Amanda Hatten
Carolyn Morin
Phonemic Awareness
Outline
Definition
Importance
How it is Developed
Effective Instruction
Summary
“Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds- phonemes- in spoken words” (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2003). This ability is often referred to as a foundation for “breaking the code” (Tompkins, 2003). This awareness can be developed through language play- immersing children in rhymes, rhythms, word play, and predictable literature. Our language has so much that can be misinterpreted, but by guiding students and building a strong foundation we are guiding them to future success.
“Phonemic Awareness is important because it improves children’s word reading and reading comprehension and it helps children learn to spell” (Armbruster, et al, 2003). Unlike a Japanese logo-graphic language where symbols convey meaning, the English alphabetic letters represent sounds. Meaning can only be achieved when these letters are translated into sounds and then back into spoken vocabulary.
“Phonemic awareness can developed through a number of activities, including asking children to identify phonemes, categorize phonemes, blending phonemes to form words, segment words into phonemes, delete or add phonemes to form new words, and substitute phonemes to make new words” (Armbruster, et al, 2003). Caldwell and Leslie (2005) add that alliteration and counting tasks using sounds in words are also helpful in developing this skill. Minilessons, wordplay books, and connecting reading and writing also help students build the foundation (Tompkins, 2003). Effective, research based direct instruction can make the difference. Adams (1990) describes five levels of phonemic awareness in terms of abilities: to hear rhymes and alliteration as measured by knowledge of nursery rhymes, to do oddity tasks (comparing and contrasting the sounds of words for rhyme and alliteration), to blend and split syllables, to perform phonemic segmentation (such as counting out the number of phonemes in a word, and to perform phoneme manipulation tasks (such as adding, deleting a particular phoneme and regenerating a word from the remainder).
“Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when children are taught to manipulate phonemes by using the letters of the alphabet, and when instruction focuses on only one or two rather than several types of phoneme manipulation” (Armbruster, et al, 2003). This is logical because if students are overexposed, they will become easily confused and have difficulty retaining information. Additionally, Caldwell and Leslie (2005) add that effective instruction occurs in about 30 minute teaching sessions. The authors add that, according to the National Reading Panel “instruction is most effective with pre-K and K students and students at risk.” If students have mastered the skills included in phonemic awareness, it would be a waste of time to continue instruction. The following recommendations for instruction in phonemic awareness are derived from Spector (1995):
• At the preschool level, engage children in activities that direct their attention to the sounds in words, such as rhyming and alliteration games.
• Teach students to segment and blend.
• Combine training in segmentation and blending with instruction in letter-sound
• Teach segmentation and blending as complementary processes
• Systematically sequence examples when teaching segmentation and blending
• Teach for transfer to novel tasks and contexts.
Yopp (1992) offers the following general recommendations for phonemic awareness activities:
• Keep a sense of playfulness and fun, avoid drill and rote memorization
• Use group settings that encourage interaction among children
• Encourage children’s curiosity about language and their experimentation with it
• Allow for and be prepared for individual differences
• Make sure the tone of the activity is not evaluative but rather fun and informal
Scholes and Treiman states that rather than phonemic awareness being a pre-requisite to literacy, literacy contributes to phonemic awareness. We use our knowledge of how words are spelled to figure out how many phonemes are in a word. We are less competent in analyzing spoken words into phonemes when individual phonemes do not have a one to one correspondence with letters. Talyor (1998) points out that phonemic awareness research is based on false assumption that children's early cognitive functions work from abstract exercises to meaningful activity rather than vice versa as in other learning.
Summary
Phonemic awareness is the awareness that sounds are in our language and that spoken words are made up of individual sounds. Phonemic awareness is the conscious knowledge that spoken language is made up of sentences, words and sounds (phonemes). It is also the understanding that individual phonemes, when blended together, form meaningful words. Children must be able to recognize phonemes in words if they are going to be able to successfully acquire the alphabetic principle Letter Name Stage. Research indicates that deficits in phonemic awareness predict difficulty in learning to read. Learning to read is essential to a child's well being in aliterature driven society.
References
Adams, M.J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc
Armbruster, B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J. (2003). Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read. Kindergarten through Grade 3, 2nd Edition.
Caldwell, J. & Leslie, L. (2005). Intervention Strategies to Follow Informal Reading Inventory Assessments: So what do I do now? Pearson: Boston.
Scholas, R.J. (1998). The case against phonemic awareness. Journal of Research in Reading, 21 (3), 177 - 189.
Spector, J.E. (1995). “Phonemic awareness training: Application of principles of direct instruction.” Reading and Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Disabilities, 11 (1), 37 – 52.
Taylor, D. (1998). Beginnig to read and the spin doctors of science: The political campaign to change American's mind about how children learn to read. Urbaba, IL: NAtional Council of Teachers if English.
Treiman, R. (1985). Onset and rimes as units of spoken syllables: Evidence from children. Joournal of Experimental Child Psychology, 39, 161 - 181.
Tompkins, G. (2003). Literacy for the 21st Century: Teaching reading and writing in pre-kindergarten through grade 4. Merrill Prentice Hall: New Jersey.
Yopp, H.K. (1992). “Developing phonemic awareness in young children.” Reading Teacher, 45(9), 20 – 29.
External Links
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/palmasola/rcompindex1.htm
This site is from Manatee County in Florida and talks about reading workshops using phonemic awareness.
http://reading.uoregon.edu/pa/
This is a site from The Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement in Oregon that talks about what phonemic awareness is, why it’s important, and how to assess it.
http://pals.virginia.edu/
This site provides assessment materials and other resources about phonological awareness.
http://www.fcrr.org
This is the Florida Center for Reading Research, with an abundance of further information about phonemic awareness.
http://www.aability.com/pagames.htm
This site has an entire index of games to play to increase phonemic awareness, a great resource for parents and teachers.
http://www.ira.org
This is the International Reading Association, with an abundance of information on Reading.
Phonemic Awareness (phoneme detection)
Comments by Clark E. Barrow
I think the article is informative and creates interest. In fact, it enhanced my interest to see what else researchers have to say about phonemic awareness instruction and its importance. I also liked how you started you introduction with a definition of phonemic awareness and included several links in your article. Here are a couple of things I found interesting that might add to your article.
Clark
Yopp and Yopp (2000) emphasize the importance of phonemic awareness when they say current evidence identifies phonemic awareness as an important foundation of children’s reading success. Neuman (2006) agrees and says children’s development of the alphabetic principle and understanding that letters represent speech sounds is vital to students’ early literacy. Neuman suggests staying away from workbook-like tasks and engage children in fun ways to learn, which include reading to children, building word walls, and providing children with lots of letter shapes, such as alphabet puzzles. When implementing phonemic awareness instruction, it should be child appropriate.
Yopp and Yopp (2000) continue this thought by saying phonemic awareness instruction should be purposeful and educators should make a deliberate effort to teach phonemic awareness; it should not be a byproduct of other teaching activities. In fact, phonemic awareness instruction is very important in children’s early life and educators should not teach it as an independent component; it is not meaningful unless taught as part of a much larger literacy program (Yopp & Yopp; Griffith & Olson, 1992).
References
Griffith, P.L., & Olson, M.W. (1992). Phonemic awareness helps beginning readers break the code. The Reading Teacher, 45, 516-523
Neuman, S. B. (2006). Connecting letters and sounds. Scholastic Early Childhood Today, 20(6), 20-21.
Yopp, H. K. & Yopp, R. H. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54(2), 130.
External Links
http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/phoemic.p.k12.4.html This links to an article written by Roger Sensenbaugh titled “Phonemic Awareness: An Important Early Step in Learning To Read” and goes directly to the subheading titled “Why Is It So Important?” It highlights the importance of phonemic awareness and links to two related articles concerning phonological awareness and phonics.
Thanks,
Clark
---- Commentary by Julie Mcgill
Great Job! Very informative. I will link my 1990s studies to this page as its background knowledge. The only thing I found confusing was you should start a new paragraph in para. 3 where it starts out with Effective research........ I got a little confused in that one.
I would also include a mention of Onset and Rhyme when talking of rhyming, rhythm playing.
Again, a great job.
Commentary by June Kent
Good team work condensing the topic. I even recognized some of the cites in your paper. While searching for information for Phonemic Awareness as a Predictor (2000) I came across a few articles that you may want to consider adding to you external links. The first one is, "Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom". Yopp, H.K. and Yopp, R.H. The Reading Teacher, vol. 54, 2000. This article presents 3 interesting learning activities. Also I came across the Yopp-Singer test of phoneme Segmentation in "A test for assessing phonemic awareness in young children", by Hallie K. Yopp. Reading Teacher, 1995, Vol. 49.
End of Commentary
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