A N N M O R R I S O N , P H . D .

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

• Is an umbrella term over the following:• Listening for sounds• Rhyming• Syllabication• Phonemic awareness – phonemic awareness refers to

a student’s ability to blend, segment, delete, add, and manipulate individual sounds within words

PHONOLOGICAL GRAIN SIZE

• Larger phonological grain sizes are longer utterances• Easier to hear and understand

• Smaller grain sizes are brief sounds • More difficult to hear and understand

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

• Phonemic awareness

• Syllabication

• Rhyming

• Attention to sound

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PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS VS. PHONICS

Phonological Awareness

• The manipulation of sounds and can be done with the eyes closed

Phonics

• Includes letters as well as sounds

MATTHEW EFFECTS OF READING

ATTENTION TO SOUND

• Separating sounds• Distinguishing between sounds• Sequencing sounds• Location of sounds• Identifying same and different sounds

ACTIVITY: LISTENING FOR SOUNDS

• Sit quietly for 15 seconds, what did you hear?• Sit quietly for another 15 seconds, what did you

hear first, second, third, etc.• Did you see the sounds being made? If not, how

did you know what made the sounds?• Did any two sounds overlap? If so, how did you

know they were two separate sounds?

RHYMING

• Word endings that sound the same• Spelling doesn’t matter• Onset-rime

SYLLABICATION

• Syllables the phonological building blocks of words• Mono-, bi-, tri-, polysyllable word

RHYMING GAME

• Teacher says a word• Student says a rhyming word• Go through all of the rhymes you can think of

until you are repeating yourself• Words don’t need to be “real” words, nonsense

words are fine

PHONEMIC AWARENESS

• Smallest units of sound

• Addition• Deletion• Substitution• Manipulation

EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION

• Give instructions: I am going to say a word and I want you to say a rhyming word• Model: For example, if I say mop, you could say

hop, top, cop, rop, fop, or another rhyming word.• Practice: Ready, let’s try one.

ERROR CORRECTION

Sometimes students will not be able to do what you ask them to do

1. Acknowledge something the student did right2. Model the correct answer3. Have them say the correct answer with you, maybe

repeat if necessary4. Have them try again5. Don’t make them guess

MATCHING INITIAL SOUNDS ACTIVITY

• Take a look at the items on your table• What are possible names for or ways to describe

the items on your table?• One person picks an item and says a word to

describe it, emphasizing the initial sound• Everyone else at the table looks for an item with

the same initial sound

INITIAL AND FINAL SOUNDS ACTIVITY

• One person picks an item and says a word to describe it, emphasizing the final sound• The next person picks an object that begins with

the final sound of the previous object and says it’s name• The third person finds an object that begins with

the final sound of the previous object, and so on.