Building Understandings
Readers make a huge shift when they understand that individual sounds correspond to written letters. This one-to-one correspondence is known as the alphabetic principle and serves as the foundation to developing phonics knowledge. But before young readers can begin matching sounds to letters, they have to be able to 'hear' or identify the individual sounds in language. This skill is called phonemic awareness.
Yet before, children can distinguish individual sounds, they work through easier levels of phonological awareness as they play with larger units of sound (like rhyming words). Phonological awareness is an instrumental part of emergent literacy development. However, since our course doesn't really focus on PK-K instruction, we will only discuss the very last (and most challenging) stage of phonemic awareness.
Understanding phonemic awareness as it relates to reading development is helpful even if you aren't working with kiddos at that level for two important reasons.
The following slideshow helps to build basic understandings about phonemic awareness and the emergence of the alphabetic principle.
Yet before, children can distinguish individual sounds, they work through easier levels of phonological awareness as they play with larger units of sound (like rhyming words). Phonological awareness is an instrumental part of emergent literacy development. However, since our course doesn't really focus on PK-K instruction, we will only discuss the very last (and most challenging) stage of phonemic awareness.
Understanding phonemic awareness as it relates to reading development is helpful even if you aren't working with kiddos at that level for two important reasons.
- Since phonics instruction (which you will be doing) builds on foundations of phonemic awareness, it's probably a good idea to have a basic understanding of the concept.
- Since we know that our students will be working at different stages and rates in terms of reading development, you may still have students who could benefit from some explicit phonemic instruction (likely at the most difficult level).
The following slideshow helps to build basic understandings about phonemic awareness and the emergence of the alphabetic principle.
teaching phonological awareness
The secret word
teaching phonemic awareness
Example of rhyming & Blending |
example of Sorting pictures by sound |
Example of sound boxes |
Example of blending sounds in words |
Check out these additional resources to learn more about teaching phonemic awareness
to foster development of the alphabetic principle.
to foster development of the alphabetic principle.
Teaching children "O is for Orange" is not a good idea.
Check out this quick and easy but SUPER helpful article from Nell Duke and Heidi Mesmer, Phonics Faux Pas. The writers highlight common misconceptions that can undermine reading instruction including:
|