Beyond implicit phonological knowledge: No support for an onset-rime structure in children’s explicit phonological awareness

The importance of the onset–rime structure in phonological awareness is widely accepted. We focused on Dutch-speaking children’s explicit awareness. Four experiments failed to support the relevance of the onset-rime distinction in this domain. First, prereaders and first-graders found it easier to segment two-phoneme syllables within the rime VC (e.g., /omodifier letter triangular colont/), than between onset and rime in the reversed CV (e.g., /tomodifier letter triangular colon/). Second, prereaders did not find it easier to substitute a phoneme in a CV than in a VC. Third, when first-graders were required to segment CVCs, CV strings were left intact more frequently than rimes. Thus, Dutch-speaking children did not treat onsets and rimes as cohesive units of the syllable in tasks tapping explicit awareness. Phonetic factors may play an important role in determining cohesion between phonemes.