PHONEMIC AWARENESS JILLIAN MARSHALL FEBRUARY 5, 2015 Slides adapted from Traci Haley, CU Boulder

 Discuss the difference between Phonemic Awareness, Phonological awareness, and Phonics  Learn why PA is important to literacy  Explore some activities that support phonological and phonemic awareness  Apply it to our own teaching TODAY WE WILL…

Phonological/Phonemic Awareness Concepts of Print Letter/Sound Knowledge Oral Language Emergent Literacy

Phonological Awareness Word Awareness RhymingAlliterationSyllablesAssonance Phonemic Awareness Onset and rhyme Blending Segmenting Manipulating phonemes

 “The ultimate aim of phonemic awareness instruction in general and segmentation in particular is to enable students to learn letter-sound correspondence,” (Gunning, 2013).  Being able to recognize speech sounds is so important in literacy development PURPOSE OF PA

Phonological Awareness- Ability to discriminate and manipulate sounds orally. Phonemic Awareness- Ability to discriminate and manipulate sounds (phonemes) in words. WHAT IS PHONEMIC AWARENESS?

 Understanding of and ability to manipulate the smallest units of sound that make up spoken words (phonemes)  Know that spoken words are made up of sounds  Know how to use sounds to make new words MORE SPECIFICALLY, PA IS…

 Metalinguistic awareness: requires the ability to think about language abstractly  Coarticulation: process of articulating a sound while still articulating the previous sound  E.g. The word “cat” is a blend of sounds, each sound is not pronounced separately (not /k/,/a/,/t/) Gunning (2013) WHAT MAKES PA DIFFICULT FOR SOME STUDENTS?

ice ____straight____ sigh____measure____ choose____her____ pitched____shout____ HOW MANY PHONEMES?

 Task 1: The ability to hear rhymes and alliteration Example: Listen to a nursery rhyme. Have children identify rhyming words. You may need to explicitly teach rhymes.  Although new research suggests rhyming may be more difficulty than we once thought (Gunning, 2013)  Task 2: The ability to do oddity tasks Example: Look at these pictures (sock, sun, man) Which picture begins with a different sound?  Task 3: The ability to orally blend words and split syllables Example: I will say the first sound of a word and then the rest of the word. Say the word as a whole. /s/… at. What’s the word? (sat) 5 BASIC TYPES OF PA TASKS

 Task 4: The ability to orally segment words (including counting sounds) Example: What sounds do you hear in the word sat? /s/ /a/ /t/  Task 5: The ability to do phonemic manipulation tasks Example: Replace the first sound in the word sat with /m/ What’s the new word? (mat) 5 TASKS CONT’D

 Phonemic Awareness is the understanding that the sounds of spoken language work together to make words.  Phonics is the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between the phonemes and graphemes, the letters that represent the sounds in written language.  2 areas that require direct instruction: phonological awareness and alphabetic principle (Gunning, 2014) PA VS. PHONICS

 “The two best predictors of early reading success are alphabet recognition and phonemic awareness.” –Marilyn Jager Adams WHY IS PA IMPORTANT? “Children who cannot hear and manipulate the sounds of spoken words will have a hard time relating these sounds to the letters in the written words.” (Fountas and Pinell, 2009)

 Prerequisite for successful phonics instruction  BUT don’t need to be proficient before learning phonics elements  Related to accurate and fluent decoding: to decode, you must know how to blend phonemes  Linked to ability to use alphabetic spelling  Without it, you cannot abstract sound from the letter itself (Gunning, 2013) IMPORTANCE OF PA

 Low SES children are at greater risk than high-SES students of not developing phonemic awareness and concepts of print in Kindergarten  Research suggests that difficulty with PA is at the core of many difficulties in learning to read  Role of language  Even skilled language users need PA instruction IMPORTANCE OF PA CONT’D

 Use explicit instruction  “functional fashion,” taught as part of learning to read and not in isolation  Implement early: boosts success in learning to read and spell  Do shared readings and model  Integrate into classroom context (thematic units, read alouds, field trips)  minutes daily (Plan ahead) HOW TO TEACH PA IN THE CLASSROOM

49ed-bcb1-f42a802738ac/page/8eb4f16d-70c d17- 2a7edd0e141a Source: UVA, Curry School of Education VIDEO

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION AND WORD RECOGNITION

 Imagine you are talking to a parent about a student’s reading. How would you define & explain the importance of phonemic awareness? DISCUSS

 With a group of 3 or 4, you will cycle through phonemic awareness centers. Be prepared to share some of what you discovered. Have fun! PA ACTIVITIES

 What did you learn about PA?  How are you going to apply it in your classroom? NOW WHAT?

 Florida Center for Reading Research  Creating Literacy Instruction for all students (Thomas Gunning, 2013)  Reading Rockets: Phonemic Awareness Activities  Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Reading Success (Wiley Blevins, 1997) HELPFUL LINKS AND RESOURCES