Phonemic Awareness and the Alphabetic Principle: A Joyful Noise

Phonemic Awareness and the Alphabetic Principle: A Joyful Noise Presented by Cherry Carl

Why “A Joyful Noise?” Effective phonemic awareness instructional activities facilitate the development of positive feelings toward learning through an atmosphere of playfulness and fun. Listen closely to children as they explore our language and you will hear chants, poems, songs, tongue-tanglers, and interactive word play, all without the benefit of print! What a joyful noise!

Presentation Highlights Understanding the Prerequisites to Successful Phonics Instruction Assessing Student Understanding of Phonemic Awareness Progression of Phonological Awareness Phonemic Awareness Tasks

Presentation Highlights Developing Phonemic Awareness Activities to Promote Manipulation of Sounds and Syllables Special Needs Indicators Second Language Learners Taking a look at Standards Resources

What Does Research Say About Phonemic Awareness Instruction? Phonemic awareness can be taught and learned. Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read. Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to spell. Source: Put Reading First

What Does Research Say About Phonemic Awareness Instruction? Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when children are taught to manipulate phonemes by using the letters of the alphabet. Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when it focuses on only one or two types of phoneme manipulation, rather than several types. Source: Put Reading First

Understanding the Prerequisites to Successful Phonics Instruction “Research indicates that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of the ease of early reading acquisition, better even than IQ, vocabulary, and listening comprehension.” (Stanovich, 1993-94)

Understanding the Prerequisites to Successful Phonics Instruction “Phonemic awareness, or the ability to hear and “segment” individual sounds in spoken words, must occur before children can begin to understand how letters represent speech sounds.” (Reutzel and Cooter, 1999)

Understanding the Prerequisites to Successful Phonics Instruction After children become aware of the alphabetic principle, they develop the ability to manipulate letters and sounds. This helps them to decode new words they encounter in books and to create temporary spellings in their writing. (Reutzel and Cooter, 1999)

Assessing Student Understanding of Phonemic Awareness Letter identification Letter production Recognizing rhyming words Auditory blending of sounds Isolating sounds Writing phonemes in words

Progression of Phonological Awareness words syllables onset-rime division phonemes [blending, segmentation, matching, deletion Children’s phonological awareness develops in this progression.

Phonemic Awareness Tasks 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

Phonemic Awareness Tasks to perform phonemic segmentation (such as counting out the number of phonemes in a word) to perform phoneme manipulation tasks (such as adding, deleting a particular phoneme and regenerating a word from the remainder).

Developing Phonemic Awareness and the Alphabetic Principle Language watching Using environment print Playing with the alphabet Songs, chants, and poetry Alphabet books

Developing Phonemic Awareness and the Alphabetic Principle Writing experiences Word rubber-banding Hearing sounds in words Sound addition or substitution Sound segmentation

Activities and Procedures to Promote Manipulation of Sounds and Syllables Elkonin boxes Rhyming word activities Rhyming bingo Pocket chart (sort by sound) Syllable Snap and Clap Walk Around a Rhyme Riddle and rhyme Rubber Band (stretch a word)

Activities and Procedures to Promote Manipulation of Sounds and Syllables Sound boxes Nonsense names Physical responses (tapping, clapping, snapping) What’s my word? Tap and touch Jump Rope Jingles Nursery Rhymes

Special Needs Indicators Little or no knowledge of the alphabet Inability to name letters when presented Inability to produce letter or letterlike forms in writing Inability to recognize rhyming sounds Inability to recognize or identify specific letter sounds in words Inability to map spoken sounds onto letters Source: Reutzel and Cooter (1999)

Taking a Look at California Standards

Kindergarten Standards 1.7 Track (move sequentially from sound to sound) and represent the number, sameness/difference, and order of two and three isolated phonemes (e.g., /f, s, th/, /j, d, j/ ).

Kindergarten Standards 1.8 Track (move sequentially from sound to sound) and represent changes in simple syllables and words with two and three sounds as one sound is added, substituted, omitted, shifted, or repeated (e.g., vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel, or consonant-vowel-consonant).

Kindergarten Standards 1.9 Blend vowel-consonant sounds orally to make words or syllables. 1.10 Identify and produce rhyming words in response to an oral prompt. 1.11 Distinguish orally stated one-syllable words and separate into beginning or ending sounds.

Kindergarten Standards 1.12 Track auditorily each word in a sentence and each syllable in a word. 1.13 Count the number of sounds in syllables and syllables in words.

First Grade Standards 1.4 Distinguish initial, medial, and final sounds in single-syllable words. 1.5 Distinguish long-and short-vowel sounds in orally stated single-syllable words (e.g., bit/bite). 1.6 Create and state a series of rhyming words, including consonant blends.

First Grade Standards 1.7 Add, delete, or change target sounds to change words (e.g., change cow to how; pan to an). 1.8 Blend two to four phonemes into recognizable words (e.g., /c/ a/ t/ = cat; /f/ l/ a/ t/ = flat). 1.9 Segment single-syllable words into their components (e.g., /c/ a/ t/ = cat; /s/ p/ l/ a/ t/ = splat; /r/ i/ ch/ = rich).

Resources National Institute for Literacy (2001). Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read. Jessup, MD: Author. Reutzel, D. Ray and Cooter, Robert B. Jr. (1999) Balanced Reading Strategies and Practices. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. Yopp, Hallie and Ruth (2000) Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher Vol. 54 No. 2.

Instructional Resources Adams, Marilyn Jager et al (1997). Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum. Brookes Publishing Company. Blevins, Wiley (1999). Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Reading Success (Grades K-2) Scholastic. Fitzpatrick, Jo (1997). Phonemic Awareness: Playing With Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading Skills (Phonemic Awareness) Creative Teaching Press.

Instructional Resources Yopp, Hallie and Ruth (2003). Oo-pples and Boo-noo-noos: Songs and Activities for Phonemic Awareness. Harcourt School.

Read Alouds for Phonemic Tasks Bynum, Janie (1999). Altoona Baboona. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace & Co. (phoneme substitution) Chapman, Cheryl (1993). Pass the Fritters, Critters. New York: Scholastic, Inc. (rhyming) Edwards, Pamela Duncan (1998) Some Smug Slug. Harper Trophy. (alliteration) Lester, Helen (1999). Hooway For Wodney Wat. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. (phoneme substitution)

Read Alouds for Phonemic Tasks Most, Bernard (1996). Cock-A-Doodle-Moo! Harcourt Brace. (phoneme addition and substitution) Salisbury, Kent. (1998). There's a Dragon in my Wagon! New York: McClanahan Book Company, Inc. (phoneme substitution) . There's a Bug in my Mug! . A Bear Ate my Pear! . My Nose is a Hose!

Read Alouds for Phonemic Tasks Slepian, Jan and Seidler, A. (1967). The Hungry Thing. Scholastic. (phoneme substitution) Wilbur, Richard (1997). The Disappearing Alphabet. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace & Co. phoneme deletion

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