Phonological Awareness By: Christine McCreary, Marissa Abram & Ting Ting Chou

Phonological Awareness Defined as the understanding of the sound structure of oral language Ability to manipulate the sound structure of spoken language

Phonemic awareness Is a sub-category of phonological awareness Knowledge that spoken words are composed of different sounds

Phonics Is the relationship between sounds and their symbols (letters), and the methods of instruction used to teach those relationships

What? Phonological awareness /m-an/ > remove m add p > /p-an/ Phonemic awareness say man: /m/ /a/ /n/ Phonics when you see the word (date) you can tell me the sound /d/ /ae/ /t/

Why is Phonological awareness important? Phonological awareness in Kindergarten has been established as the single best predictor of reading and spelling achievement Children who are aware of phonemes move easily and productively into inventive spelling and reading Phonemic awareness enables children to grasp the alphabetic principle, the concept that letters in written words correspond more or less to sounds in spoken words

Steps for using the strategy in a classroom:

Intervention should proceed in logical sequence of activities

Core of Phonological awareness Rhyming Blending Segmentation

Rhyming Rhyming consists of chants, alliteration, and language play least difficult skill Don ’ t need a lot of cognitive resources

Blending Isolating sounds Example: –Win-dow –Syllable plus phoneme C-a-t –Individual sounds f-oo-d

Segmentation Deleting and substituting sounds Heavy demand on working memory: capacity to execute multiple cognitive operations Allows the child to become familiar with task Should use 2 segment compound words what starting i.e. Ice-cream

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children

The goal of this program Is to that cognitively prepares them for learning develop children ’ s linguistic awareness to read and write Focuses on the sounds opposed to the spelling and the meaning of a word Shifting attention from the meaning of language to its form and structure

Step 1: Listening Games Goal: to sharpen children ’ s ability to attend selectively to sounds Example –Listening to everyday sounds –Learning to listen to what they actually hear, not expect

Step 2: Rhyming Goal: To use rhyme to introduce the children to the sounds of words and to also focus their attention on similarities and differences between the sounds Example: –Cat and mat

Step 3: Words and Sentences Goal: to develop children ’ s awareness that language is made up of strings of words Example: –Distinguish between a string of words and a sentence

Step 4: Awareness of Syllables Goal: To develop the ability to analyze words into separate syllables and to develop the ability to synthesize words from a string of separate syllables Example: –Clapping Names (Chris- tine)

Step 5: Initial and Final Sounds Goal: to show the children that words contain phonemes and to introduce them to how phonemes sound and feel when spoken in isolation Example: –Guess Who: discriminating phonemes and connecting them to the names in which they belong to

Activity: Identifying beginning sounds Tune: “ Are you sleeping — Brother John ” Your name ’ s Michael The first sound is /m/ Can you say it with me /m/ /m/ /m/

Step 6: Phonemes Goal: to develop the ability to analyze words into a sequence of separate phonemes and to develop the ability to synthesize words from a sequence of separate phonemes Example: –Ice: Having a picture that represents a word, for example ice, and use different colour blocks to distinguish how many sounds are in the word (place the blocks underneath each picture as a visual)

Step 7: Introducing Letters and Spellings Goal: To introduce the relation of letters to speech sounds Example: –Guess Who: “ I am thinking of someone ’ s name that begins with the letter __. Raise your hand if you know whose ”

Think, Pair, Share! Ideas for classroom design to foster phonological awareness

Possible problems in using the strategy within a classroom context Many teachers find that the strategies given to them contain lots of materials and therefore the teacher is reluctant to use the strategy. Activities with fewer materials would allow for easier execution. Instruction of strategies may need to be more intense Smaller group size instruction Research done has focused on small groups versus an actual class size Children with learning disabilities may not get the direct, specialized learning they need to succeed Teachers lack the skills needed to deliver the material (don ’ t feel confident) A thorough assessment of the child ’ s phonological awareness abilities is important which is important when creating specific objectives for your program Consistent use

References… See Our Resource Guide!