Literacy
New York Trainer Corp
Resources
The
Role of Phonological Awareness in Learning to Read
From Bridges to Practice: A Research-based Guide for Literacy Practitioners
Serving
Adults with Learning Disabilities, 1999
Research has documented
that phonological awareness is one of the most important factors in
learning to read (Lyon and Alexander, 1996). But what is phonological
awareness? Phonological awareness is most commonly defined as one's
sensitivity to, or explicit awareness or, the phonological structure
of words in one's language (the sound system of a language).
Deficits in phonological
awareness are characterized by weaknesses in the ability to "hear"
the individual sounds in words. An adult with weak phonological awareness
might not be able to identify the final sound in a word like "clap,"
or to generate other words that start with the same first sound. In
short, phonological awareness involves the ability to notice, think
about, or manipulate, the individual sounds within words (Torgesen et
al., in press).
The smallest unit
of meaningful, or functional, sound in a language is called phoneme.
For example, the word bat has three phonemes, /b/, /a/, /t/. By changing
the first phoneme, we can produce the word hat, /h/, /a/, /t/. Changing
the second phoneme creates the word but, and changing the last phoneme
creates the word ban. In essence, phonemes are the building blocks of
all spoken and written language; words in a language are composed of
strings of phonemes. We can create all the words in the English language
through various combinations of just 44 phonemes.
Phonemic awareness
is important because it supports learning how the words in our language
are represented in print, and thus proves a more potent predictor of
success in learning to reading than intelligence, listening comprehension,
or reading readiness tests.
Conversely, lack
of phonemic awareness proves the most powerful determinant of failure
in learning to read. Individuals with a reading disability have difficulties
with this most basic step in the road to reading: breaking the written
word into its component phonological units. In other words, these individuals
do not easily learn how to relate the sounds of language to the alphabet
letters which represent them (Lyon, 1995).
If a person can
perform these tasks orally, he or she is ready for instruction in learning
how to use letter-sound to identify words. Actually, instruction in
letter-sound correspondences (i.e., the sounds that letters represent
in words) should be provided simultaneously with instructions in phonemic
awareness. As soon as your student knows the sounds of some consonants
and vowels, you can begin to use letters in many of your phonemic awareness
activities.
For example, you
might ask the student to show you the letter for the first sound in
"cat." Or, you might ask him or her to blend the sounds represented
by the letters m-a-n. Or, you could say, "If that says 'man', what
letter could you use to make it say 'tan'?" The idea of these activities
with letters is to show the student how the skill learned in the phonemic
awareness activities can be used in reading or spelling. Once students
can do these activities with letters, they have taken one of the most
important first steps in learning to read.
Phonemic awareness
develops naturally in some people. However, for many people, phonemic
awareness must be directly taught (Moats, 1997). Any approach to teaching
reading must incorporate what we now know about the key role of phonemic
awareness; indeed, throughout the early stages of literacy acquisition,
teachers and tutors must begin each lesson with the direct teaching
of phonemic awareness. Because a lack of phonemic awareness appears
to be a major obstacle to learning to read, individuals with a reading
disability must be provided highly structured programs that directly
teach application of phonologic rules to print (Foorman et al., in press).
The most powerful
interventions that have been identified for reading disabilities to
date consist of a combination of explicit instruction in phonemic awareness,
explicit instruction in sound-symbol relationships (phonics), and direct
and integrated instruction in text reading and comprehension.
The Stages of
Teaching Phonemic Awareness
There are several
stages of teaching Phonemic Awareness. Many of the curricular materials
based on the Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching reading employ these
stages:
1. Recognizing
and Supplying Rhymes
• Does cut rhyme with gut?
• Does dog rhyme with mad?
• Say a word that rhymes with strong. (long, gong, song,
wrong)
2. Phoneme Identity
• What word begins with the same first sound as cat? Dog or kite? As flat? Fig or bat?
• What word ends with the same sound as man? Tin or mat?
3. Phoneme Isolation
• What's the first sound in fan? /f/
• What's the last sound in which? /ch/
• What's the middle sound in his? /i/
4. Phoneme Segmentation
and Counting
• Say the speech sounds (phonemes) you hear in fan. /f/
/a/ /n/
• How many speech sounds (phonemes) are there in fan? (3)
5. Phoneme Blending
Blend these sounds together to make a word: /sh/ /u/ /t/ (shut)
6. Phoneme Deletion
Say:
Fan without the /f/ (an)
Slit withoug the /l/ (sit)
String without the /st/ (ring)
Pitch without the /p/ (itch)
7. Phoneme Substitution
• Say fan. Now change the first sound in fan to /m/. (man)
• Other initial phoneme substitution tasks can begin with
Mop /t/
cake /m/
pet /g/
deal/s/
hope /r/
8. Advancement:
initial phoneme(s) to final phoneme(s) to medial phoneme(s)
Say fan. Now change the last sound to /t/. (fat)
Say fan. Now change the middle sound to /i/. (fin)
