Phonemic Awareness And Phonics

MAKING COMMUNICATION EASIER

Even before print is introduced, young children begin to recognize that words are made-up of smaller units: syllables and sounds (phonemes). This knowledge is called phonemic awareness.

Phonemic Awareness allows preschoolers to begin playing with the words they hear in order to:

• Provide rhyming words
• Break words into sounds
• Identify beginning sounds
• Substitute sounds in words
• Blend individual sounds into words

This “word play” can be seen in children’s nursery rhymes, songs, and finger plays.

By kindergarten, these same sound- and word-manipulation skills begin to be mapped to print. Learners begin to understand the Alphabetic Principle: individual letters of the alphabet represent one or more speech sounds.

As written language tasks are introduced, early readers begin to recognize the patterns, or conventions, of English spelling (phonics).

A young child’s proficiency with phonemic awareness is the single best predictor of early reading success. But, more than 20% of a school population will demonstrate deficits in phonemic awareness and phonology, use of the sound system of language.

Without direct intervention, problems can persist into adulthood.

Students with phonemic awareness and phonology deficits may:

• Add, omit, or reverse letters in reading and spelling
• Lack strategies for recognizing and spelling words
• Demonstrate errors for word units (morphemes) such as –ed, -ing, -s, -er
• Read so slowly that comprehension suffers
• Misinterpret similar-sounding words
• Avoid reading and writing tasks

Direct instruction regarding the sound system of language can offset potential problems in reading and spelling.

Students of all ages can benefit from structured phonemic awareness intervention and strategy training for decoding and spelling.

Making Sense of Sounds for Reading and Spelling ©, offered exclusively at ABILITIES, is a systematic program for training phonemic awareness, phonology and phonics strategies.

Making Sense of Sounds for Reading and Spelling © can be individualized for students preschool through adulthood.