Phonemic-Phonological Awareness
Established & edited by: Christina Bautista, Stephanie Lopez, Monica Martinez
Extended by: Mercedes Garcia, Stephanie Rodrigues, Monica Vasquez
Embellished by: Christine Hetherly, Kimberly Leyva, Nenette P. Stephens
What is Phonemic awareness?
The ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992)
How are phonemic awareness and phonological awareness related?
Teachers and parents who wish for their children to master the alphabetic principle must understand the relationship that exists between the sounds of language (phonological awareness) and the letters that those sounds represent (phonemic awareness). (Berg) Phonemic awareness is a part of phonological awareness: it is the understanding that words consist of individual, discrete sounds in particular sequences (Blevins, 2000). Phonemic awareness is crucial for learning the relationship between speech and the written word, and it is one part of the foundation for success with the written form of the language (NRC, 1998).
Phonological awareness as stated previously is the ability to detect the units of sound in language; such units can be words, rhymes, syllables and phonemes. Some may explain it also as the ability not only to be aware of sounds, but to manipulate the units of sound. The awareness of phonemes is known as phonemic awareness and it falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness in other words is part of phonological awareness (Hornsby,D& Wilson,L.2010).A grapheme is all the forms and ways in which a letter is represented according to Hornsby and Wilson (2010) e.g. grapheme A:A,a,A,a,A,a .
According to Lonigan(2006) Phonological awareness follows a developmental continuum that is important to consider when working with preschool age students, the manipulation of phonemes is harder than the manipulation of a bigger unit of language such as words. Lonigan states that before a student can acquire syllable phonological skills, first acquires word phonological skills and so on. In other words the acquisition of phonological skills goes from larger units to smaller units of language being phonemes the smallest.
Phonological awareness develops in a predictable way (Hornsby & Wilson 2010) children are aware of sounds even if they are not conscious of such awareness. For example when asked to bring the /b/at a two year old will not go and bring the /c/at; the difference between this two words is a sound or phoneme that changes the meaning of the entire sentenced and young children are able to hear that difference. It seems that most authors agree in the development of phonological awareness skills. The Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education C.I.R.C.L.E (2009) warn educators that before teachers can teach the alphabetic principle is necessary to help develop phonological awareness. According to C.I.R.C.L.E children ca hear larger "chunks" in the beginning and their ability to hear more segmented or smaller parts of words is developed through practice.
Why is it important?
It is known that students who fall behind in reading rarely ever catch up to their peers. The initial stages of learning to read begins with children recognizing the sound patterns in language. This is why it is important for parents to talk to their young children during the language acquisition stage and preschool years, as this contributes to the child's ability to becoming a good reader (Berg, 2003). Phonemic Awareness can be an early indicator if students will struggle in acquiring literacy skills (Wood, 2003). Helping preliterate children to become phonologically aware is important because they attend to meaning rather than sound. According to Hornsby & Wilson (2010) a young child may choose caterpillar instead of train when asked to pick the shortest word, because young children think about the concept instead of the word.
Phonemic Awareness Activities:
Technology Links
Links to Phonemic Awareness Articles:
Tips for Teaching Your Child About Phonemes
By: Reading Rockets (2012)
Top 10 Resources on Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
By: Reading Rockets (2011)
Environmental Print
By: Reading Rockets (2010)
Strategy: Matching Books to Phonics Features
By: Reading Rockets (2010)
The Development of Phonological Skills
By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (2009)
Phonological Instruction for Older Students
By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (20
Playing with Word Sounds: Stretch and Shorten
By: Reading Rockets (2009)
Making Friends With Phonemes
By: Bruce Murray (2009)
Why Phonological Awareness Is Important for Reading and Spelling
By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (2008)
Beginning Readers: Look! I Can Read This!
By: Reading Rockets (2007)
Emergent Readers: Look! That's My Letter!
By: Reading Rockets (2007)
Nursery Rhymes: Not Just for Babies!
By: Reading Rockets (2007)
Clues to Dyslexia in Early Childhood
By: Sally E. Shaywitz (2004)
Phonemic Awareness Assessment
By: Reading Rockets (2004)
Phonological Awareness Assessment
By: Reading Rockets (2004)
Phonemic Activities for the Preschool or Elementary Classroom
By: Marilyn J. Adams, Barbara Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, and Terri Beeler (2004)
Phonemic Awareness: Watch & Learn
By: Reading Rockets (2004)
Speech Sounds: Watch & Learn
By: Reading Rockets (2004)
English Language Learners and the Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction
By: Beth Antunez (2002)
The Phive Phones of Reading
By: Sebastian Wren (2002)
The Alphabetic Principle
By: Texas Education Agency (2002)
Phonemic Awareness: An Introduction
By: Partnership for Reading (2001)
Phonemic Awareness Instruction
By: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000)
Teaching Phonemic Awareness, Letter Knowledge, and Concepts of Print
By: Learning First Alliance (2000)
How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities
By: Edwin S. Ellis (1997)
Video Clips for Effective Speech Sound Activities (four series)
Launching Young Readers.
Teaching Strategies and Examples
Phonemic Awareness
Sound Isolation
Example: The first sound in sun is /ssss/.
Blending
Example: /sss/ - /uuu/ - /nnn/ is sun.
Segmenting
Example: The sounds in sun are /sss/ - /uuu/ - /nnn/.
Visual Examples:
2-year old Child Reading Segmenting
Ball and Blachman (1991) discovered that kindergartners who received phonemic segmentation preparation along with instruction in letter-sound relationships demonstrated higher improvements in reading than those children which received instruction in letter-sound relationships alone. Children need to be exposed to both phonological and phonemic awareness activities as they develop strong literacy skills as whole and not simply in parts. Below are activities that can be used in the classroom or at home to support phonemic and phonological awareness in children. Treiman (2000) states, "The ultimate goal of reading instruction is for children to be able to comprehend and learn from written texts. Phonological awareness and knowledge about letters are the building blocks on which literacy learning rests."
"Children learn to read and write with their own name" (Treiman, 1998).
"Children's names have a special function in the early development of literacy due to their frequent exposure to the spellings of their own names (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982; Villaume & Wilson, 1989)."
References
C.I.R.C.L.E.Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (2009)Teacher’s Manual with Spanish Components: Children’s Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
Hornsby,W. &Wilson,L.(2010) teaching phonics in context. Urbana,IL:NCTE.
Lonigan,C.(2006) Conceptualizing Phonological Processing Skills in Prereaders.In D. Dickinson,S.Neuman(Eds.),Handbook of Early Literacy Research.(pp.77-89) New York, NY:The Guilford Press.
In D. Dickinson,S.Neuman(Eds.),Handbook of Early Literacy Research. New York, NY:The Guilford Press. (2010). Circle preschool early language and literacy teacher's manual. (pp. 119-162). Houston: The Children's Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
Ball, E. W., & Blachman, B.A. (1991). Does phoneme awareness training in kindergarten make a difference in early word recognition and developmental spelling? Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 49-66.
Berg, M. (2003). The Critical Role of Phonological and Phonemic Awareness in Reading Success: A Model for Early Literacy in Rural Schools. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 22(4), 47-54.
https://login.libweb.lib.utsa.edu/loginurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26db%3dtfh%26AN%3d12059529%26scope%3dsite
Treiman, R. (2000). The foundations of literacy. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 89-92.
Treiman, R., & Broderick, V. (1998). What's in a name: Children's knowledge about the letters in their own names. Journal of Experimental Child Psycology, 70, 97-116.
Villaume, S.K., & Wilson, L.C. (1989). Preschool children's explorations of letters in their own names. Applied Psycholinguistics,10, 283-300.
Woods, C. S. (2003). Phonemic Awareness: A Crucial Bridge to Reading. Montessori Life, 15(2), 37-39.
https://login.libweb.lib.utsa.edu/login?url=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26db%3deft%26AN%3d507824181%26scope%3dsite
Yopp, H. K. (1992). Developing Phonemic Awareness in Young Children.Reading Teacher, 45, 9, 696- 703. http://www.readingrockets.org/article/c52/
Comments (25)
Christina Bautista said
at 9:22 pm on Feb 16, 2013
Hi. I think we need to add more text in reference to how phonological and phonemic awareness are related. Just a suggestion.
Stephanie said
at 9:26 pm on Feb 19, 2013
The text is choppy because we are still figuring out where everything fits. Our goal is to decipher the difference between phonemic and phonological awareness. Why it is important? Examples of building phonemic and phonological awareness. Activities to incorporate into your classroom or at home. This are the points we want to hit the most. Please leave links if you are unsure how to format so that we can fix our page aesthetically to our liking.
Cecilia Parra said
at 8:03 pm on Feb 20, 2013
I really like the color coding, its appealing as well as the visuals of examples of activities, very helpful/great informal assessment methods.
nenette p. stephens said
at 8:03 pm on Feb 20, 2013
(3) colorful, very appealing, good ideas/sun-headings; informative
(2) research based (in-depth)
Brian Jones said
at 8:03 pm on Feb 20, 2013
Question- Can I get back to you on my 3-21? By Thursday
Laura said
at 8:11 pm on Feb 20, 2013
Compliments: lots of visuals, love the strategies, informative
Suggestions: Use research based information; the color of the text isn't too appealing (the green)
Kimberly Leyva said
at 8:20 pm on Feb 20, 2013
3) Good graphics, good examples of activities, good citations.
2) Extend on activities and the aspects of phonological awareness they address, extend more on ideas discussed.
1) Other than talking, are there any ways for parents to enhance phonological awareness?
Stephanie said
at 10:55 pm on Feb 20, 2013
The text color is for citing purposes :) It is going to be removed at the end.
Viridiana said
at 6:46 pm on Feb 23, 2013
3) Love the pictures, videos, and activities
2) Maybe expand on teaching examples or how parents can help
1) Which strategy is used most in schools to teach phonics?
Danielle Thrasher said
at 10:57 pm on Feb 25, 2013
compliments: good visuals, a lot of instructional examples, and videos
suggestions: It would be helpful for the reader if the topic was extended to include more textual information regarding phonological/phonenic awareness and maybe also look into more peer-reviewed articles that provide research based niformation
question: How do the instructional activities/strategies provided develop or improve phonemic awareness?
Mercedes said
at 2:42 pm on Mar 20, 2013
Added stages of development and extended the concepts of phonological an phonemic awareness
nenette p. stephens said
at 10:15 pm on Mar 25, 2013
Added the ff:
1. Links to Phonemic Awareness Articles
2. Video Clips for Effective Speech Sound Activities (four series)
Launching Young Readers.
nenette p. stephens said
at 10:32 pm on Mar 25, 2013
Kimberly and Christine,
Per agreement, I used (12/normal) on defining phonemic and phonological awareness; have also changed some text color to black.I'm not sure if we are to change (are we allowed) sub-topic/heading colors and font size and have decided to leave as is. Any questions/comments, let me know. Thanks.
icatyger@aol.com said
at 2:49 pm on Mar 30, 2013
I moved that large diagram to top of page and started to label each strategy to try and create a more cohesive flow. I am having a wail of a time trying to get all the fonts to match up. UGH
icatyger@aol.com said
at 2:51 pm on Mar 30, 2013
I think the subtopics should be in 18 font. Ill also make sure all the activity names are in red. Does anyone have a preference for color for subheadings? Ill try one and see. -christine
icatyger@aol.com said
at 4:34 pm on Mar 30, 2013
one more thing-kim do you know how to create a new page? or nenette? I was thinking we should make a link to another page and move all the activities onto it. that would probably clean up the page a lot.
nenette p. stephens said
at 8:12 am on Apr 1, 2013
Kimberley,
no idea to make a link to another page, the ff are some changes I made on the page so far:
1. paragraph indention
2. subheadings all in blue color (made it uniform)
3.Activities information font size normal/12; color from gray to black
4. quotation placed in the center; changed color from gray to black
pretty much just work on polishing text colors/size....
Kimberly Leyva said
at 8:02 pm on Apr 2, 2013
I will finish up the links to another page, and try and find more videos to input in the page. Looks great so far ladies.
Kimberly Leyva said
at 9:08 pm on Apr 2, 2013
I linked the "Phonemic Awareness Activities" heading to a word document with all the activities listed. I left the pictures & title of each activity in case the establishers/editors want the activities listed as they were with the original pictures, all they have to do is copy and paste them. I added a video about what phonemic awareness is, how to make a bead slide, and a video with an example of blending as a phonemic awareness skill. Let me know if there is anything else you can think of that needs to be done.
icatyger@aol.com said
at 2:59 pm on Apr 3, 2013
Guys I left that one activity in blue-the approach one-because I have no idea what to do with it or what it is? Im thinking of highlighting the whole thing some how so that way the last people can decide if they want to delete it. Thoughts?-Christine
icatyger@aol.com said
at 3:01 pm on Apr 3, 2013
Also =, anyone have thoughts on what to do with those two quotes at the end of the page? they are very much out of place. I guess we just leave them and editors can delete or move as needed. Still haven't figured out the page link idea so editors I think this is something you should do (If you can)
Caitlin McClure said
at 6:44 pm on Apr 3, 2013
I was only able to link to another document, not another page. Editors can fix it if they don't like it. Good work ladies. :)
Christina Bautista said
at 9:44 pm on Apr 14, 2013
Stephanie and Monica, what do you think so far? I tried to delete some of the added white space. I think the other groups did a great job.
Stephanie said
at 8:01 pm on Apr 22, 2013
Woman get off so I can fix this. Lol
Stephanie said
at 10:25 pm on Apr 22, 2013
Someone please clean up the teaching strategies part. I'm not sure what to do with it. I added links to other pages so that the page itself doesn't look lengthy.
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