Abstract, The purpose of this research was to assess the development of phonological skills before and during learning to read. Thirty-four children were tested twice, in nursery school and in first grade with an epiphonological task (E), e.g. judgment of similarity, and two metaphonological tasks, one requiring the extraction of common units (M1) and one requiring unit substitution (M2). As expected, performances decreased from E, to M1, to M2. In response to formal instruction, phonemes yielded better performances than larger units, particularly in M1. The correlations between scores in written word recognition test and phonological skills confirm the strong link between phonemic awareness and learning to read. However, syllable seems to be an important unit in phonological processing. The results are discussed in terms of the cognitive load involved in the different tasks.

Cette recherche vise à étudier le développement des habiletés phonologiques avant et pendant l'apprentissage de la lecture. Trente quatre enfants ont été testés deux fois, en Grande Section de maternelle et au Cours Préparatoire, à l'aide d'une épreuve de type épiphonologique (E), tâche de jugement de similarité, et à l'aide de deux épreuves de type métaphonologique, l'une d'extraction d'unités phonologiques (M1) et une autre de substitution d'unités phonologiques (M2). Conformément à l'hypothèse, les scores (nombre de réponses correctes) décroissent de E à M1 puis M2. Sous l'effet de l'instruction formelle de la langue écrite, les scores obtenus sur les unités phonémiques sont meilleurs que ceux obtenus sur les syllabes, en particulier dans la tâche M1. Les corrélations entre les performances en identification de mots écrits et les habiletés phonologiques confirment le lien puissant entre conscience phonémique et apprentissage de la lecture. Toutefois, la syllabe semble une unité linguistique importante dans les processus phonologiques. Les résultats sont discutés en faisant référence à la charge cognitive impliquée dans les différentes tâches.

Key words: Phoneme, Phonological awareness, Reading development, Syllable, Word recognition.

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