09.11.2021

Language competence of teachers crucial for spelling

New test instrument allows to assess "phoneme awareness" of elementary school teachers and can identify training needs

A successful start in learning to write has a positive long-term effect on later performance - deficits, on the other hand, are difficult to make up for later. Elementary school teachers must therefore be well prepared to teach writing skills. This includes, for example, awareness of how words are structured and how letters and sounds relate to each other, the so-called "phoneme awareness". While this field of research has been thoroughly investigated in the USA for a long time, there has been a lack of studies in German-speaking countries. However, scientists at the Universities of Tübingen and Regensburg, as well as a researcher at the SRH University of Health in Stuttgart, have now developed an effective test instrument that prospective teachers can use to train the required phoneme awareness. This in turn benefits students, whose performance has been shown to improve as a result. The research results were published in the journal Diagnostica.

For more information, please see the press release.