Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction Team 7 Special Services Teachers Alabama State Department of Education

Research n ‘When faced with an alphabetic script, the child’s level of phonemic awareness on entering school is widely held to be the strongest single predictor of the success she or he will experience in learning to read.” Adams & Bruck

Focus on Individual Phonemes- // n Introduce one phoneme at a time n Use alliterations, “tongue twisters” when introducing new phonemes n Teach vowel sounds early since they are used in every word

Make Phonemes Memorable n Make meaningful connections n Discover the shape of the mouth when saying the sounds they make n Allow students to use invented spellings

Find the Phoneme in Word Contexts n Help children spot the phoneme in words n Allow children to choose between at least two words to identify correct phoneme n Use a variety of activities

Why is it so important? n Provides knowledge of how the alphabet relates to individual words and sounds. n Establishes common rules for most letters representing sounds. n Assists children in making educated guesses when reading new words.

Constructing Meaning from Print for Comprehension n Purpose for reading n Use of prior knowledge n Good vocabulary n Ability to summarize, predict and clarify n Application of phonics skills in a fluent and accurate manner

Research n Children given training in phonological sensitivity and/or alphabetic coding show superior outcomes on measures of comprehension and text reading as well as word recognition. Stanovich,K.E. & Stanovich, P.J.

Components of an Explicit Phonics Lesson n Begin with a phonemic awareness activity n State, explain and model how to decode and spell words n Blend and spell words n Encourage recognition through writing n Read decodable text

Systematic Phonics Progression n Consonants and short vowels n Consonant digraphs n Schwa n Long vowels and common spellings n Long vowel digraphs n R-controlled vowels n Other vowels and their common spellings n Common spellings for consonant sounds

Blending Start with the Vowel Onset/Rime Successful Blending

Guidelines for Dealing with Multisyllable Words n Identify recognizable chunks n Identify appropriate vowel phoneme n Blend the chunks together to recognize the words n Check for comprehension

Instruction within a Reading Lesson Work with small group of children are similar in reading development Assist in ways to make independent decoders and comprehenders Focus on words throughout the lesson Reread text Guide reading of new text

How to Study Spelling Words n Say the word n Stretch the word n Count the sounds and draw blanks to stand for the sounds, e.g. top=---=3 n Record the spelling sound by sound n Look at the word carefully n Visualize the word n Write the word

Some children can read a word only to recognize it again with greater speed, others need 20 or more exposures. The average child needs between 4 and 14 exposures to quickly recognize the word. Therefore it is vital that children read a large amount of text at their independent reading level and that the text provides specific practice in the skills being learned.