A small-scale, longitudinal, phonological awareness training study with inner-city kindergarten children was conducted in
four classrooms. The central goals of the study were the creation and evaluation of a phonological awareness training program
and a preliminary look at the consequence of that training on basic phonological processes.
Assessment of phonological awareness and basic phonological processes was carried out in the fall of the kindergarten year,
and again in the spring following an 18 week training program which incorporated both auditory and articulatory techniques
for fostering metaphonological development. Follow-up evaluation of promotion to first grade and of reading achievement took
place a year later. The children in the two experimental classes receiving training had significantly greater gains in phonological
awareness at the end of kindergarten, were significantly more likely to be promoted to first grade rather than to pre-one,
and had a trend toward better reading skills in first grade than did the smaller group of children promoted to first grade
from the control classes. In addition, there were some indications that development of phonological awareness was accompanied
by changes in the underlying phonological system as well. Here we focus on the rationale and implementation of our training
program and discuss the implications of the findings for a potential large-scale study.