Phonological awareness is one of the most important predictors of reading. However, there is still controversy concerning its dimensionality. This study evaluated the dimensionality of phonological awareness among Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children. A total of 212 children performed six phonological awareness tasks in the last year of kindergarten. Of those children, 177 performed the same tasks when they were in the first grade. The phonological awareness measures differed in both their cognitive demand (detection, blending, segmentation, and elision) and the phonological unit involved (rhyme, syllable, and phoneme). Confirmatory factor analyzes were employed to test several models of phonological awareness dimensionality. The results indicated that the best model was an oblique model of phonological units with two correlated latent factors: phonemic awareness and supraphonemic awareness. This model presented the best fit to the data both in kindergarten and in the first grade. In addition, supraphonemic awareness in the kindergarten predicted phoneme awareness in the first grade; however, phonemic awareness in the kindergarten did not predict supraphonemic awareness in the first grade. These results are compatible with phonological awareness developing from larger phonological units (e.g., syllables) to small phonological units (e.g., phonemes) and the reciprocal relationship between phonological awareness and reading. From a theoretical point of view, these results also suggest that phonological awareness is a one-dimensional construct that can be evaluated by tests employing different phonological units (e.g., syllables, rhymes, phonemes).

中文翻译：

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巴西葡萄牙语儿童语音意识的维度：纵向研究

语音意识是阅读最重要的预测因素之一。然而，关于它的维度仍然存在争议。本研究评估了巴西葡萄牙语儿童语音意识的维度。在幼儿园的最后一年，共有 212 名儿童完成了 6 项语音意识任务。在这些孩子中，有 177 人在一年级时执行了相同的任务。语音意识测量在认知需求（检测、混合、分割和省略）和所涉及的语音单位（押韵、音节和音素）方面有所不同。验证性因素分析被用来测试语音意识维度的几个模型。结果表明，最好的模型是具有两个相关潜在因素的音系单元的倾斜模型：音素意识和超音素意识。该模型对幼儿园和一年级的数据都表现出最佳拟合。此外，幼儿园的超音素意识预测了一年级的音素意识；然而，幼儿园的音素意识并不能预测一年级的超音素意识。这些结果与语音意识从较大的语音单位（例如，音节）发展到小的语音单位（例如，音素）以及语音意识和阅读之间的相互关系是一致的。从理论的角度来看，这些结果还表明，语音意识是一种一维结构，可以通过使用不同语音单位（例如，音节、押韵、音素）的测试来评估。