We examined the relationships between Hiragana reading accuracy and phonological awareness in Japanese kindergarten children. Two hundred fifty-four children participated in the study. We divided the participants into three kindergarten classes (K1; 3-4 age class, K2; 4-5 age class, K3; 5-6 age class). The participants were assessed on seven tasks; picture-naming, three Hiragana reading skills (letter-sound knowledge, word decoding, word identification), three phonological awareness skills (segmentation, isolation, blending). Results of structural equation modeling showed that the phonological awareness latent-variable was strongly correlated with the Hiragana reading latent-variable in all classes of the kindergarten children. The two latent-variables were associated with age and gender in K1 children, while they were associated with vocabulary across all classes except phonological awareness in K1. Moreover, phonological awareness and Hiragana reading were moderately to strongly correlated with each other in all classes even after controlling for age, gender, and vocabulary. The findings confirmed the close relationships between Hiragana reading accuracy and phonological awareness in all classes of Japanese kindergarten children.

View full abstract