean frequency of 38.5 (ranging between 1 and 161). In
addition, the number of phonemes was comparable across all condi-
tions (see Appendix for complete list of stimuli).
For the syllable condition, there were 20 ‘‘yes’’ pairs, or pairs that
had syllables in common, and 20 ‘‘no’’ pairs that did not share syllables.
56 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

For 10 ‘‘yes’’ pairs, shared syllables were at the beginning, and for 10
‘‘yes’’ pairs, they were at the end. To manipulate the confounding of size
and linguistic unit (Treiman & Zukowski, 1996), half of the ‘‘yes’’ pairs
were two phonemes long, at the beginning or at the end, and the other
half were three phonemes long. For the onset–rime condition, there were
20 ‘‘yes’’ and 20 ‘‘no’’ pairs. In Spanish syllable structure, the onset is
an optional constituent of the syllable and can contain at most two con-
sonant segments. The rime is the obligatory constituent that includes the
sonority peak, always a vowel, and can contain at most three segments
(see Harris, 1983). All of the valid syllables in Spanish can be defined in
terms of 21 onsets and 36 rimes. Here, the onsets and rimes were always
two phoneme letters long. The phoneme condition also included 20
‘‘yes’’ pairs and 20 ‘‘no’’ pairs. Half of the ‘‘yes’’ pairs with shared pho-
nemes at the beginning were constructed to have a simple-consonant
onset (mean frequency 66.6 per 80,000), and the other half had a cluster
onset (mean frequency 43.2 per 80,000). Two pairs with a simple onset
at the beginning had a stop (i.e., /k/, /t/) consonant (mean frequency of
96.2 per 80,000), and two pairs had a continuant (i.e., /f/, / ŕ /) conso-
nant (mean frequency of 56.0 per 80,000). The shared linguistic units
(i.e., syllables, onsets–rimes, and phonemes) were always stressed, as in
the Treiman and Zukowski (1991) study.3
Each list had four examples. The criterion for success was attain-
ment of at least six successive correct responses on the task. Stimuli
from each list was randomized and presented in the same order to all
participants. The only constraint to the randomized order was that
there could not be 6 ‘‘yes’’ responses or 6 ‘‘no’’ responses consecutively,
in order to avoid spurious success for children who might adopt a
pattern of responses (e.g., to always say ‘‘yes’’).
The three lists were recorded by an adult male, at a regular rate. He
was judged as a ‘‘typical’’ Northern Castilian Spanish native speaker,
phonetically untrained. Recording was conducted in a quiet room on an
Aiwa tape recorder (Model TP-VS480), which was also used to play the
stimuli to the participants. Then, the recording was analyzed and sono-
grams were produced with a Kay Elemetrics Sona-Graph (Model 5500),
in order to examine the within-speaker variability and the duration, in
milliseconds, of the target phonetic segments of each unit. The parame-
ters of digitalization were 8 kHz wide band, 300 Hz bandwidth, and 1-s
of time axis. This analysis revealed, first, that within-speaker variability
for linguistic units produced small spectral differences. Second, the lin-
guistic units had different durations. Table 1 shows the mean duration
of the three linguistic units in the words. Overall, syllables were
characterized by longer durations (average real time: 226.2 ms)
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 57

Table 1. Mean duration in milliseconds (standard deviations in parentheses) and

percentage over total duration of word for linguistic unit.

Beginning same End same Total

Condition M SD % M SD % M SD %

Syllable 243.15 (76.70) 43.45 209.25 (95.43) 36.05 226.20 (78.33) 39.75
2 letters 217.90 (48.69) 39.95 204.50 (78.01) 37.00 211.20 (63.66) 38.47
3 letters 268.40 (47.92) 46.95 214.00 (114.41) 35.10 241.20 (89.81) 41.03
Onset–rime 126.25 (55.18) 22.23 270.15 (26.56) 46.77 198.20 (84.48) 34.50
Phoneme 63.80 (41.62) 11.05 122.70 (38.06) 21.78 93.25 (49.38) 16.42

than onsets and rimes (198.2 ms) and phonemes (93.2 ms). Rime
(270.15 ms), however, paralleled syllable durations. Continuant-fricative
consonants have longer durations (26.72 ms) than stop consonants
(7.27 ms).

Procedure. Participants were tested individually in quiet rooms in the

children’s schools. For the phonological awareness task, I followed the
instructions given by Treiman and Zukowski (1991), with a few modifi-
cations. The child was told that a puppet called ‘‘Pipo’’ needed words
that ‘‘sounded the same to make an album’’. When the puppet heard
two words that sounded the same, he collected the words. When the
two words did not sound the same, Pipo did not collect the words.4
The four practice pairs were presented with two ‘‘yes’’ pairs first (initial
syllable same or end syllable same), then two ‘‘no’’ pairs. The child had
to repeat the words correctly and then judge whether the puppet col-
lected them. The procedure was carried out in this way for the exam-
ples. Feedback was given. Each child’s responses were written down by
a sole experimenter. The whole session lasted approximately 15 min.

Results

The mean proportion of correct responses for each unit, the mean pro-
portion of correct responses for each unit by the position of the shared
unit, and the proportion of children reaching the criterion of six consec-
utive correct responses (see Treiman & Zukowski, 1991 for this criteria)
are displayed in Table 2. Table 2 also presents the discriminability
index d¢.5 Prior to analysis, all variables were examined for the assump-
tions of normality of the distributions and homogeneity of variance,
using descriptive printouts for each dependent variable and Levene
58 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

Table 2. Mean proportion of correct responses (standard deviations in parentheses) and

proportion of children reaching the criterion for linguistic unit.

Mean Children
Mean beginning Mean end reaching
Grade n total same same criterion d¢

Preschool
Syllable 11 0.66 (.23) 0.58 (.25) 0.75 (.24) 0.36 0.46
Onset–rime 11 0.53 (.28) 0.49 (.31) 0.56 (.30) 0.46 0.55
Phoneme 10 0.34 (.34) 0.28 (.33) 0.34 (.36) 0.20 0.19
Kindergarten
Syllable 12 0.61 (.21) 0.63 (.25) 0.59 (.24) 0.58 0.91
Onset—rime 12 0.65 (.25) 0.57 (.29) 0.72 (.29) 0.42 0.44
Phoneme 11 0.50 (.23) 0.55 (.23) 0.46 (.29) 0.27 0.34
First
Syllable 9 0.71 (.27) 0.81 (.23) 0.61 (.37) 0.89 1.52
Onset—rime 8 0.65 (.29) 0.69 (.32) 0.62 (.33) 0.75 1.38
Phoneme 9 0.66 (.22) 0.77 (.15) 0.54 (.32) 0.78 1.08

tests. Results of evaluation of the multivariate assumptions were satis-

factory. All significant effects had P values less than the 0.05 level.
A series of analyses of variance (ANOVAs) on the mean proportion
of correct responses as dependent measure were conducted to determine
the effects of linguistic units, of syllable length, of position of the share
unit, of word properties, and of phonetic properties.
The first ANOVA based on the participants’ and items’ proportion
of correct ‘‘yes’’ responses were conducted using a 3 (linguistic unit: syl-
lable, onset–rime, phoneme) · 3 (grade: preschool, kindergarten, first
grade) design. Linguistic unit and grade were factors in both the
by-subjects analysis (F1) and the analysis by items (F2). The ANOVA
showed that the main effect of linguistic unit was significant, F1 (2,
84) ¼ 3.49, effect size g2 ¼ 0.077; F2(2, 57) ¼ 17.39, g2 ¼ 0.379. Pho-
neme awareness was significantly more difficult than syllable awareness,
least significant difference LSD1 ¼ 0.17; LSD2 ¼ 0.17, and marginally
more difficult than onset–rime awareness in the analysis by subjects,
LSD1 ¼ 0.11, P ¼ 0.07; LSD2 ¼ 0.12; no significant differences were
found between the onset–rime task and the syllable task (both
ps > 0.05). The main effect of grade was also significant, F1(2,
84) ¼ 3.14, g2 ¼ 0.070; F2(2, 57) ¼ 12.62, g2 ¼ 0.307. Preschoolers were
less successful than first-graders, LSD1 ¼ )0.16; LSD2 ¼ )0.16, and
less successful than kindergarteners in the analysis by items,
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 59

LSD1 ¼ )0.08, P > 0.10; LSD2 ¼ )0.08; kindergarteners were less suc-
cessful than first-graders in the analysis by items, LSD1 ¼ )0.08,
P > 0.20; LSD2 ¼ )0.08. No other effects were significant.6
A second repeated-measures ANOVA with syllable length as within-
subjects factor and grade as between-subjects factor was run to examine
the effects of syllable length among the words that shared syllables. The
performance on words that shared syllables of two letters in length
(mean proportion ¼ 0.65) did not differ significantly from the perfor-
mance on those that shared syllables of three letters in length (mean
proportion ¼ 0.67) (both Fs < 1).
Then, a third ANOVA was performed to determine the effects of the
position of the shared unit (see Table 2). Data were submitted to a 2
(position: beginning, end) · 3 (linguistic unit: syllable, onset–rime, pho-
neme) · 3 (grade: preschool, kindergarten, first) repeated-measures
ANOVA with position as a within-subjects factor, and linguistic unit
and grade as a between-subjects factor. The ANOVA showed no reliable
main effects for position or grade, with Fs ranging from 0.02 to 2.9. But
the Position · Grade interaction was significant, F1(2, 84) ¼ 8.64,
g2 ¼ 0.170; F2(2, 57) ¼ 14.49, g2 ¼ 0.518. Further examination of this
interaction revealed that, as was described, preschoolers did better on all
ending shared units F1(1, 29) ¼ 10.37, g2 ¼ 0.263; F2(1, 27) ¼ 11.63,
g2 ¼ 0.301, and first graders did better on all beginning units, F1(1,
23) ¼ 8.94, g2 ¼ 0.280; F2(1, 27) ¼ 17.58, g2 ¼ 0.394. For kindergarten
children there was no reliable effect of the position (both Fs < 1).
An ANOVA was also performed to examine the effects of some
word properties on performance. Table 3 shows the mean proportion
of correct responses in words beginning with continuant consonants
and with stop consonants by grades. The repeated measures ANOVA
with phonetic properties as a within-subjects factor and grade as a
between-subjects factor showed that the effect of phoneme approached
significance in the analysis by subject, F1(1, 27) ¼ 3.20, P ¼ 0.08,

Table 3. Mean proportion of correct responses (standard deviations in parentheses) on

initial phoneme comparison, by grade.

Articulatory property Syllable structure

Grade n Fricative Oclusive Non-clusters Clusters

Preschool 10 0.30 (.32) 0.25 (.31) 0.34 (.40) 0.22 (.25)

Kindergarten 11 0.54 (.26) 0.45 (.33) 0.53 (.31) 0.56 (.19)
First 9 0.86 (.22) 0.75 (.25) 0.84 (.13) 0.69 (.20)
60 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

g2 ¼ 0.106; F2(1, 3) ¼ 11.46, g2 ¼ 0.793. For all children, first continu-

ant consonants were easier than stop consonants. Table 3 also shows
the mean proportion of correct responses in first consonants that did
not belong to a consonant cluster and those that did belong to a clus-
ter.
Finally, an ANOVA with phonetic properties as a within-subjects
factor and grade as between-subjects factor showed a significant effect
of clusters in the analysis of subjects, F1(1, 27) ¼ 4.99, g2 ¼ 0.156;
F2(1, 12) ¼ 1.48, P > 0.20, g2 ¼ 0.110. For all children, access to the
first consonant when it did not belong to a cluster was easier than when
it did belong to a cluster.
Reliabilities (Cronbach’s Alpha) were calculated for scores of each
linguistic unit task. The scores’ reliabilities were 0.84 for the syllable
awareness task, .86 for the onset–rime awareness task, and 0.77 for the
phoneme awareness task. All these values can be considered quite satis-
factory for a small sample of young children.

Discussion

The results of Experiment 1 show better performance on the syllable

condition than on the onset–rime condition, and, in turn, better perfor-
mance on the onset–rime condition than on the phoneme condition.
This pattern of performance is the same across-age, although (not sur-
prisingly) older children perform better than younger ones. These results
extend previous findings with English (e.g., Treiman & Zukowski, 1991)
to Spanish.
An unexpected result, not previously reported in English, is that pre-
school children performed better on all the pairs with shared ending
units than on the pairs with shared beginning units, while first graders
performed better on all beginning units than on all ending units. This
particular pattern of performance may be a consequence of learning to
read, and, more specifically, a consequence of the processes involved in
visual word recognition of a language with a well-defined syllabic struc-
ture. A large body of evidence exists that suggests that the syllable is
the processing unit in reading words in Spanish (see e.g., Álvarez,
Carreiras & Taft, 2001; Perea & Carreiras, 1995, 1998). However, not
all syllables have the same weight as psychological processing units: the
first syllable is posited to be the most important (e.g., Perea &
Carreiras, 1998; Taft & Forster, 1976). Therefore, the change of pattern
regarding the easiest units among preliterate (i.e., ending units) and lit-
erate (e.g., beginning units) children may be a by-product of the acqui-
sition of reading skills. If this hypothesis is correct, one can expect that
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 61

similar syllabic effects will be observed among beginning-readers and in

expert (adult) readers (e.g., Carreiras & Perea, 2002). This possibility is
examined in Experiment 3 by using a priming technique.
Finally, the findings on the effects of word properties in the pho-
neme comparison task show that children find it easier to compare the
first phonemes of words that begin with simple-consonant onsets than
words beginning with consonant clusters. The role of initial clusters
was thus replicated (Jiménez & Haro, 1995; Treiman & Weatherston,
1992). Also, children attain better performance on words that share first
continuant-fricative consonants than on words that share stop conso-
nants, as has been previously reported in Spanish (Jiménez & Haro,
1995).

Experiment 2

The findings from Experiment 1 document three distinct levels of lin-

guistic knowledge among Spanish-speaking children: syllable, onset–
rime, and phoneme. Also, these findings suggest a hierarchical model of
the development of phonological awareness from the syllable to the
onset–rime and, finally, to the phoneme. One possible criticism that
could be directed toward the Experiment 1 is that the word sets were
not matched on a factor that has been known for some time to affect
phonological awareness performance: the syllabic structure of words.
For example, evidence has been accumulating that indicates that – all
other things being equal – children have more difficulty isolating the
initial consonant when it belongs to a syllable-initial consonant cluster
(e.g., Jiménez & Haro, 1995; Treiman & Weatherston, 1992).
Experiment 1 also showed that first graders had a different pattern
of phonological performance by position than preschoolers, but this
finding is novel and also calls for replication. Accordingly, the main
purpose of Experiment 2 was to replicate and extend the findings of
Experiment 1, based on a tightly controlled set of materials designed to
ameliorate the potential problem mentioned above. Again, three linguis-
tic units were used (i.e., syllable, onset–rime, and phoneme), but in this
case all the pairs of words had the same syllabic structure.

Method

Participants. Forty six children ( 22 females and 24 males) participated

in the study: 24 in kindergarten (age M ¼ 6 years 1 month; SD ¼
3.1 months; range ¼ 5 years 7 months–6 years 7 months), and 22 in
62 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

Grade 1 (age M ¼ 6 years 9 months; SD ¼ 4.3 months; range ¼ 6 years

4 months–7 years 9 months). All were native Spanish speakers, and
none of them was known to have any impairment in vision, speech or
motor functioning. They attended a public school in San Sebastián,
Spain, which serves a lower-middle-class population. None of the kin-
dergarten children had received any formal reading instruction.
First-graders had received formal reading instruction since the begin-
ning of the school year (in September). These children had learned to
read using a syllabic method (i.e., first the vowels and then the conso-
nants in combination with the vowels), and grapheme–phoneme corre-
spondences were explicitly taught. A preprimer of both word and
non-word lists from the Baterı́a de Procesos Lectores (Cuetos, Rodrı́-
guez, & Ruano 1996; reliability score above 0.90) was used to screen
out kindergarteners who could read correctly more than 50% of the
preprimer words, and to screen out first graders who could not read
correctly more than 50% of the preprimer words. Three children from
kindergarten were excluded on this basis. All the children were tested
from May to June, that is, at the end of the school year.

Materials and apparatus. For the phonological awareness task, the

materials were the same as in Experiment 1, except that the three lists
of disyllabic words corresponding to the three experimental conditions
included only 12 pairs per condition (6 ‘‘yes’’ pairs and 6 ‘‘no’’ pairs),
and they were constructed to maintain the same syllabic structure
throughout the conditions.

Procedure. The conditions of presentation and instructions for the pho-

nological awareness task were the same as in Experiment 1. The three
lists were now administered to all children. Children began by identify-
ing syllables, and then to identify onset–rime. Finally, they were asked
to identify phonemes. The whole session lasted approximately 15 min.
An alpha level of 0.05 was used for all statistical decisions.

Results

Participant and item repeated measures ANOVAs based on the partici-

pants’ and items’ proportion of correct ‘‘yes’’ responses were conducted
using a 3 (linguistic unit: syllable, onset–rime, phoneme) · 2 (position:
beginning, end) · 2 (grade: kindergarten, first grade) design. Linguistic
unit and position were a within-subjects factors, and grade was a
between-subjects factor in both the by-participants analysis (F1) and the
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 63

analysis by items (F2). The mean proportion of correct responses for

each unit, and the mean proportion of correct responses for each unit
by the position of the shared unit, are displayed in Table 4. The ANO-
VA showed a reliable main effects for linguistic unit, F1(1, 44) ¼ 35.6,
g2 ¼ 0.448; F2(1, 4) ¼ 52.73, g2 ¼ 0.929, and grade, F1(1, 44) ¼ 14.3,
g2 ¼ 0.245; F2(1, 4) ¼ 39.86, g2 ¼ 0.909, but not for position, Fs < 1.
Post hoc analysis revealed significant differences between syllable and
onset–rime, t1(45) ¼ 2.84; t2(11) ¼ 2.76, between syllable and phoneme,
t1(45) ¼ 6.00; t2(11) ¼ 5.17, and between onset–rime and phoneme,
t1(45) ¼ 4.93; t2(11) ¼ 4.22. More interesting, the Position · Grade
interaction was significant in the analysis by subjects, F1(1, 44) ¼ 4.31,
g2 ¼ 0.089; F2(1, 4) ¼ 2.84, P > 0.10, g2 ¼ 0.415. Further examination
of this interaction revealed a nonsignificant trend for a kindergarteners’
better performance on all ending shared units in the analysis by subjects,
F1(1, 23) ¼ 1.74, P ¼ 0.20, g2 ¼ 0.070; F2 < 1, and a nonsignificant
trend for first-graders’ better performance on all beginning units, F1(1,
21) ¼ 2.71, P ¼ 0.11, g2 ¼ 0.114; F2(1, 2) ¼ 12.0, P ¼ 0.07, g2 ¼ 0.857.

Discussion

Experiment 2 found a sequence of accessibility to phonological units,

demonstrating once again that syllables, rimes, and onsets constitute
units of linguistic processing that are more accessible than the pho-
neme. There was also a significant effect of age, demonstrating that
first-graders do better than kindergarten children. More importantly,
there was a significant interaction between position and age, suggesting
again that early reading instructional influences on a language like
Spanish (i.e., with clear syllabic boundaries) may be involved in the rea-

Table 4. Mean proportion of correct responses (standard deviations in parentheses) for

linguistic unit.

Grade Mean total Mean beginning same Mean end same

Kindergarten (n = 24)
Syllable 0.75 (.30) 0.73 (.35) 0.76 (.33)
Onset–rime 0.61 (.24) 0.56 (.34) 0.66 (.32)
Phoneme 0.45 (.24) 0.41 (.32) 0.50 (.31)
First (n = 22)
Syllable 0.90 (.13) 1.00 (.00) 0.80 (.26)
Onset–rime 0.86 (.20) 0.87 (.19) 0.84 (.26)
Phoneme 0.70 (.26) 0.71 (.31) 0.69 (.39)
64 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

son first graders show a different pattern of performance depending on

position than kindergarteners. Experiment 3 is aimed to give stronger
support for this view.

Experiment 3

Experiments 1 and 2 showed that first graders had a different pattern

of phonological performance by position than preschoolers. Given the
reciprocal relationship between phonological awareness and reading,
this result suggests that the better performance of first graders on
beginning units in comparison with ending ones could be caused by first
graders using the first syllable as an access unit for multi-syllabic words
in Spanish.
Support for the importance of the syllable and, particularly, for the
first syllable, in visual word recognition in languages with a well-defined
syllabic structure, like Spanish, comes from a number of different lines of
research (see e.g., Carreiras & Perea, 2002; see also Álvarez, Carreiras &
Taft, 2001; Perea & Carreiras, 1995, 1998; Rouibah & Taft, 2001; see also
Carrillo, 1994, for indirect evidence supporting that Spanish children use
syllables in order to structure word recognition). One paradigm that has
produced results consistent with the idea that the first syllable is an
important unit in lexical processing involves the examination of lexical
decision latencies of a target word arising from the prior masked presen-
tation of another word with the same first syllable. For example, using a
masked priming paradigm (Forster, 1998; Forster & Davis, 1984) where
the prime (virtually invisible) is presented between a forward pattern
mask and the target stimulus, which acts as a backward mask, Carreiras
and Perea (2002) have demonstrated that the effects of high-frequency
word primes, that share the first syllable with the target word, tended to
be inhibitory relative to an unrelated control (presumably because the
prime inhibits the processing of the target). In order to test this explana-
tion, Experiment 3 examines whether the syllable is a perceptual unit in
the process of word identification in Spanish beginning-readers. Experi-
ment 3 used a masked priming paradigm in a lexical decision task, in a
similar way to the study of Carreiras and Perea (2002) with adults.

Method

Participants. The participants were the same as in Experiment 2.

Materials and apparatus. Forty disyllabic Spanish words, all of them

containing four letters, were selected from the Spanish beginning-
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 65

readers word pool (Corral & Goikoetxea, in preparation), which is

based on a count of approximately 11,000 Spanish words. Thirty-eight
words had a consonant–vowel–consonant–vowel (CVÆCV) structure,
and two words had a VCÆCV structure. All the target words were of
low frequency, with a mean frequency of 2.5 (range ¼ 1–5) per 11,000
words. I also selected 40 disyllabic high-frequency words (mean fre-
quency ¼ 53.1; range ¼ 10–412) with four letters that share the first syl-
lable with their corresponding targets (e.g., paÆto-PAÆNA). The items
are listed in the Appendix. In addition, 40 unrelated control primes that
matched the related primes in length, syllabic structure, and word fre-
quency (mean frequency ¼ 39.9; range ¼ 10–104) were also selected.
None of the unrelated primes shared any letters (in any position) with
their corresponding targets (e.g., foÆto-PAÆNA).
In addition, 40 non-words were created, 38 with a CVÆCV structure
and 2 with a VCÆCV structure. In all cases, non-words were orthographi-
cally legal, and they were constructed by changing one middle letter
from a Spanish word that was not in the experimental set. Similar to
word targets, non-word targets were preceded by related word primes
(e.g., paÆto-PAÆMA) or unrelated word primes (e.g., foÆto-PAÆMA).

Procedure. The procedure for the lexical decision task followed the
one used by Carreiras and Perea (2002) as precisely as possible. Pre-
sentation of the stimuli and recording of reaction times (RTs) were
controlled by PC-compatible microcomputers using DMDX experi-
mental software developed by Jonathan Forster at the University of
Arizona.7 RTs were measured from target onset until children’s
responses. On each trial, a forward mask consisting of a row of four
pound signs (# # # #) was presented for 500 ms on the center of the
screen. Next, a centered, lowercase prime word was presented for
120 ms.8 Primes were immediately replaced by an uppercase target
item. Children were instructed to press one of two buttons on the
keyboard to indicate whether the uppercase letter string was a legiti-
mate Spanish word. This decision had to be made as quickly and
accurately as possible. Once the participant responded, the target dis-
appeared from the screen. After an inter-trial interval of 1 s, the next
trial was presented. Children were not informed of the presence of
lowercase words. Both word–word pairs and word–non-word pairs
were counterbalanced across two experimental lists, so that if the pair
paÆto-PAÆNA was in one list, PAÆNA would be preceded by its unre-
lated prime, foÆto, in the other list. Stimulus presentation was random-
ized, with a different order for each participant. Each child received a
total of 20 practice trials (with the same manipulation as in the exper-
66 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

imental trials) prior to the 80 experimental trials. Each child was

given a total of 80 experimental trials: 40 word–word trials and 40
word–non-word trials. The whole session lasted approximately 15 min.
An alpha level of 0.05 was used for all statistical decisions.

Results

Incorrect responses (40.2%) were excluded from the latency analysis.

To avoid the influence of outliers, RTs less than 400 ms or greater than
2500 ms were excluded (less than 5% data). The percentages of trials
that were removed during the screening procedure were similar in the
related and the unrelated condition. For target words, these percentages
were 45.5–46.0% for the related and unrelated conditions, respectively.
Participant and item ANOVAs based on the participants’ and items’
response latencies and percentages of error were conducted using a 2
(syllabic relatedness: related or unrelated) · 2 (list: List 1 and List 2)
design. List was included in the analysis to extract the variance due to
the lists (see Pollatsek & Well, 1995). List was the non-repeated mea-
sure factor in both the by-subjects analysis (F1) and the analysis by
items (F2), whereas syllabic relatedness was a within-participants factor.
The mean lexical decision times and the percentages of error on the
words in each experimental condition are displayed in Table 5.
The ANOVA on the latency data showed that the effect of syllabic
relatedness was statistically significant in the analysis by subjects, F1(1,
14) ¼ 5.11, g2 ¼ 0.268; F2(1, 34) ¼ 2.09, P > 0.10, g2 ¼ 0.058. On aver-
age, targets preceded by syllabic neighbors were responded to 93 ms
more slowly than targets preceded by unrelated words. The ANOVA on
the error data did not show any reliable effects (both Fs < 1).

Discussion

The results are clear-cut: high frequency words appear to inhibit the
processing of low-frequency syllabic neighbors, compared with unre-

Table 5. Mean lexical decision times (in milliseconds; with percentages of error) on
target words in experiment 2 (SOA 120 ms).

Syllabic priming

Grade n Related Unrelated U–R

First 16 1300 (45.3) 1207 (45.6) )93 (0.3)

 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 67

lated controls, in a similar way to the previous studies with adults

(Carreiras & Perea, 2002). That is, when a word is preceded by a brief
masked presentation of another word sharing the same first syllable,
lexical decision responses to that word were inhibited. This means that
from the early stages of learning to read, beginning-readers use a syl-
labic level of representation to lexical access, and that initial access to
the mental lexicon can be attained through the first syllable.

General Discussion

The findings from the three experiments reported here provide strong
support for two characteristics of the phonological awareness progress
of Spanish-speaking children. The first characteristic is the progress
from large to small phonological units in the acquisition of phonologi-
cal awareness in Spanish-speaking children. The second characteristic
of the phonological awareness of Spanish children is the effect of the
position of linguistic units on children’s performance and the different
pattern of performance depending on position among preliterate and
literate children.
Both preliterate (preschoolers and kindergartens) and beginning-
reader Spanish children find it easier to discriminate shared syllables
than shared phonemes in words. Syllable awareness emerges in pre-
schoolers (average age about 4 years old) before they start learning to
read. (Three year-old children, however, find it extremely difficult even
to compare words that share syllables). In contrast, phoneme awareness
is a more difficult skill, which is mainly reached after starting to learn
to read. As stated earlier, this sequence from syllable to phoneme is
one of the most robust findings in the phonological awareness literature
from different languages. Another important finding is that children
were more aware of onsets and rimes than of phonemes. This progres-
sion in Spanish children coincides with the progression first observed
among English children by Treiman and Zukowski (1991). Also, this
finding coincides with data from other Spanish-speaking samples and
clarifies the pattern observed by Jiménez and Ortiz (1993), but this time
by using the same task to compare awareness of linguistic units.
The role of the syllable in the organization of phonemes is widely
accepted. The fact that children find syllables easier than phonemes
showed the role of linguistic structure in the organization of phonologi-
cal development, as Read (1991) pointed out. The role of onsets and
rimes as organizational units of phonemes into syllables also has lin-
guistic support (Harris, 1983), and rime sensitivity on the part of very
68 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

young children is a consistent result in phonological awareness litera-

ture, as mentioned in the introduction. In the present experiments, there
were differences in performance between syllable and onset–rime tasks,
and more preschool children were successful in the onset–rime condi-
tion than would have been predicted on the basis of previous research
(Jiménez & Ortiz, 1993). This result is primarily attributable to the
higher performance on rime than on onset, which is consistent with pre-
vious data (Stanovich, Cunningham & Cramer, 1984). The higher per-
formance on rime probably reflects the familiarity of preschool children
with rhymes (Read, 1991), and the rime duration as was shown here by
the acoustic analysis of linguistic units. To my knowledge, no previous
studies have reported that rimes have a duration similar to that of sylla-
bles.9 In Spanish, this duration is attributable mainly to the duration of
vowels (Navarro, 1932). The salience of rime (a sub-syllabic unit) for
Spanish children can be an important ability in order to reach phoneme
awareness and, thus, understand alphabetic systems (Bryant et al.,
1990; Liberman, Shankweiler & Liberman, 1989).
The second characteristic of the phonological awareness of Spanish
children reported here is the effect of the position of linguistic units on
children’s performance and the different pattern of performance
depending on position among preliterate and literate children. This
novel finding further clarifies the progress of phonological skills in
Spanish children and sheds some light on the relationship between pho-
nological processing and the acquisition of reading knowledge. Pre-
schoolers find ending units easier than beginning units. As was
discussed before, there are several different explanations for the better
performance on ending units than beginning units by preschoolers:
Familiarity with rhyming words and the longer acoustic duration of ri-
mes than onsets. But, when children have learned to read, like the first-
graders, the beginning shared linguistic units are easier than the ending
ones. This particular phonological shift can be a consequence of learn-
ing to read, and thus a by-product of the acquisition of reading skills
in a particular orthographic system.
More specifically, this result may reflect aspects of reading instruc-
tion, especially the practice of attacking words from initial syllables
when learning to read, and the clear syllabic structure of the Spanish
language. Therefore, if children come to use a visualization strategy of
familiar words in doing the phonological task, it is likely that they
access the orthographic images sitting in the memory in the same way
they attack words when reading (see Ehri, 1992; Gough, Juel &
Grifftih, 1992, for a discussion of children’s shifting strategies). More-
over, this finding agrees with the common observation that Spanish
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 69

beginning-readers make more reading errors in the middle than in the

beginning.
Strong support for this explanation comes from the results of Exper-
iment 3 (lexical decision task with masked priming). First-grade readers
show an inhibitory priming effects on word targets when the prime is a
high-frequency word and shares the first syllable with the target relative
to an unrelated control, in a way similar to that observed in Spanish
adults (Carreiras & Perea, 2002). The fact that masked primes share the
first syllable with targets influence the process of word recognition
means that the codes generated from a masked prime can be structured
syllabically and, more important here, that, even among beginning-
readers, the initial access to a lexical entry in a disyllabic word can be
obtained through the first syllable.
To summarize, the present experiments provide empirical evidence
that Spanish children progress from syllable to onset–rime, and in turn,
from onset–rime to phoneme. These results are (in general) in accor-
dance with findings in English. There are some differences, though. For
preliterate Spanish children, ending units are easier than beginning-
ones, but for literate children this pattern is the reverse, in accordance
with the role played by the first syllable in word recognition skills. It
would be interesting to examine in future research whether children of
different reading abilities are sensitive to the position of the phonologi-
cal units.
What are the implications for reading instruction of these results?
Despite the gaps in our understanding of the role of phonological pro-
cesses in reading acquisition (Blachman, 1997), the present results sug-
gest that schools might benefit from extending the screening and
training of basic knowledge, like syllable and rime awareness, to devise
practices directed toward Spanish preliterate children that support the
principle of prevention and early intervention. It is worth noting that
not only for most preschool children (about 4 years) the phoneme tasks
are impossible to perform adequately, previous studies suggest that pre-
schoolers seem to profit more from phonological awareness training
than kindergarteners and first-graders (Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999).
This is especially important in light of the fact that the relationship
between phonological awareness and success in reading can be a long-
term, deep relationship, since a child with a fast start in reading is more
likely to engage in reading, and, in turn, reading affects children’s
acquisition of general knowledge (Stanovich, Cunningham & West,
1998).
Finally, two limitations of the present work need to be mentioned.
First, the operationalization of phonological awareness can be consid-
70 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

ered a minor limitation. Phonological awareness is sometimes opera-

tionalized by isolating rather than detecting linguistic units from a
word. Consequently, the results of this study must be applied cautiously
to a narrow conceptualization of phonological awareness. Second, the
present research used a cross-sectional design, so any maturational
changes observed are purely inferential and require cross-validation
with longitudinal research.

Acknowledgements

This research has been partially supported by Grant BSO2002-03286

from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologı́a de España, and by a grant
from the Departamento de Educación, Universidades e Investigación
del Gobierno Vasco.
I thank David Viadero for testing all participants in Experiment 1,
Ángela Casillas for assistance in collecting the data on Experiment 2,
and Alex Irı́bar of the Phonetic Laboratory of the Universidad de Deu-
sto for acoustic analysis of linguistic units. I would like to thank
Manuel Perea for invaluable comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

1. In using here the term awareness (instead of sensitivity), I am diverging from

some researchers’ (see e.g., Adrián, Alegria & Morais, 1995; Morais, 1991, 2003)
use of the term to refer to tasks that require units to be represented consciously
and in isolation, and not merely an activity that involves recognition of various
levels of word structure (see also Stanovich, 1992, who suggest the term phonolog-
ical sensitivity rather than phonological awareness because of inconclusive evidence
regarding the level of awareness and the level of word structure that are prerequi-
sites of reading).
2. Originally there were another 24 first-year-preschool children (age M ¼ 3 years
8 months; SD ¼ 6.2 months; range ¼ 2 years 11 months–4 years 5 months)
drawn from the same schools described before. These children were excluded
from the sample because the task clearly exceeded their phonological analysis
abilities. Only two children, one from the syllable condition and one from the
onset–rime condition, reached the criterion of success (described below). The
remaining children performed the task in a very random style, so their scores
could not be interpreted with any confidence.
3. Because the shared linguistic units were always stressed, lexical rhyme occurred
on the word pairs with the same final syllable or the same rime. Two words
are said to rhyme, or to have lexical rhyme when the rime of the final accented
syllable of one word agrees with the final accented syllable of another word.
This implies that word pairs that share the final syllable or the rimes would
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 71

also rhyme (i.e., both of them would be accented on the same syllable). Indeed,
this potential confound appears in most of the research on phonological aware-
ness because children may have accomplished the task as a judgement of rhym-
ing (see Read, 1991, for a similar reasoning). However, it is extremely difficult
to find word pairs in Spanish that share final syllables or rimes, while not shar-
ing the rhyme.
4. I did not use the words ‘‘like’’ and ‘‘sad’’ (Treiman & Zukowski, 1991) because
young children could give ‘‘no’’ responses in order to avoid attaching ‘‘sad’’ to
the puppet.
5. As suggested by an anonymous reviewer, the measure of sensivity d 0 was mea-
sured separately for each children. Because some children showed extreme per-
formance (i.e., 0 or 100% of errors in a given condition), response rates were
corrected according to the log-linear rule (see Hautus, 1995). The ANOVA on
d ¢, yielded the same pattern of effects as the ANOVA with the ‘‘yes’’
responses.
6. Data from ‘‘no’’ pairs were not used, because it is unclear how responding ‘‘no’’
(i.e., ‘‘No, those two words does not have any of the same sounds in them’’),
reveals children’s awareness of intra-word units.
7. http://www.u.airzona.edu/
jforster/dmdx.htm.
8. Because the percentages of error in the lexical decision task were quite high, I
included a sample of fifth-grader readers in order to know how reading errors
progress. The errors’ rate of fifth-grader readers was approximately 36% and they
also show an inhibitory effect of 40 ms.
9. It is worth noting that the acoustic duration of linguistic units was related to per-
formance on individual items. The correlation between proportion duration of
each linguistic unit in word and number of correct responses for each unit was
0.53.

Appendix

Stimuli for Experiments 1–2

Table A1
List of Word Pairs for Experiment 1

Syllable Onset-rime Phoneme

‘‘Yes’’ pairs (shared beginning)

cabra calle blusa bloque blusa broche
(goat) (street) (blouse) (block) (blouse) (broach)
flojo flores brilla brujo cabra coche
(loose) (flowers) (shine) (wizard) (goat) (carr)
folio foca crece cromo clase cromo
(leaf) (seal) (grow) (chrome) (class) (chrome)
72 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

Table A1 (Continued)

Syllable Onset-rime Phoneme

fresa freno flojo flecha flojo fresa

(strawberry) (brake) (loose) (arrow) (loose) (strawberry)
grifo gripe frase fruto folio fecha
(tap) (flu) (sentence) (fruit) (leaf) (date)
letra lejos grifo grapa globo gripe
(letter) (far) (tap) (staple) (globe) (flu)
lunes lucha plomo plaza labio lunes
(Monday) (struggle) (lead) (square) (lip) (Monday)
plato playa primo presa primo plata
(plate) (beach) (cousin) (capture) (cousin) (silver)
tigre tiza traje trigo rubio regla
(tiger) (chalk) (suit) (wheat) (blond) (ruler)
traje trapo trapo trece tigre tabla
(suit) (rag) (rag) (thirteen) (tiger) (board)

‘‘Yes’’ pairs (shared end)

ası́ tosı́ belén sartén belén sillón
(thus) (coughed) (creche) (frying pan) (creche) (armchair)
cartón montón besar collar chalet robot
(cardboard) (pile) (to kiss) (necklace) (chalet) (robot)
chilló cayó calor señor melón patı́n
(screamed) (fell) (heat) (mister) (melon) (skate)
coral peral canal peral mujer calor
(coral) (pear tree) (canal) (pear tree) (woman) (heat)
ganó cenó decir subir paı́s revés
(gained) (had dinner) (to say) (to climb) (country) (back)
jamón limón delfı́n jazmı́n pañal hotel
(ham) (lemon) (dolphin) (jasmine) (diaper) (hotel)
marcó tocó feliz nariz pincel corral
(marked) (touched) (happy) (nose) (brush) (pen)
pasar besar hotel pincel taller color
(to pass) (to kiss) (hotel) (brush) (shop) (colour)
pesqué toqué jabón limón usted bondad
(fished) (touched) (soap) (lemon) (you) (goodness)
tener poner valor motor veloz nariz
(to have) (to put) (value) (motor) (rapid) (nose)

‘‘No’’ pairs
allá peiné belén tocar belén tocar
(there) (combed) (creche) (to touch) (creche) (to touch)
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 73

Table A1 (Continued)

Syllable Onset-rime Phoneme

balcón temer besar timón besar timón

(balcony) (to fear) (to kiss) (rudder) (to kiss) (rudder)
broche plaza bombón usar brillo flaca
(broach) (square) (bonbon) (to use) (shine) (thin)
café soñó brillo clase bruto playa
(coffee) (dreamed) (shine) (class) (rough) (beach)
champú doctor broche pluma buque sitio
(shampoo) (doctor) (broach) (feather) (ship) (place)
copia túnel bruto playa clavo trece
(copy) (tunnel) (brute) (beach) (nail) (thirteen)
flecha brujo flaca grito feria potro
(arrow) (wizard) (thin) (shout) (market) (colt)
globo presa freno clima frase globo
(globe) (prey) (brake) (climate) (sentence) (globe)
hundir resté fresa globo gastar bombón
(to sink) (subtracted) (strawberry) (globe) (to spend) (bonbon)
joven ducha ganar reloj llegar montón
(young) (shower) (to gain) (clock) (to arrive) (pile)
lluvia pobre grillo plata pañal reloj
(rain) (poor) (cricket) (silver) (diaper) (clock)
motor dedal gripe plato papel robot
(motor) (thimble) (flu) (plate) (paper) (robot)
partir belén llegar montón pensó tardar
(to break) (creche) (to arrive) (pile) (thought) (to be late)
patio nube melón tardar pera sucio
(patio) (cloud) (melon) (to be late) (pear) (dirty)
radio leche papel robot quizás mejor
(radio) (milk) (paper) (robot) (perhaps) (better)
saltó crecı́ quizás mejor radio túnel
(jumped) (grew) (perhaps) (better) (radio) (tunnel)
sofá hundı́ sillón rezar sillón rezar
(sofa) (sunk) (armchair) (to pray) (armchair) (to pray)
taller cojı́n tapón vivir tapón vivir
(shop) (pillow) (cork) (to live) (cork) (to live)
trece flaca trece clavo trigo blusa
(thirteen) (thin) (thirteen) (nail) (wheat) (blouse)
trigo clase trucha flojo yegua novio
(wheat) (class) (trout) (loose) (mare) (boyfriend)
74 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

Table A2
List of Words for Experiment 2

Syllable Onset-rime Phoneme

‘‘Yes’’ pairs (shared beginning)

fresa freno flojo flecha flojo fresa
(strawberry) (brake) (loose) (arrow) (loose) (strawberry)
grifo gripe grifo grapa globo gripe
(tap) (flu) (tap) (staple) (globe) (flu)
plato playa plomo plaza plata primo
(plate) (beach) (lead) (square) (silver) (cousin)

‘‘Yes’’ pairs (shared end)

coral peral canal peral pañal hotel
(coral) (pear tree) (canal) (pear tree) (diaper) (hotel)
jamón limón jabón limón belén sillón
(ham) (lemon) (soap) (lemon) (creche) (armchair)
tener poner calor señor mujer calor
(to have) (to put) (heat) (mister) (woman) (heat)

‘‘No’’ pairs
trece flaca brillo clase brillo flaca
(thirteen) (thin) (shine) (class) (shine) (thin)
broche plaza grillo plata bruto playa
(broach) (square) (cricket) (silver) (rough) (beach)
freno clima fresa globo trucha flojo
(brake) (climate) (strawberry) (globe) (trout) (loose)

‘‘No’’ pairs
balcón temer quizás mejor besar timón
(balcony) (to fear) (perhaps) (better) (to kiss) (rudder)
taller cojı́n belén tocar pañal reloj
(shop) (pillow) (creche) (to touch) (diaper) (clock)
partir belén sillón rezar llegar montón
(to break) (creche) (armchair) (to pray) (to arrive) (pile)
 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH CHILDREN 75

Table A3
List of Word Targets and Primes for Experiment 2

Related Unrelated Word target

alto (high) pero (but) ALMA (soul)

arco (arch) bici (bike) ARTE (art)
bajo (small) rojo (red) BABA (spittle)
baño (bath) peso (weight) BALA (bullet)
bebe (baby) nudo (knot) BESA (kiss)
bota (boot) vaca (cow) BOLO (pin)
cama (bed) nube (cloud) CASO (case)
casa (house) topo (mole) CABE (fit)
cine (cinema) loro (parrot) CIMA (peak)
como (as) lana (wool) COSE (sew)
copa (glass) mapa (map) CODO (elbow)
cuna (crib) gata (cat) CUCO (cuckoo)
dado (dice) pelo (hair) DAGA (dagger)
faro (headlight) dedo (finger) FAMA (fame)
foca (seal) nada (nothing) FOSO (pit)
gato (cat) humo (smoke) GANA (gain)
goma (rubber) pasa (raisin) GOZO (joy)
hilo (thread) lupa (glass) HICE (did)
hola (hello) dice (say) HOYO (hole)
jefe (boss) pino (pine) JETA (face)
lazo (bow) cubo (bucket) LAPA (limpet)
lila (lilac) duda (doubt) LISO (flat)
lobo (wolf) dice (say) LONA (canvas)
luna (moon) niña (girl) LUJO (luxury)
mano (hand) cine (cinema) MAJA (flashy)
mesa (table) cada (each) MERO (grouper)
mono (monkey) nene (baby) MODA (fashion)
mula (mule) hada (fairy) MURO (wall)
nata (cream) pide (ask) NADO (swim)
pala (shovel) tele (television) PAÑO (dustcloth)
pato (duck) foto (photo) PANA (velvet)
pelo (hair) nido (nest) PEGA (stick)
piña (pine-apple) toma (take) PISE (step on)
polo (pole) mira (look at) POTE (pot)
rana (frog) nene (baby) RATO (short time)
sapo (toad) todo (all) SANA (to heal)
sube (climb) come (eat) SUDA (sweat)
76 EDURNE GOIKOETXEA

Table A3 (Continued)

Related Unrelated Word target

taxi (taxi) bici (bike) TACO (wedge)

vaso (glass) niño (boy) VARA (stick)
vela (candle) hora (hour) VETE (go)

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Address for correspondence: Edurne Goikoetxea, Facultad de Filosofı́a y Ciencias de

la Educación,
Universidad de Deusto, Apartado 1, 48080 Bilbao, Spain
Phone: +34-00-94-413-90-00; Fax: +34-00-94-413-90-89;
E-mail: egoiko@arrakis.es