Phonemic Awareness

•Phonemic awareness is NOT phonics.

•Phonemic awareness is AUDITORY and does not involve words in print.

Research indicates a strong relationship between early phoneme awareness and later reading success and, conversely, links reading failure to insufficiently developed phonological awareness. Research has identified PA as the most potent predictor of success in learning to read. It is more highly related to reading than tests of general intelligence, reading readiness, and listening comprehension. It is central in learning to read and spell. Intervention research clearly demonstrates the benefits of explicitly

teaching phoneme awareness skills. It is recommended that you screen Prep children for phonemic awareness within the first two

weeks, as well as struggling students.

Can they hear the sound when you give green level speech sounds eg s / a / t p / i / n Can they tell you the first, middle, or last sound of words created with three speech sounds eg hat pan house tap dog fish Can they copy the speech sounds using the puppet, after you show them the speech sounds r / a / t f / o g

This is all auditory and does not involve print at all. It is this ability to hear speech sounds that is the biggest predictor of reading and spelling difficulties.

Why so quick? If they find these easy then they will not struggle with the SSP explicit teaching, as they already have reasonable PA (phonemic awareness) You are checking every Prep child, so this simple test is all you need, to identify ‘red alerts’ (children who cannot hear the smaller parts in words, or identify which is at the beginning or end). There will be around 35% who don’t find this easy, and 2 or 3 children in your class will be ‘red alerts’. If we work this out quickly, at the beginning of term 1, we can change this. Some children can do this, they just don’t understand the terminology or what you want from them. Make a note to recheck. Also note children who seem unable to focus for even this short period of time. Adapt this according to the child. If the child is distracted by the puppet, don’t use it. The puppet (with movable mouth) makes it easier for some, as they can see the mouth moving, alongside the speech sounds. Get to know your children.

Hallie Kay Yopp, Ph.D, Professor, Dept. of Elementary and Bilingual Education,CSU FullertonProfessor Yopp addresses the critical role of phonemic awareness in the

early stages of reading acquisition. She defines phonemic awareness as "the awareness that phonemes exist as abstractable and manipulable components of

spoken language. It is the ability to reflect on speech and experiment (play) with its smallest components (phonemes). Phonemic awareness is not phonics and not

auditory discrimination.“

The research outlines a progression of phonemic awareness development in pre-school, kindergarten, and early first grade that includes the ability:

to hear rhymes or alliteration

to blend sounds to make a word (e.g., /a/-/t/ = at) to count phonemes in words ( how many sounds do you hear in "is"?)

to identify the beginning, middle, and final sounds in words to substitute one phoneme for another (e.g., change the /h/ in "hot" to /p/)

to delete phonemes from words (e.g., omit the /c/ from "cat")