Phonological Awareness

1. Phonological Awareness Dr. Linda Thistlethwaite Central Illinois Adult Education Service Center (CIAESC) Western Illinois University

2. Contact me at Western Illinois University: • mfllt@wiu.edu • Be sure to include 2 l’s. • 309-298-1958

3. Big Picture:Phonological Processing • Phonological Awareness (oral language activities) • Word Identification (a reading activity) • Spelling (a writing activity)

4. Big Picture:A Continuum • Phonological/phonemic awareness • oral language • Alphabetic principal • concept of letter • Phonics (decoding and spelling) • matching individual letters and groups of letters to sounds • actually is called “phonetic recoding”

5. Oral Language • When considering phonemic/phonological awareness, we are concerned with ORAL language. • The written word or letter need never appear although visually focusing on the written letter or word may help to engage the learner.

6. Four Aspects of Phonological Awareness • Awareness of “word” • Reciting poems and nursery rhymes • Segmenting a phrase or sentence into component words (tapping; moving markers)

7. Four Aspects of Phonological Awareness • Rhyme • Repeating rhymes • Predicting rhymes (after having heard them) • Deciding if two words rhyme • Choosing rhymes from alternatives • Predicting rhymes in context • Generating rhyming words in isolation

8. Four Aspects of Phonological Awareness • Syllabication • Clapping a word (one clap for each syllable) • Blending compounds (home + work) • Blending words + endings (beauty + ful) • Segmenting words into syllables • beautiful = beau + ti + ful • Deleting syllables • saying cowboy without the cow

9. Four Aspects of Phonological Awareness • Phonemic awareness • Phoneme: smallest unit of sound that can differentiate one word/syllable from another • Daddy: four phonemes • /d/ + /a/ + /d/ + /e/

10. Notes • Sometimes all of these activities are referred to as phonemic awareness. • True phonemic awareness activities focus on phonemes at the “individual sound” level. They are more difficult/abstract than the dealing with words, syllables, and rhymes.

11. Important Issues • Debate #1: Should learners be encouraged to say sounds in isolation? • Distorts the sound • Is very abstract • Debate #2: Should learners practice phonemic awareness activities with nonsense words?

12. Seven Competencies of Phonemic Awareness

13. #1: Being aware of sound similarities and differences in words (auditory discrimination) • Give: Tom Mom • Ask: Which begins like Mary? • Begin simply: • Does Tom begin like Mary? • “Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down” • Does Mom begin like Mary?

14. #2: Isolating a Phoneme • What is the first sound you hear in PARK? • What is the last sound you hear in PARK? • What is the middle sound you hear in PARK? • “Who Has a (/p/) Word to Share with Us?” • “Jimmy Crack Corn” • “What Is the Sound that Starts Each Word?” • “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”

15. #2: Isolating a Phoneme (cont.) • What is the common sound you hear in these words? • ball, bike, bell • sat, meat, great • beans, feet, green

16. #3 Categorizing phonemes • Which word begins (or ends) with a different phoneme? • bus, bun, rug (begins) • green, gas, pen (begins or ends) • Look at these pictures. Which pictures begin with the same sound?

17. #4: Being able to hear where a sound is in a sequence of sounds • Repeat these words with /sh/ at the beginning: share, ship, shine. • Repeat these words with the /sh/ at the end: wash, leash, dish. • Where do you hear the /sh/ sound in each word? dish wash show

18. #5: Blending together a sequence of sounds to form a word • Arm-blending • Use of a “slide” visual

19. #5: Blending together a sequence of sounds to form a word (cont.) • Questions: • What word does /sh/ + /ip/ make? • What word does /m/ + /a/ + /n/ make? • “If You Think You Know This Word, Shout it Out” • “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands”

20. #6: Being able to segment a word into a sequence of sounds • Can the learner moves tiles into line while listening to a rubberbanded word? • Can the learner count the number of sounds heard in a rubberbanded word (selecting cards with the right number of joined boxes)?

21. #6: Being able to segment a word into a sequence of sounds (cont.) • Can the learner rubberband the word, stretching out the word into its distinct sounds? • “Tell Me All the Sounds You Heard” • “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

22. #7a: Manipulating sounds by deleting sounds • Which is longer: train or rain? • Take away the beginning sound of pat (at). • train-rain; trash-rash, link-ink • Take away the ending sound of plate (play). • boys-boy, ramp-ram, first-firs

23. #7b: Manipulate sounds by adding sounds • Say “tick.” Add the sound that you hear at the beginning of the word Sam to the beginning of the word tick. • Add /t/ to the beginning of rip.

24. #7c: Manipulating sounds by substituting sounds • Basic strategy: • Say the word Tom. • Now substitute the sound that you hear at the beginning of Mary for the sound at the beginning of Tom. • Mom

25. #7c: Manipulating sounds by substituting sounds (cont.) • Use the letter-sound of the day to begin each student’s name. If the sound is T=/t/: • Tom remains Tom. • Dave becomes Tave. • Sarah becomes Tarah. • “I Have a Song that We Can Sing” • “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”

26. Where to Begin (generally) • Working with real words is easier than working with nonsense words. • Dealing with bigger chunks is easier than dealing with isolated sounds. • Choosing is easier than producing. • Beginnings are easier than endings/middles. • Deleting sounds is easier than adding or substituting sounds. • Blending is easier than segmenting.

27. Two of the easiest activities: • Identifying first sounds, especially by choosing pictures that begin with that sound • Blending onsets to rimes

28. Onsets and Rimes • Treat and Street • onsets = tr & str • rimes = eat & eet (two different ones) • Treat and Street • one rhyme (et) • two rimes (eat and eet)

29. Two moderately difficult activities: • Blending individual phonemes into real words • Deleting phonemes from words

30. Two difficult activities: • Segmenting real words into phonemes • Blending phonemes into non-words

31. Approaches to Phonics • Synthetic Phonics • Analogy Phonics (Word Family Phonics) • Analytic Phonics • Phonics through Spelling • Embedded Phonics

32. Synthetic Phonics • You explicitly teach students to segment words into individual letters or letter combinations and to select phonemes for the letters.

33. Analogy Phonics • You teach students to pronounce (or spell) a new word by making an analogy to a known word. You focus on word families.

34. Analytic Phonics • This takes Analogy Phonics a step further. You teach students to analyze letter-sound relations by comparing unknown words to known words. • You and the students avoid pronouncing sounds in isolation. • Example: bar (begins like bus and ends like car)

35. Phonics through Spelling • You focus on phonics during writing experiences. • Teach students to segment words into phonemes and to select letters for those phonemes. • Teach students to compare the unknown word to a word they do know.

36. Embedded Phonics • You teach phonics through real reading experiences by embedding phonics instruction into text reading. • This can be used with synthetic phonics, analogy phonics, and analytic phonics.

37. Importance of Phonemic Awareness to Belief System A • To those who have a sound-based approach to word identification: of great importance • Encourage saying sounds in isolation and view reading as an auditory activity

38. See “sound it out” as the primary word identification strategy • See phonics as something that comes BEFORE reading and writing

39. Importance of Phonemic Awareness to Belief System B • To those who have a visual approach to word identification: not important • Encourage comparing an unknown word to a known word on the basis of its visual characteristics

40. Support the analytic phonics approach while using real literature • See decoding and spelling as two aspects of phonics and encourage learning phoneme-grapheme relationships through spelling as much as through reading

41. Those Who Do Not Endorse Phonemic Awareness • Frank Smith • Denny Taylor

42. Beyond Phonics: Analyzed Words as Sight Words • Two learners figure out a new word. • One learner puts this into long-term memory. It becomes a sight word for the learner, a word recognized immediately. • Another learner encounters the word again and must figure it out again -- and again, and again, and again. Each time it’s like the student has never encountered the word before!

43. Remembering Words • Those initially taught as sight words • Those initially decoded but which you want learners to recognize at sight

44. Remembering Words • Draw the learner’s attention to the physical features of the word. • Talk about the letters. Make learning the word a visual activity as well as an auditory activity. • Write a short “story” for a particularly troublesome high-frequency word, a story that uses the word in most of the sentences. • Have the student practice listening for as well as reading the word in this context.

45. Remembering Words • Compare the word to other known words. • How is the troublesome word similar? • How is it different? • Have the learner cut the word apart into its separate letters and then reconstruct it, comparing it to the model.

46. Remembering Words • Have the student over-learn the word to the point of being able to spell it: • tracing it • writing it in the air • writing it with colored chalk, etc. • Play “Guess the Covered Word,” revealing one letter at a time.

47. Remembering Words • Have the learner be on the look-out for the word in anything he or she is reading: • making a list of the places where it was found. • Have the word be the mystery word for a Making Words activity. • Note: This activity can also be used to introduce a word that may be more difficult than most words you want student to recognize at sight.

48. Word Walls • A popular way to practice high-frequency words • words initially learned as sight words • words initially decoded which students need to recognize as sight words

49. Word Walls to Practice Sight Words • Display alphabetically. Perhaps add logos that can be removed. • Be sure the display can easily be seen by the children. • Use a background theme to add interest. • Have a second set of the words to keep in a file box; have individual sets.

50. Adding Words • Add 5 per week (4-8). • Focus on high-frequency words that you expect students to be able to spell as well as read. • Have students suggest words. • Perhaps include students’ names. • Use a special, bright color for a key word for each phonogram (word family).