Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to investigate how the development of Phonological Awareness（PA） were measured according to the difference of type of PA task in Kindergarten Children and correlated with Hiragana acquisition in the two testing periods in school, when they became the first graders, by means of longitudinal method. The participants were 69 children（male 33, female 36）. In survey period1（during kindergarten）, Four types of PA tasks（segmentation, isolation, deletion, and reverse） were administered, and in survey period2（during first grade）, success level of Hiragana spelling acquisition were measured in two separate periods of time（July and December）. The result showed that the level of PA was different depending on the type of PA tasks and the number of Mora. Furthermore, level of PA performance in kindergarten was strongly correlated with Hiragana spelling acquisition, but differently by type of PA. The present study firstly indicated that the score of segmentaion task strongly predicted the spelling acquisition in a relatively easy character with direct sound（Chokuon Moji） and word（Chokuon Tango）. Furthermore it should be noticed, that the score of reverse task in PA was significantly correlated with spelling of Hiragana character containing a special mora（Tokusyuhaku Moji） and the special words. We concluded also that the total score of PA in Kindergarten highly contributed to the acquisition of Hiragana spelling in the first grade.
