2. Literature review

The chapter consists of four parts as follows. The first part probes into the concept of pronunciation awareness. It lays the psychological basis for the study. The second part explains a brief introduction of the picture book reading and the relationship with English learning. It provides the study with the foundation of choosing research materials. The last part is about the influence of nursery rhyme upon the pronunciation in terms of stress, intonation, pause. It gives the theoretical basis for the research.

2.1 Pronunciation awareness 

2.1.1 The concept of phonological awareness

Generally speaking, phonological awareness refers to the awareness of phoneme units which compose a word (Goswami, et al. 1990). In other words, phonological awareness is defined as the skill for analyzing words in spoken language into their syllabi and phonemes and the skill for carrying out mental processes related to the phonemes in spoken language (Denton, et al. 2000). In this context, phonological awareness is a verbal language skill which a prerequisite for understanding the relationship between phonemes and letters (Torgesses, et al. 1998).

2.2.2 Studies on phonological awareness

Studies related to phonological awareness skill revealed that this skill is a skill which started to develop in preschool period, predicted reading and writing achievement in the future, which could be developed and taught, which was the determinant of reading problems and included a step by step process. (Roskos et al. 2003; Phillips et al. 2008; Torgesen et al. 1994; Share, 2004; Chard, et al, 1999; Allor, 2002). Studies which provide the general developmental order of phonological awareness indicated that children were more sensitive to smaller parts of words when they became older and they analyzed the similar and different phonemes before they manipulate the phonemes of the words (Anthony, 2005; Chard, 1999). When the studies related to the development of phonological awareness of preschool children were examined, it could be seen that children in this period were able to complete tasks like analyzing words into their syllabi and recognizing the rhymed words; however they had difficulty in tasks related to phonemes. This situation indicates that phonological awareness is a skill which develops step by step (Goswami et al, 1990).

In order to implement the experiment, students should have phonological awareness skill at an adequate level in preschool ages. 

2.2 English Picture books and English learning

2.2.1 The definition of English picture book 

The English Picture-book is called “Big Book” (Zhao Xia; 2004), and also known as “English Picture-book” (Xu Huizhen, 2004). Although the names are different, most scholars believe that English Picture-book belong to the illustrated literary book. It tell stories with illustrations and text complementary. It is a kind of children’s book. In the Picture-book, the pictures can help students make up the grammar and vocabulary knowledge to understand the story better, while texts can help students understand the meaning of the expression better.

The characteristics of the English Picture-book are as follows.

(1) It has a wide range of topic and content which close to the students’ real life and full of interest and knowledge. It can help to enrich students' experience, broaden students’ horizons, and develop students' cognitive ability.

(2) Its text is concise and clear; it provide students with abundant corpus.

(3) It emphasize the unity of the story and the visual arts, which produce a distinctive visual effect.