Phonological Awareness

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is the understanding that……

Spoken language can be broken into smaller units:

• Sentences into words

• Words into syllables

• Syllables into onset-rimes

• Words/syllables into phonemes

Phonological awareness is an important predictor of reading success

Phonological awareness

“The tiger jumps across the river” - sentence

- words

The ti-ger jumps a-cross the ri-ver - syllables

/ðə ˈtaɪɡə dʒʌmps əˈkrɒs ðə ˈrɪvə / - phonemes

the tiger jumps across the river

phoneme

• The smallest unit of spoken language sounds

• Vowels, consonants

• Transcribed using the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) system e.g., /bʌs/, /dʒɪˈrɑːf /

• Phonemes are not the same as letters (graphemes)

graphemes

How many graphemes in the word ‘through’?

th r ough 3 graphemes

θ r u: phonemes

phonics

• PHONICS is knowing how letter names and phonemes relate to each other

• Also known as ‘letter-sound correspondence’ (grapheme-phoneme correspondence)

Phonological awareness

Phonics

Auditory skills and phonological awareness

• The ability to hear and discriminate phonemes require adequate “auditory skills” and/or “perceptual skills”

• Auditory perception production

Map or mat?

Star or start?

Cool or pool?

Auditory and visual skills, and letter-sound correspondence

• The ability to hear and discriminate phonemes require adequate “auditory skills” and “auditory perceptual skills”

• The ability to see and discriminate reversible letters require adequate “visual skills” and “visual perceptual skills”

• The ability to associate letter with sounds requires integration of auditory and visual skills

Auditory perception production

(b,d,p or q)

Visual perception production

Continuum for the development of phonological awareness

Rhyme & alteration sentence segmentation syllable blending & segmenting onset-rime blending & segmenting phoneme blending, segmenting, & manipulation

*also known as phonemic awareness

Early developing Late developing

Teaching phonological awareness

The majority of students at risk for reading difficulties have poor phonological awareness and can profit from explicit instructions in learning letter-sound correspondences, and blending, segmenting, and manipulating phonemes as early as possible

Letter-sound correspondence

Teaching letter-sound correspondences

• Expert estimates of the number of speech sounds or phonemes in English vary from 40 to 52

• For purposes of teaching students, most estimates are about 44

• In learning to read and write, students learn more than 100 spellings (graphemes) for these phonemes

Teaching letter-sound correspondences cont…..

• The largest division of phonemes is consonants (C) or vowels (V)

• The English language also makes use of consonant digraphs and consonant blends.

– Consonant digraph – two consonants that represent one sound (ph for /f/)

– Consonant blend – combines the sounds of two or more consonants so that they are clustered together. (bl, spl)

Phonemes: vowels

Short Example Long Example

I kit i: fleece

ɛ dress ɛ: bear

æ trap ɑ: palm

ɒ lot ɔː thought

ʊ foot u: goose

ʌ up ɜ: nurse

ə bonus

Phonemes: consonants

Diagraphs & diphthongs

ch,ck, gh, kn, ng, ph, sc, sh, th, wh, wr, ai, ay, ay, ee, ie, oa, oe, ow

Consonant blend

bl,cl, sc, sl, pl, br, fr, st, sw, str, sch

Guidelines for teaching letter-sound correspondence

• Students use grapheme-phoneme correspondences to decode words

• Struggling readers benefit from learning to blend and segment sounds so that they can decode and spell words

• A number of programs have been developed using systematic approaches to introduce the letter-sound relationships and how to blend sounds to read words (e.g: Jolly phonics, catch up literacy)

Guidelines for teaching letter-soundcorrespondences

• Teach one phoneme at a time. Start with phonemes that occur frequently in simple words (e.g., /a/, /m/, /t/)

• Letters that look familiar and have similar sounds (e.g., b and d) should be separated in the instructional sequence to avoid confusion

• Generally, short vowels are taught before long vowels• Lower case letters are taught first• Start by teaching the sounds of the letters, not their

names.• Teach blending and segmenting in oral as well as written

language• Highlight the first phoneme of words

Guidelines for teaching letter-soundcorrespondences

• Teach that some letters can represent more than one sound. For each letter, teach the most frequent sound, and then teach other sounds (e.g., /c/ in cat then /s/ in city)

• Teach that different letters can make the same sound (e.g., /s/ in sit and city)

• Teach that sounds can be represented by a single letter or a combination of letters (e.g., /e/ in me and meet)

• Add a kinesthetic component by having students trace or write the letter as they say the phoneme

• Colour-code consonants or vowels

Can you read this?I cnduo’t bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuanmnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mttaer in what oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

ACTIVITY 1

In your group, discuss the following questions

What is the main focus of the LINUS books in …

• phonological awareness skills?

Why?

Trouble-shooting 1

Trouble shooting 2

Reflection

• What do you think of the adaptations that you have to make?

• What can you do to teach phonological awareness effectively?