Phonological Awareness in Literacy Acquisition: It's Not Only for Children

The aim of this study was to determine the cognitive processes of adult literacy acquisition. We assessed the progress of 59 women participating in an intensive adult literacy program that we have developed in Turkey. After only 90 hr of instruction, there were significant improvements in letter and word recognition, phonological awareness, and spelling levels. Word recognition and spelling were predicted by phonological awareness. The results were consistent with studies on children's literacy acquisition, which show the critical nature of phonological awareness in literacy acquisition.