Phonological Awareness

Virginia Standards of Learning for Phonemic

Awareness

1.4 The student will orally identify and manipulate phonemes in syllables and multisyllabic words.

First Grade: Volume 1, Page 11

“Without direct instructional support, phonemic awareness eludes roughly 25% of middle-class first grade students and substantially more of those who come from less literacy-rich backgrounds.”(Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, Beeler, 1998)

Why is Phonemic Awareness Important?

• Necessary to learn to read in an alphabetic written language system

• The ability to pay attention to speech sound units is a necessary for phonics instruction

• Poor phonological processing is a core cause of poor reading

Research on Phonemic Awareness

• Can be developed through instruction

• Doing so significantly accelerates reading and writing achievement

• Increased skill in phonemic awareness may minimize the need for later remedial services

(Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1998)

Phonological Awareness

• Ability to attend to the sound structure of language

• Phonemic awareness is one part of the umbrella term “phonological awareness”

Instructional Sequence for Phonological

Awareness• Listening and Rhyme• Words and Syllables• Onsets and Rimes• Phonemes

Listening and Rhyme

• Listening activities and rhyming activities help children develop an ear for sounds

• Rhyme is considered an entry point for phonemic awareness

• Link between rhyme and later reading and spelling achievement

• Activities to develop listening and rhyme awareness

Hears separate words in

sentences

Hearssyllables in

words

Hearsonsets inwords

Hearsrimes in words

Hears individualphonemes in

words

Words and Syllables

• Word and syllable activities help children break language into smaller chunks

• Activities to develop word and syllable awareness

Onset-Rime Awareness• Onset is the initial consonant or consonant cluster

• Rime is the vowel and consonants that follow the onset

• As children reach this level of phonological awareness begin to incorporate letters with activities

• Activities to develop onset-rime awareness

Elkonin Boxes

Phonemic Awareness

• Awareness that spoken words or syllables can be thought of as a sequence of phonemes

cat = /c/ + /a/ + /t/• Activities to develop phonemic awareness

Phonemic AwarenessREA Video

Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are similar in that they both …, but phonological awareness … , while phonemic awareness …

Phonological Awareness at Different Stages

• Emergent readers are working on the prerequisites necessary for phonemic awareness (listening, rhyme, word and syllable awareness)

• Beginning readers are learning how to blend and segment onset-rimes and phonemes

• Instructional readers have achieved phonemic awareness

A Model For Reading Development and

Phonological Awareness

How is phonological awareness addressed in your literacy block?

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