|
Phonemic Awareness and the
Alphabetic Principle:
A Joyful Noise
(This is a PowerPoint
presentation about phonemic awareness. Feel free to use
it for staff development and parent education.)
What is Phonemic
Awareness?
Phonemic awareness may be
defined as the understanding that speech is made up of
separate sounds or phonemes. In order to demonstrate
phonemic awareness, children may be required to perform
certain tasks that manipulate language:
rhyming
blending phonemes to create a word
counting the number of phonemes they hear in a word
segmenting phonemes of a spoken word
phoneme substitution
phoneme addition
phoneme deletion
Examples of each of these
tasks may be found in most reading/phonics/phonemic
awareness books for teachers.
Research says . . .
Stanovich's (1986) research
indicates that phonemic awareness is the most potent
predictor of success in learning to read . . . and it is
more highly related to reading than tests of general
intelligence, reading readiness and comprehension.
Marilyn Adams (1990) goes on to say that phonemic
awareness if the most important core and causal factor
separating normal and disabled readers. She further
reports that the lack of phonemic awareness has been
identified as the most powerful determinant of the
likelihood of failure. Ehri (1984) states that phonemic
awareness is central in learning to read and spell.
Dr. Hallie Yopp reported the
following research findings
in a lecture at SDSU:
Performance on phonemic
awareness tasks and reading and spelling achievement are
highly related.
Some illiterate adults lack
phonemic awareness.
The correlation between
phonemic awareness and reading and spelling achievement
remain significant even when intelligence and socio
economic status are controlled.
Experimental studies reveal a
causal relationship: phonemic awareness facilitates
reading and spelling acquisition.
The importance of phonemic
awareness in reading achievement cuts across
instructional approaches.
How do We Develop
Phonemic Awareness?
This section will definitely
take some time! As a former kindergarten teacher (back
in the dark ages!), I am a firm believer in developing
phonemic awareness and playing with the sounds of
language before focusing on print symbols.
Read-Aloud Books for
Phonemic Awareness Task Development
Chapman, Cheryl. (1993). Pass
the Fritters, Critters. New York: Scholastic, Inc.: rhyming.
Jordano, Kimberly and
Callella-Jones, Trisha, Fall
Phonemic Awareness Songs & Rhymes. Cypress, CA:
Creative Teaching Press.
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!
Slepian, Jan and Seidler, A. (1967) The Hungry Thing.
Scholastic: phoneme substitution.
Altoona Baboona: phoneme substitution
The Disappearing Alphabet: phoneme deletion
Please go to Alphabet Avenue (www.alphabetavenue.net)
and Word Way (www.wordway.us.com)
for more activities that deal with letter recognition,
rhyming and working with word chunks.
|
