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Phonemic Awareness |
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I decided to create this page when I began receiving many requests
from visitors to my website about what is and is not appropriate
when it comes to teaching young children to "read". From many
e-mail conversations with my visitors I discovered that an
overwhelming majority of new teachers or teachers new to early
childhood were unsure or unaware of the sequence events that need to
take place before a child can read. Many thought there was some "secret" to teaching reading that
you had to discover, like a hidden treasure. They were
desperate to find out this secret and searching for anything out
there that could possibly help. This page unveils one of the
major building blocks of reading success, phonemic awareness. |
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What is Phonemic Awareness? |
Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to segment and
manipulate the sounds of oral language. It is not the same as
phonics, which involves knowing how written letters relate to spoken
sounds. Activities that develop phonemic awareness in children
provide practice with rhyme and with beginning sounds and syllables.
(from IRA, International Reading Association)
- Phonemic awareness is not just phonics.
- Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve
words in print.
- Phonemic awareness is not a curriculum.
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Why
is phonemic awareness important? |
"Research has shown that a child’s awareness of the sounds of
spoken words is a strong predictor of his or her later success in
learning to read." (IRA)
The ability to hear
the sounds in words and to isolate the sounds from one another can
help a child become a reader. Even before he learns the letters of
the alphabet, a child can say the sounds in his language. When he
can hear the sounds
in a word and
tell where the sounds occur
in the
word, he is
developing pre-reading skills. |
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The term 'phonemic awareness' does not describe just one
skill, rather it encompasses a whole list of important skills.
The following are all important parts of phonemic awareness: |
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Sound Word Discrimination: |
- (Tells whether words or sounds are the same or different)
cat/cat= same cat/car= different
- (Identifies which word is different) sun, fun, sun = fun is
different
- (Tells difference between single phonemes) Which one is
different? /s/ /s/ /k/ ?
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Blending:
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(orally blends onset-rimes) What word is this?
m-ilk
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(orally blends syllables) What word is this?
mon-key
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(orally blends 2 or 3 phonemes into one word) What
word am I trying to say? /m/ /o/ /p/?
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Segmentation:
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- (initial sound isolation): What is the first sound in mop?
- (final sound isolation): What is the last sound in mop?
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Segmentation: Claps syllables in 1, 2, and
3 syllable words |
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Rhyming:
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- (Identifying rhyming words) Do "cat" and "mat" rhyme?
- (Produces a rhyming word) Tell me what word rhymes with nose?
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O.K., so now I know what phonemic awareness is and all
the different parts of it, but how do I teach it?
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The best way to teach phonemic awareness to your students is
through fun games and songs and a wide variety of hands on activities.
Teachers can encourage play with spoken language as part of their
overall literacy programs. Nursery rhymes, songs, poems, and
read-aloud books that manipulate sounds are all effective methods
via which to develop phonemic awareness.
- Below in the Phonemic Awareness Materials section you
will find pictures and descriptions of some of the items I use in
my classroom to teach phonemic awareness.
- In the Amazon resources section I have listed 3 print
resources that I use, they provide a wide variety of phonemic
awareness activities to use in your classroom.
- In the On-Line Resources section I highly recommend the
FCRR website for phonemic awareness activities.
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Phonemic Awareness Materials |
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Match-a-Sound Phonemic Awareness Boxes
Lakeshore Item #AA410X
I use the Rhyming Sounds
box in my classroom. This is a great activity to develop
language for ESL students. It is also a good activity to provide
hands-on learning, but some of the pieces are small.
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Phonemic
Awareness Sound Matching Manipulatives Lakeshore Item #EE620X
I use the Beginning
Sounds and Rhyming Sounds baskets in my classroom. See
same comments as above. |
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Phonemic
Awareness Match-Ups
Lakeshore Item
#EE690X
I use the Beginning
Sounds and Rhyming Sounds match-ups in my classroom. This
item is extremely sturdy and is a great activity to develop
language for ESL students. |
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Fisher Price
"Peek-a-Blocks" alphabet blocks
You can find them at Wal
Mart, Target, or Toys 'R Us
I really like these
blocks because they are extremely sturdy. Each individual
item is encased in a clear plastic cube with the letter plainly
written on the front. The manipulatives inside are
protected from little fingers and are very cute. Some of
the manipulatives have actions they can perform by spinning a
dial on top and others have surprise actions and features that
make them very appealing to young learners. I use these
blocks often in the beginning of the year.
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I use the Phonemic Awareness Reading Rods by
Learning Resources often in the beginning of the year.
There are cubes with small pictures on them and cubes with
letters. The objective is to match the cubes with the
pictures to the cubes with the corresponding letter. |
This is another one I use often in the
beginning of the year. The LeapFrog Fridge Phonics set is
great for learning letter sounds. Later in the year we
move on the LeapFrog Word Whammer pictured below. |
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We use the LeapFrog Word Whammer to practice
word families from mid to end of the year. |
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Resources |
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