Developing syllable blending task and the study of this skill in 3-5 years-Old Persian speaking children

Phonological awareness skill is an integrated ability that is manifested in three skills including syllable, intra syllabic and phoneme awareness. As the results of many researches show that lower levels of phonological awareness are developmental precursors to higher levels of phonological awareness, the aim of this study is to explore development of syllable blending skill as an aspect of syllable awareness in 3-5 years-Old Persian speaking children.
It was a descriptive-analytic cross sectional study. 120 normal Persian speaking children, 60 girls and 60 boys in 4 age groups were randomly selected from Qom city kindergartens. The participants were monolingual. The research instrument was a task made by researcher consisting of 10 items whose validity and reliability were confirmed by preliminary findings. Each response was scored as correct (1) or incorrect (0). Non-responses were also scored as incorrect. Data were analyzed using SPSSversion-19.
more than half of children aged between 3 to 3.5 years old successfully completed the task of syllable blending. Children's ability to combine the 2 syllables was better than 3 syllables, and in combination 3 syllables together more than 4 syllables (P The result of this study showed that 4 years old children, gain syllable blending skill, the fact that must be taken into more consideration in screening, diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Also, in the evaluation of this skill, the number of syllables must be considered.