PHONOLOGICAL
AND PHONEMIC AWARENESS SKILLS
There is a significant body of research indicating
that phonological and phonemic awareness skills
are highly correlated with early reading and
spelling success. The term phonological
awareness refers to a child's awareness that
language is comprised of sounds, and the understanding
of sound segments, or phonemes that make up
words.
Phonemic awareness is a prerequisite
to learning phonics. Understanding that syllables
are composed of speech sounds is necessary
for learning to read an alphabetic-phonic
language. This is because individual speech
sounds, or phonemes are represented by letters.
Children are often asked to "say what
sound this letter makes." Another way
to see if a child understands sound/symbol
correspondence is to provide a sound, and
then ask what letter goes with that sound.
(i.e. "What letter goes with the "puh"
sound?").
Without phonemic awareness, phonics instruction
will make little sense to a child. Without
phonics, many children rely on rote learning
and memorization for word recognition and
spelling. While this system of learning may
be adequate in the early grades, many children
will begin to experience difficulty starting
in third grade, as they are presented with
more complex reading.
Children who have inefficient phonological
processing skills typically have difficulty
with some of the following;
- Rhyming - The ability
to indicate if words rhyme, and to provide
rhyming words for those given (i.e. "what
rhymes with "house?")
- Segmentation - The ability
to segment sentences into individual words,
words into syllables, and words into individual
phonemes (i.e. "tell me all of the
sounds you hear in cat")
- Isolation - The ability
to identify the first, middle, or last sound
in any given word (i.e. "tell me the
last sound you hear in dog")
- Sound Blending - The
ability to blend spoken syllables into words
(i.e. com…..pu….ter), and spoken
phonemes into words (i.e. "P"….."a"……"t")
- Deleting - The ability
to say a word and then say it again, deleting
one root word or syllable (i.e. "say
birdhouse without saying bird", or
"say man, without saying the "n"
sound")
Links:
www.ScientificLearning.com
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