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Phonemic Awareness is:1. the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992; see References). 2. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes. Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense. 3. fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon" begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run", he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word. 4. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system 5. a strong predictor of children who experience early reading success.
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Phonemic Awareness is important because:* It requires readers to notice how letters represent sounds. It primes readers for print. *It gives readers a way to approach sounding out and reading new words. *It helps readers understand the alphabetic principle (that the letters in words are systematically represented by sounds).
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Teaching Phonemic Awareness:
1. Phonemic Awareness is a critical component of reading instruction but not an entire reading program. It absolutely needs to be taught, but should only be 10-15 minutes per day of your reading instruction. 2. If you focus on just a few types of phonemic awareness, you get better results. There are a lot of skills in phonemic awareness, but research has found that blending and segmentation are the 2 critical skills that must be taught. Instruction must focus on blending and segmenting words at the phoneme, or sound level. This is an auditory task. 3. Research has found that you get better results when teaching phonemic awareness to small groups of children rather than an entire class. 4. Phonemic awareness needs to be taught explicitly. The instructional program must show children what they are expected to do. Teachers must model skills they want children to perform before the children are asked to demonstrate the skill. 5. Teachers increase effectiveness when the manipulation of letters is added to phonemic awareness tasks. Phonemic awareness is an auditory skill, but once children start to become familiar with the concept, teachers can introduce letter tiles or squares and manipulate them to form sounds and words.
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Phonemic Awareness Activities:
1. Sound and Word discrimination: What word doesn't belong with the others: "cat", "mat", "bat", "ran"? "ran"
2. Rhyming Activities: Activities I use in my Classroom "Rhyming Words Book": Every day as a drill in the morning, I read the rhyming words book to my students and let the them supply the rhyming words. (Cat, rat...hat, Pat) "Matching Rhyming Pictures": I have a set of rhyming pictures, and my students need to find the one that rhymes with the target picture (pig: dig, wig, big) "Silly Rhyming Names": I play a silly rhyming game using my student's names. Other Activities: *Look and tell: Out of a set of three pictures, children are asked to point to the one that rhymes with the target picture. * Rhyming Word Sit Down: Children walk around in a big circle taking one step each time a rhyming word is said by the teacher. When the teacher says a word that doesn't rhyme, the children sit down. * Rhyming words in songs, poems, and big books: As the teacher does shared reading with the students, pause at the end of phrases and let the students supply the rhyming words. After you have read the poem together ask students to find the rhyming words. Good Books for Rhyming are: Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw and Jamberry by Bruce Degen. Nursery Rhymes on line: http://www.storyit.com/Classics/Nursery/rhymes.htm
3. Blending Activity: Activities I use in my Classroom "Robot Talk": In this activity, I pretend to talk like a robot. I say the sounds in a word slowly. Children take turns saying it fast. (Example: I say, /p/-/i/-/g/and the children say, "pig."
4. Phonemic segmentation Activity: *Rubber Band Stretch: Teacher models with a large rubber band how to stretch out a word as the word is said. /mmmmmmmm-/aaaaaaaaaaaa-/nnnnnnnnn/. Teacher models with stretched out band how to bring rubber band back to original length and says the word fast: /man/. Children pretend to stretch rubber bands as they say the sounds in different words.
5. Syllable Segmentation: Activities I use in my Classroom "Syllable Clap": I say a word, and then, my students clap with me for each syllable they hear in a word. Example: I say "table". Children: clap "ta", and clap "ble". "Syllable cubes": On the colored unifix cubes, I wrote down different syllables on each side of the unifix cubes. Then, I put together the unifix cubes to make two, three or more syllable words. (Example: table) Then, I start putting apart the unifix cubes for each syllable they hear in a word "table" ( Example: "ta" and "ble").
"Syllable Counting Chart": For this activity I use a pocket chart I made, with six pockets on it. On each pocket there are numbers starting from one to six. I begin saying two or three syllable words and have children clap for each syllable I say. Then, they take turns to place the word with picture inside of the pocket. Example: I say "table". Children: clap "ta", and clap "ble". The word "table" has 2 syllables. A child uses the pocket chart to place the word "table" on the pocket No. 2. Other Activities: Rhythm Band- Provide each student with a rhythm instrument. Sing songs and tap out the syllables for each word as you sing. Duck Duck Goose- Play Duck Duck Goose with the class. But instead of saying (Duck, Duck, etc.), use multi-syllabic words. Have the class sit in a circle. In the center, place a pile of pictures of 2, 3, and 4 syllable words. Choose a child to be "it." This child chooses a picture card. As the child goes around the circle, they tap the heads and say the word in syllables. For example, pen-cil, pen-cil, pen-cil. When they get to the person they choose, they say the whole word, pencil. I like to place pictures in the center of the circle. (K. Szymanski)
6. Phoneme deletion: What is "cat" without the /k/? "at"
7. Phoneme manipulation: What word would you have if you changed the /t/ in cat to an /n/? "can"
8. Sound Isolation /Alliteration Activities: (Idea from Hallie Kay Yopp)
Old Mc Donald Had A Farm What's the sound that starts these words: turtle, time, and teeth? (Wait for a response from the children - /t/.) /t/ is the sound that starts these words: turtle, time, and teeth. With a /t/, /t/, here and a /t/, /t/, there, Here a /t/, there a /t/, everywhere a /t/, /t/. /t/ is the sound that starts these words: turtle, time, and teeth. Can you tell me more?
Good Books for Alliteration are: All About Arthur by Eric Carle; Oh, Say Can You Say by Dr. Seuss; Fox In Socks by Dr. Seuss;Six Sick Sheep: 101 Tongue Twisters by J. Cole and S. Calmenson.
9. Initial Sound Substitution What is the beginning sounds in the word "pig"? /p/
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| Phonemic Awareness Songs |
| Phonemic Awareness Songs:
http://www.songsforteaching.com/PA.html
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Kindergarten Phonemic Awareness benchmarks
Students Should Demonstrate These Skills at the End of Kindergarten:1. Sound and Word Discrimination
2. Rhyming
3. Blending
4. Segmentation
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| Resources: Phonemic Awareness in Beginning Reading: http://reading.uoregon.edu/pa/pa_teach.php Patti's Electronic Classroom: http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/patti/k-1/activities/phonemic.html
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