Phonological Awareness...
DEFINITION:
To gain phonological awareness, an individual must have an understanding of the sound structure of a spoken word, including being able to distinguish units of speech: a word's syllables and a syllables phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit within the sound system of a language. It is the smallest unit that can distinguish between two different words. For example, rip versus lip. It is the understanding that speech is made up of a series of individual sounds. SOUND is very important in phonemic awareness, it is spoken.
IMPORTANT: Phonological Awareness is broad sounds, syllables, onset, and rime. Phonemic Awareness small unit sounds, phonemes. PA how many syllables, what rhymes with it? pa how many phonemes, what if you take off the beginning sound/phoneme.
KEY TERMS:
- phonemic awareness - this is a section of phonological awareness involving specific attention to phonemes (see additional page for activities and information)
- onset - the beginning sound of a word. the consonant sound that comes before a vowel
- rime - the ending sound. the vowel sound and everything that comes after it
- syllable awareness - this is the understanding of syllables within words, it directly correlates to phonemes. may have the students show this by clapping. syllables are a unit of pronunciation with just a vowel or a vowel + a consonant
- word awareness - knowing where one word starts and another ends, usually denoted by a pause or space
- sentence awareness - understanding where one sentence ends and new one begins
- phoneme - sounds represented by a letter or two (these were learning in LIN for pronunciation)
- grapheme - the individual letters
- rhyme - similar sound production which may be at the beginning or end of a word. example - cat hat pat chat bat that
DEVELOPMENT:
An important distinction to make is that phonological awareness has nothing to do with letters, but actually involves sound-spellings. A student must recognize the sound that is made, not the way in which a word is spelled although the two may correlate. This awareness serves as a precursor for how well a student may be able to read in the future.
1. identify the sounds in words (what sounds does the word begin with? end with?
2. categorizing sounds in the words (which sound does not belong in the series, one of these things is not like the others)
3. substituting sounds in words (by changing a song does it change the word)
4. segmenting a word into sounds (breaking up the word into sounds; may not correlate withe number of letters in the word)
A strong development of phonological awareness tends to produce better readers because it increases word-reading ability.
An important distinction to make is that phonological awareness has nothing to do with letters, but actually involves sound-spellings. A student must recognize the sound that is made, not the way in which a word is spelled although the two may correlate. This awareness serves as a precursor for how well a student may be able to read in the future.
1. identify the sounds in words (what sounds does the word begin with? end with?
2. categorizing sounds in the words (which sound does not belong in the series, one of these things is not like the others)
3. substituting sounds in words (by changing a song does it change the word)
4. segmenting a word into sounds (breaking up the word into sounds; may not correlate withe number of letters in the word)
A strong development of phonological awareness tends to produce better readers because it increases word-reading ability.
ASSESSMENT TASKS:
- Rhyme supply
ex> name a word that rhymes with mat & hat
- Rhyme identification
ex> do these words rhyme? hill. fill,
- Segmentation/Blending
ex> break or combine words based on parts, syllables, or onset/rime
ASSESSMENTS:
Ideas and activities SongsTeaching Phonological Awareness
Lesson PlansOnset and Rime explanation and activity
onset and rime printable cards
this is a great activity but is a locked PDF and cannot be saved. (google is and then utilize it)
These are sentence examples for counting phonemes in sentences (HR).
Phonological Bingo is a great way to introduce phonology to young learners while making it fun for
Simple phonemic activities to do with a classroom
This PDF has many assessments of a variety of skills within phonemic awareness
This book is a great outline and information about phonological awareness:
Torgesen, Joseph K. & Patricia G. Mathes. (2000). A Basic Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Teaching Phonological Awareness. Pro-Ed: Texas.
TEACHING ACTIVITIES:
This site provides a plethora of activities to aid phonemic awareness across grade levels K-12 with a variety of methods to teach this literacy concept.
This helps to clarify the difference between phonoligcal and phonemic awareness.
MLPP
- Rhyme supply
ex> name a word that rhymes with mat & hat
- Rhyme identification
ex> do these words rhyme? hill. fill,
- Segmentation/Blending
ex> break or combine words based on parts, syllables, or onset/rime
ASSESSMENTS:
Ideas and activities SongsTeaching Phonological Awareness
Lesson PlansOnset and Rime explanation and activity
onset and rime printable cards
this is a great activity but is a locked PDF and cannot be saved. (google is and then utilize it)
These are sentence examples for counting phonemes in sentences (HR).
Phonological Bingo is a great way to introduce phonology to young learners while making it fun for
Simple phonemic activities to do with a classroom
This PDF has many assessments of a variety of skills within phonemic awareness
This book is a great outline and information about phonological awareness:
Torgesen, Joseph K. & Patricia G. Mathes. (2000). A Basic Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Teaching Phonological Awareness. Pro-Ed: Texas.
TEACHING ACTIVITIES:
This site provides a plethora of activities to aid phonemic awareness across grade levels K-12 with a variety of methods to teach this literacy concept.
This helps to clarify the difference between phonoligcal and phonemic awareness.
MLPP
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS:
This is a huge factor in developing pronunciation for SLLs. It is important for them to work with sounds and play with words. The best way to do this is in groups to allow for peer correction and peer learning; SLL can hear others pronounce words and sounds then mimick them. This is why listening aspects are so important for SLL because they do not necessarily know how to pronounce words by reading them, pronunciation of letters is done differently in various languages.
This is a huge factor in developing pronunciation for SLLs. It is important for them to work with sounds and play with words. The best way to do this is in groups to allow for peer correction and peer learning; SLL can hear others pronounce words and sounds then mimick them. This is why listening aspects are so important for SLL because they do not necessarily know how to pronounce words by reading them, pronunciation of letters is done differently in various languages.
