Phonemic Awareness and Letter Recognition

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Discussion #1

A study was done by Cheesmen et al. and found that “a large proportion of first- year special educators and general education teachers (a) have limited understanding of what constitutes Phonemic Awareness instruction, (b) cannot reliably distinguish PA and phonics, and (c) cannot reliably identify or count phonemes in written words when the spelling is not transparent”.(Cheesmen,2009,p. 285)

Test your phonemic awareness knowledge with this test from their study and discover what you know and what you need to learn!

What is Phonemic Awareness?Phonemic awareness “refers to a child’s understanding that spoken language consists of individual phonemes and that the manipulation of these phonemes underlies speech” (Atwill, 2010,p. 107)

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound. The spoken English language has 40 phonemes.

“is the ability to blend or break up spoken words into component individual sounds” (Walsh, 2009, p. 212)

develops from the introductory skills of identifying a single sound, to identifying all of the sounds in a word and to manipulating these sounds (Walsh, 2009, p.215)

Phonemic Awareness...

Why is this important to me?“Recent reading intervention initiatives have focused on the development of precursor literacy skills in young children. Empirical studies have consistently found precursor prereading skills, such as vocabulary and phonemic awareness (PA), to be reliable predictors and mediators of early literacy development” (Atwill, 2010, p. 105)

“Empirical studies have also found that successful pre–literacy development leads to success throughout elementary and high school and is even predictive of college attendance and positive adult outcomes” (Atwill, 2010,p. 105)

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Phonemic Awareness PracticeRhyme Awareness or Production

Initial and Ending Sound Recognition

Blending Phonemes

Segmentation

Counting Sounds

Discussion #2

Break into small groups and create an intervention for a student with difficulties in a specific area of phoneme awareness.

Phonemic Awareness Practice

Rhyme Awareness or Production

Initial and Ending Sound Recognition

Blending Phonemes

Segmentation

Counting Sounds

RHYMING WORDS

ESL Students

Classrooms are diverse, with many ESL students. A study by Kim Atwill found that at least 10.5% of children in public schools are ESL learners (2010, p. 106).

Phoneme Awareness in the ESL ClassroomThe study done by Atwill found that ELL learners can have successful cross-language transfer in phonemic awareness if their skills are age appropriate in their L1. However, if their L1 skills are below average then additional support is needed.

Discussion #3

Atwill’s study found that “If educators of young, Spanish-speaking children in English- immersion classrooms expect L1 Spanish precursor skills, such as PA, to transfer to L2, and consequently support progress in L2 literacy success, at least some attention must be paid toward ensuring that foundational L1 precursor skills exist (2010, p. 120)”.

What can a teacher do in this situation? How would you handle this situation in your classroom?

International Children’s Digital LibraryThis is a free library with hundreds of stories in hundreds of languages, ranging from Afrikaans to Yiddish.

International Children’s Digest

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Developing Alphabet Knowledge

Students can identify, name and match the uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet

Teaching Alphabet Recognition

Alphabet song CD

Pointing to the letters as we sing

Alphabet strip

Feeling letters

Identifying letters-Workbooks, readers, daily life

video #1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYycuJQmc0A

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Alphabet knowledge...is a highly important factor in learning to read

can indicate the level of at-home support

can predict reading success in the future (Shanker & Cockrum, 2009, p. 23)

Students need to be able to identify not only the names of the letters of the alphabet, but also be able to match the pairs of uppercase and lowercase letters

It is important for students to know the order of the letters in the alphabet.

Students often identify the letters in their names first (Bradley, 2007,p. 453)

Z AG

A study by Bradley and Jones found that teacher read alouds of alphabet books are very beneficial. However, they found that books that deal with the alphabet specifically offer more opportunities to discuss letter names and sounds, versus books that focus on comprehension and story lines.

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Discussion #4

As a class, discuss whether you think alphabet books with a story line ( ex: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom) are more beneficial to your students, as opposed to alphabet books that focus solely on the alphabet (ex: Dr. Seuss’s ABC).

In your small groups, discuss the pros and cons of different methods of alphabet recognition, specifically the use of technology versus students creating their own materials. How will you incorporate this in your classroom?

Discussion #5

Discussion #6As a class discuss the following student and provide remediation strategies:

ESL boy, age six,native Mandarin Chinese speaker. This student speaks very little English and has not yet grasped alphabet recognition. He is at grade level in Chinese, but cannot read or speak English.

Discussion #7

Regarding the student on your index card, discover their current level of ability and create an intervention

Discussion #8Create up to two activities for phonemic awareness using the resource book in center #2 to share with the class

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Works Cited

Atwill, K. (2010). English-language learners: implications of limited vocabulary for cross-language transfer of phonemic awareness with

kindergartners. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 9(2), 104-129.

 Bradley, B. A., & Jones, J. (2007). Sharing alphabet books in early childhood classrooms. The Reading Teacher, 60(5), 452-463.

Cheesman, E. A., McGuire, J. M., Shankweiler, D., & Coyne, M. (2009). First-Year Teacher Knowledge of Phonemic Awareness and Its Instruction. Teacher Education and Special Education, 32(3), 270-289.

 IPA. (n.d.). MTI Research Centre. Retrieved July 12, 2010, from http://www.mti.dmu.ac.uk/~ahugill/manual/langphon/ipa.html

 McGuire, J. M., Shankweiler, D., & Coyne, M. (2009). First-year teacher knowledge of phonemic awareness and its instruction. Teacher Education and Special Education, 32(3), 270-289.

Phonetics Final Project Files. (n.d.). Retrieved July 12, 2010, from http://kisi.deu.edu.tr/tarkan.kacmaz/links.htm

Shanker, J. L., & Cockrum, W. A. (2009). Locating and correcting reading difficulties. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson.

Walsh, R. (2009). Word games: the importance of defining phonemic awareness for professional discourse. Australian Journal of Language and

Literacy, 32(3), 211-222.