Interactive games to develop phonological awareness in children aged 5 to 6 years

Abstract

Phonological awareness is a fundamental skill in early childhood education, as it allows children to recognize and manipulate the sounds of language as a basis for learning to read and write. In bilingual contexts, its development requires contextualized and culturally relevant pedagogical strategies. This article aimed to evaluate the influence of implementing interactive games, based on Paulo Freire's pedagogical approach, on the development of phonological awareness in 5- to 6-year-old children in Early Childhood Education II in a bilingual rural context in the Pujilí canton of Ecuador. A qualitative approach was used, and information was collected through direct observation using a logbook to record student performance during the pedagogical intervention. The data were analyzed using a descriptive procedure. The results showed that difficulties in phonological awareness are more frequent in rural contexts where Spanish is not the mother tongue. The implementation of interactive games fostered skills such as auditory discrimination, rhyme identification, and initial sound recognition. It is concluded that: Interactive games constitute an effective pedagogical strategy to strengthen phonological awareness in early childhood education, especially in bilingual rural contexts, by promoting motivation, active participation and the development of fundamental linguistic skills for early literacy.