Phonemic awareness

Due
to the problems I have with wiki some things may not be cited or
referenced according to APA and I apologize. These findings are not my
own and I do not agree or disagree with the ideas expressed except for
my own. Teresa Hibler
Definitions

Phonemic awareness – 1)
knowing the sound/symbol relationships (McCulloch, 2001). 2) the
structure not meaning of words ( Hempenstall, 2003). 3) the ability (to
be aware) explicitly and segmentally of sound units smaller than the
syllables ( Sensenbaugh, 1999).

Phonics – sound relation for
pronunciation only not spelling or precise speech also not phonemic or
phonetic (McCulloch, 2001). phonics

Grapheme – printed form used in correct spelling and books; letter/s that produce one sound relationship grapheme

Orthography – spelling with complete phonetics; rules for spelling, syllabication and plurals (McCulloch, 2001).ortthography

Phonemic
Awareness overlaps and is often confused with phonological awareness.
Phonological awareness is ability to distinguish distinct sounds.
Children without phonological understanding might not have learned to
hear the difference between three or free, lice or rice, meat or neat.
Phonological is another important prereading skill which also must be
learned and practiced.
Need for phonemic awareness

Phonemic
awareness is needed because it can determine more than IQ, vocabulary
and listening comprehension, how well a child will learn to read
(Sensenbaugh, 1999). Phonemic awareness is needed not only for reading
but spelling and writing also. If a child has complete phonemic
awareness not only should they be able read, including words they have
not seen before, but also they should be able to spell correctly without
memorizing. Writing is another benefit of phonemic awareness; children
should be able to express their thoughts using phonemic awareness even
if he has never seen the word in print before. This can give a child a
great satisfaction and higher self-esteem (McCulloch, 2001).

'Different teaching methods Riggs Institute Method

There
are 42 pure sounds singly and in combinations needed to write our 26
letter alphabet (McCulloch, 2001). Besides the pure sounds, there are 47
rules of orthography that need to be taught with the sound/symbols to
read, write and most importantly spell correctly. If these sounds and
rules are not known, children might try to spell by memorizing the whole
word. The problem is 30% don’t have the capacity to spell whole words
and 50% can’t memorize well enough. This accounts for at least a 60%
failure rate for spelling and this has negative implications for writing
also (McCulloch, 2001).

Phonemics is a sound/symbol
relationship, eventually children have to connect the sound with the
symbol (letter/s, printed word) According to the Riggs Institute method
and McCulloch (2001), you need to start by having students, without
words or pictures, see the letter in print and on a flash card, hear the
teacher say the sound not the letter, orally repeat sound then write
the letter. When children have mastered writing the letter only by
hearing the sound, then the teacher puts the alphabet on the wall
(McCulloch, 2001).

Next, students learn the rest of the 71
sound/symbol relationships which all together form 118 [1]/grapheme
connections (McCulloch, 2001). The students learn 29 more sounds
connected to the combinations of graphemes (print). Nineteen have one
sound, four have two sounds, five have three sounds and one has four
sounds (McCulloch, 2001). If you want to see the combinations do the
Riggs Institute website.

Now, the spelling starts with 150 common
words. The teacher says the word and uses it in a sentence. The first
word is me. The students, who don’t write yet and they don’t see the
word, are asked, What is the first sound you hear in me? All students
respond verbally and then are told to write the letter that corresponds
with that sound (McCulloch, 2001). Then they are asked, What is the next
sound you hear? The students have to decide which of the three e sounds
they have learned is the correct one, long e. After they write e, the
teacher writes the word on the board for them to check. The children
aren’t allowed erasers at this point so teachers can check progress or
spot problems. Students having problems are moved closer to the teacher
to receive more feedback and immediate assistance. The process is
repeated until all 150 words are done (McCulloch, 2001).

After
this is done, two word syllables are started. The teachers use a
Socratic question and answer method. Questions like, How many syllables
do you hear, what is the sound of the first syllable, the sound of the
first letter of that syllable, the next sound, etc… These questions
continue until are sounds are connected to the corresponding grapheme
(McCulloch, 2001).

After this is completed with 30 words, the
children learn the last 16 graphemes. All of the two, three and four
letter graphemes can be divided into two categories. The first one is
the graphemes that change sounds by being combined (ei = long a sound).
The second one is where the sound is normally spelled with one letter
(igh = long i). Consant clusters like str are not taught as one sound
because they each have a separate sound. Teaching these clusters as one
sound causes a loss in learning of the separate sounds and have a
negative impact on spelling, therefore, on writing (McCulloch, 2001).

Kid Source reading method with phonemic awareness

Sensenbaugh
(1999) starts with definitions similar to the previous method.
Phonological awareness is the ability to to learn sound units ,
explicitly and segmentally, smaller than the syllable
(Sensenbaugh,1999).

Sensenbaugh (1999) states you need phonemic
awareness before and after learning to read. It is a foundation to learn
how to spell and without the connection between phonemes and graphemes
the learning is not sufficient. Sensenbaugh (1999) points out that
phonics is not a sufficient without a complete understanding of the
sounds connected with a visual familiarity between the sound and
letter/s (Sensenbaugh, 1999).

Sensenbaugh (1999) goes on to
recommend teaching rhyming, how to segment and blend with sound/symbol
relationship and to teach how to transfer knowledge to other contexts.
Sensenbaugh (1999) offers suggestions when doing phonemic awareness
activities like avoid rote memorization and keep it fun, use groups,
encourage experimentation, allow for individual differences and make it
informal not evaluative (Sensenbaugh, 1999).

Education news Beginning reading

Hempenstall(2003)
puts more emphasis on the structure of words, rhymes, syllables and the
fact words, not letter or letter combinations, are composed of sound.
Hempenstall(2003) states phonemic awareness is a sequential development
from the simple to the complex. Hempenstall’s (2003) idea of progress
from simple to complex are as follows:

Recognition that sentences
are made up of words. Recognition that words can rhyme - then
production Recognition that words can be made into syllabes - then
production Recognition that words can be made into onsets and rimes-
then production

Recognition that words can begin with the same
sound- then production Recognition that words can end with the same
sound- then production Recognition that words can be made itno
individual phonemes- then production Recognition that sounds can be
deleted from words to make new words- then production ability to blend
sounds to make words ability to segment words into constituent
sounds(Hempenstall, 2003)

Hempenstall (2003) puts a lot of
emphasis on rhyming and onset and rimes. The two have commonalities
because rimes are the vowel and remaining consonants and onset is the
first consonant/s of the word. They are connected by the awareness that
words can have the same ending characteristics. The feeling is if
children know rhymes such drain and strain, it could lead to main and
brain and this will lead to children learning by analogy. Hempenstall
(2003) does mention that research implies that a comprehensive phonemic
awareness is necessary for children to benefit from the onset and rime
method (Hempenstall, 2003).
Applications in the Classroom

One
suggestion of a game to increase a student's phonemic awareness is to
start by having a class recite a simple nursery rhyme. Then have them
repeat the rhyme, but substitute a different initial sound. For example
instead of Jack and Jill went up the hill, the students would say Back
and Bill went up the hill. Vowel sounds or ending sounds may be
substituted also in any number of combinations. This practice allows the
children to distinguish the different phonemes. Reading war

Sensenbaugh
(1999) points out that phonemic awareness is part of the debate between
the Whole word approach and the phonics atyle of learning to read. One
study showed that regarless of the method used to teach children to
read, it wsa the level of phonemic awareness that made the difference.
Whole language advocates admit some children might be in need of
phonemic awareness and phonic supporters admit the letter/sound
correspondence they use may not be sufficient (Sensenbaugh, 1999).
Personal Experiences or comments

My
name is Gay Cabutti and I have had the opportunity to work with
kindergarteners and first graders on developing phonemic awareness
skills. Our school has made a big push into developing those skills in
our young students. We are using DIBELS to assess all kindergarten and
first graders to find the ones who need assistance with developing their
phonemic awareness. These students are then placed in small groups
where a person, could be the principal, comes in and does phonemic
awaareness activities with that group for 15-20 minutes. Our school has
found that this practice is making a difference with those children who
are struggling with reading later in school.

I, Teresa Hibler, am
a senior graduating on December 19, 2004 with a bachelor’s in
psychology. The paper, while some comments are mine and you can tell
which these are, is written by researching the term. Most of the ideas
are the product of the people I used as references. I may not agree or
disagree with everything written but it is the results of the research.
Therefore, if you have a comment or disagreement about anything written
feel free to express it but if it is from research and not a personal
opinion, at least look at the full reference. If I had time I could add
lots more information If I left out something you would like to add, do
so but acknowledge your addition. Thank you.

Another way of
teaching children to hear phonemes is through music. Because the words
are produced more slowly in vocal music than in speech, the exact sounds
of the phonemes and the transitions between them can be heard more
clearly (Tumonov, 1986). It was also shown by Karimer (as cited in
Edwards, 1997), that using songs and rhythmical chants that highlight
certain phonemes helps students to be able to more accurately
distinguish between different phonemes. I have used vocal music to teach
students the different phonemes of a second language. Because of the
similarities of learning a first language and learning a second
language, I am sure that doing the same with children in our country
would also be effective. Elizabeth Giger

I just had a thought. .
.I wonder if children who grow up in multi-lingual households develop a
sense of phonemic awareness more easily. I know that they learn to
hear/recognize a greater number of phonemes, but it would be interesting
to see how it affects their language development. Have there been any
studies done concerning this issue?- JD

As a first grade teacher I
teach phonemic awareness daily. We use a program that has a 15 minute
excercise for each day. These exercises are very quick and are all
verbal. My students have benefitted from this greatly. I find it very
important to incorporate phonemic awareness daily. - RU

I have a
four year old daughter that has developed an interest in learning to
read on her own. In an effort to promote this, we have been working on
reading words that rhyme like ball, fall, call, etc. We have tried to
increase her awareness of how these words alike in spelling and how the
change in the initial letter only changes the initial sound.
Unfortunately, we found that she was focusing so much attention on the
initial letter that when she saw any word that started with a b she read
as ball (likewise for f, c, etc). Now we have switched gears and are
focusing more attention on flash cards and being able to sound out
specific letters. After we master this, we'll go on to pronouncing
words. M Foshee

After assessing students, if students are weak in
the area of phonemic awareness, I teach the K/1's phonemic awareness
everyday. We use Michael Heggerty's Phonemic Awareness and my team loves
it. The skills that we do everyday in first grade are letter naming,
rhyming, onset fluency, blending, identifying final and medial sounds,
segmenting, substituting, adding phonemes and deleting phonemes. -M.Yao

In
my school, our K, 1 and 2 classes use Michael Hegerty's Phonemic
Awareness program daily. It has approximately fifteen minutes of fun,
verbal exercises that involve the students and the teacher. My students
always looked forward to this portion of their day and we found that
their reading improved as this program progressed. This was also a big
help to my lower readers, who would struggle with the written word but
be able to make a connection with the sounds of this program. D.LePla