This study investigates the factors influencing the development of phonological awareness and its impact on reading skills among third-year basic education students. Employing a descriptive-exploratory approach at a correlational level, it is based on a comprehensive review of bibliographic sources and field-collected data. The Phonological Knowledge Evaluation Test (PECO) was used to measure phonological awareness, evaluating the manipulation of syllables and phonemes. To assess reading skills, the revised Battery of Evaluation of Reading Processes (PROLEC-R) was utilized. The results reveal significant associations between phonological awareness and lexical, semantic, and syntactic processes, although difficulties in reading comprehension persist. It is concluded that reading challenges could be linked to communicational variables within the context of a digital society, dominated by multimedia stimuli. This study highlights the importance of strengthening phonological awareness from the early stages of education to improve reading skills in basic education students.
