The Role of Phonemic Awareness in Learning to Read

Notes from "What research has to say about reading instruction" by Alan E. farstrup, S. Jay Samuels. (Ch 6 p. 110)
Phonemic Awareness (PA)

• Is one of the leading predictors of how well chilren will learn to read upon school-entry.
• Phonemes are the smallest units of spoken language. (English has 41-44)
• Words most often consist of a blend of phonemes.
• PA is the ability to focus on and manipulate sounds in spoken words.

PA Tasks

1. Phoneme isolation--what is the first sound in "paste".
   
2. Phoneme identity--"tell me the sound that is the same in bike, boy, and bell"
3. Phoneme categorization--"which word doesn't belong? bus bun or rug"
4. Phoneme blending-- What word is /s/ /k/ /u/ /l/? (school)
5. Phoneme segmentation--how many sounds in ship? /sh/ /I/ /p/ (three)
6. Phoneme deletion--"what is smile with out the /s/?" (mile)

Phonemes vs Graphemes

1. Graphemes are letters or multiple letters (Ch, Sh, TH) that symbolize a phoneme.

Phonemes vs Phonics

1. Phonics is the connection between phoneme and grapheme (letter) to spell or decode words.
2. Phonological awareness is different still.

• understanding of how phonemes can be used with rimes, onset, and syllables.
  

ELLs are likely to misperceive some English phonemes because their linguistic minds are programed to categorize phonemes in their first language.

PA and Learning to Read
English is an alphabetic language that connects phonemes to graphemes.
PA is important because new readers need PA to:

• decode new words by blending phonemes
• segment a word into phonemes to remember/spell individual words.
  
• no breaks in speech signalling a new phoneme, so readers need instruction.
  

Teaching PA

• Important for moving preschoolers and kindergarteners closer to reading.
• PA instruction includes games, songs, and taks that ask students to isolate, segment, blend, delete and otherwise manipulate phonemes.
• Shown to improve reading performance in first two years of school.
• most effective for younger children.
  
• connections with print help enhance literacy acquisition.
• Segmenting and blending are especially important for reading