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[A214]Activities For Phonological Awareness

by Simone Mary, Sim

Phonological awareness shows beginning readers how to divide language orally into smaller units. This ability is developed through an understanding of rhyme, sentence and syllable segmentation as well as onset and rimes. Phonological awareness is the first skill which students need to learn even before phonemic awareness is developed. Phonological awareness should be taught in kindergarten. Like phonemic awareness, phonological awareness consists of listening activities. Phonological awareness should follow a Continuum. Rhymes should be taught first so that students learn how to match the ending sounds of words. Rhyming is usually one of the most fun phonological awareness skills to teach. That is because rhymes contain rhythm so they have a musical sound, that children love. Most children master the identification of rhymes very quickly. Sentence Segmentation should be taught next, again this activity is fun for most children and they tend to catch on quickly. Thirdly, syllables are taught, children are asked to listen and then separate words into parts and then put them back together. Finally onsets and rimes are introduced. These skills are taught in a particular order so that confusion is minimized, once these skills are taught children are ready to be introduced to phonemic awareness skills. Below I will break down the phonological awareness continuum into greater detail and give a few examples.

Rhyming--Remember those nursery rhymes you learnt as a child. They were fun but you were also learning. You were learning that words could sound alike and have rhythm. The learning of rhymes is one of the core skills of phonological awareness. Besides nursery rhymes you can find poems and books with rhymes and introduce them to children. Let them listen and clap to words that rhyme. You can also call a group of words together, for example: mat, hen, fat and have children tell you which two words rhyme. Listening is the key ingredient in phonological awareness by listening and responding children are learning how to divide the language into small units.

Sentence Segmentation--This is where children learn that a sentence is made up of different words.

For example: "I have a big red book."

Students should be aware that the sentence is made up of six different words: I/have/a/big/red/book/

You can have students clap, count or even march to the number of words in the sentence as they say it.

Syllabication--Here children are taught that one word can have several parts. For example: din/ner rab/bit. Allow children to listen as you call a word and then repeat the word and clap out the different parts of a word.

Onsets and Rimes--The onset of a word is the initial consonant sound of the word, for example: 'bag' in this case 'b' is the onset. The rime is the part with the vowel /ag/. An initial consonant blend may also be termed an onset. For example, in the word 'black' /bl/ would be the onset and /ack/ the rime. You should have children blend and then separate onsets and rimes. Here's an example: /c/ /ap/( said separately) cap(said together).

Phonological awareness is the ability to discern sound units smaller than a single syllable. It is imperative that children learn these small sound units at an early age and it is not an easy task. First, the letters of the alphabet must be learned, but the sounds of the letters must be taught next. Teach children as early as age 3 and 4 each individual sound that each individual letter makes. This process is the base children must have to be able to learn the next sequence of sounds. Resources such as picture books that show the letter and an accompanying picture work well.

Vowels (short first, then long) must be taught next. By making a game out of this learning process, the child's interest is not lost. Parents and teachers alike can be very creative. Now is the time to use that creativity to make learning and child development fun for the child. Most of the short vowels are fairly easy for children to learn with the exception of the short /e/ sound. I have found in my years of teaching that many children have problems discerning between the short /e/ and the short /i/ sound. They do sound a lot alike. One way I make the difference clear is to use the edge of a desk or table. I run my palm along the edge of the table and say /eh/ for edge, which is the short /e/ sound. Then, each time a child comes across a word that has the short /e/ sound, I remind them with my hand on the desk, but do not say anything. They quickly learn to discern the difference. Use models as often as possible to aid in learning and teaching.

Teaching blends as in two-letter and three-letter blends must be taught after the vowels (short and long) are mastered, but that's another paper.A child's level of phonemic awareness on entering school is widely held to be the strongest single determinant of the success that he or she will experience in learning to read, or conversely, the likelihood that he or she will fail )Adams 1990). Parents who home school their children and teachers in the business of educating our students should be aware of this research and seek counsel from Reading Specialists to assure our children do not fail to learn to read.

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Both Simone Mary & Brenda Geier are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Simone Mary has sinced written about articles on various topics from Education, Writing and Education. Simone Mary is a teacher, writer and artist. She is the author of the eBook TEACHING READING AND WRITING, for more reading strategies and for a free copy of the eBook GET ON THE HONOR ROLL-TEST AND EXAM TAKING TIPS THAT WORK visit. Simone Mary's top article generates over 4400 views. Bookmark Simone Mary to your Favourites.

Brenda Geier has sinced written about articles on various topics from Education, Mergers and Education. Your child's development is important and here at child font, each lesson builds on skills from the previous lesson; home schooling has never looked brighter:Child Font - the art of reading and writing.. Brenda Geier's top article generates over 880 views. Bookmark Brenda Geier to your Favourites.