Phonemic Awareness: Its Importance To
Reading, Writing, and Spelling
by Juan Rosas
As a teacher one comes to realize the importance of phonemic
awareness for a student in the elementary setting. I have taught for a couple of
years fourth and fifth grade and have come to realize that some of the students
have not grasped the phonemic awareness they should have acquired in the earlier
years of their education (kindergarten to third grade).
First of all, phonemic awareness is “the ability to hear
the individual sounds that make up words; and understanding that speech is
composed of individual sounds” (Batzie p.47). The author also mentions that
these sounds are important for learning to read an alphabetic language because
it is these “elementary sounds” that letters represent. She also mentions
that without these sounds phonics can make no sense, and the spelling of words
can be learned only by rote.
Another researcher, Stanovich, says that phonemic awareness
is “more highly related to learning to read than is general intelligence,
reading readiness, or listening comprehension (p. 57). He says that it is the
most important core and causal factor separating normal and disabled readers.
I have come to agree with the researcher, Au, which he says
he realizes that the lack of phonemic awareness can be one of the most powerful
“determinant of the likelihood of failure to learn to read because of its
importance in learning the English alphabetic system or in learning how to print
represents spoken words” (p. 57). I agree because without a person knowing
that spoken words and syllables are made up of sounds, then a person will have a
difficult time decoding and being able to read words, which in turn will
handicap him from reading text. Also, if the child cannot hear and be able to
manipulate sounds in spoken words, then he may have a difficult time learning
how to decode letter sounds into words. Therefore, I believe that phonemic
awareness is equally important as learning to spell, because if the child cannot
spell, the child cannot decipher sounds into written language.
Au mentions that phonemic awareness is the single best
predictor of reading success between kindergarten and second grades. He also
mentions that if we encourage children to make inventive spelling, which is to
spell words as they sound, it will help them develop phonemic awareness as well
as increase knowledge of spelling patterns. I agree with what he says about
inventive spelling. I remember doing inventive spelling when I was in elementary
school. Being an immigrant student since kindergarten, I remember the teacher
showing us phonic cards with letters of the alphabet. The objective was for us
to say the different sounds the letters made. A couple of years ago I realized
that those exercises did help me become what I call a “fluent phonetic
decoder.” I have come to realize that I can decode and pronounce words I have
never seen before. I may not know how the meaning of the word, but I feel
comfortable enough to pronounce it without a problem. Being able to separate
individual sounds and following certain phonic rules has helped me become more
aware of the composition of sounds to words.
What I will do now do is show how Hallie Yopp has designed
and developed a way to help a child Develop Phonemic Awareness. She calls
it “Language playfulness “Word”ness (isolating, and counting words)
syllables (counting, blending, etc) and onset + rime (blending, and segmenting).
First of all Rhyming: she mentions of how students can
practice rhyming by the use of different rhyming activities. One of these
activities she mentions is the use of cards with different rhyming pictures on
the cards. The object of this activity is to have the student listen to a card
the teacher says and have the student or students match, by way of rhyming,
their cards to the teacher’s card. Another activity students can do is play
rhyming or concentration with rhyming pairs. Another activity Yopp mentions is
songs. She says to teach students songs, and emphasize the rhyming words. She
says that she would then have students identify the words.
Yopp also mentions another activity one can do with students
to help them become more phonemic aware. She describes what she calls Phonemic
Segmentation. Yopp describes phonemic segmentation as the way to break down
a word for easier reading by the student. She says to first start by clapping
out the number of words in a sentence. For example, in the sentence, “The boy
ran,” one would clap three times, one for each word. The next step Yopp does
is to “segment words by clapping the ‘chunks’.” This means the
following, at a first level: the child would clap compound words. For example,
“rain bow” (two claps). At the second level the child will work with two
syllable words and clap to them also. For example, “Bri an.” And at the
third level, the child will use clap to multi-syllable words, for example, “di
no saur.”
Yopp mentions that after the student has had knowledge of
these prior mentioned steps, the child is “ready to segment sounds in words.”
The child at this point will use blocks or beans; have the student remove a
block or bean for each of the syllables the teacher says of each word. This will
help the child develop his skills to syllabication of words. The child soon
after will understand how to break a word into syllables and then the final step
is for the student to “segment the sounds of words without using a
manipulative. As we know, every person learns a different way. One of the ways
Yopp mentions is with the use of manipulatives. Students need something solid to
either see or listen to. Straight textbook knowledge sometimes does not suffice
the learning of the child.
Phonemic Isolation is also very important in the
reading, writing, and spelling process of the child. According to Yopp, Phonemic
isolation helps the child answer the following questions: What is the first
sound you hear in a word, what is the last sound you hear in a word, and what
sound do you hear in the middle of the word? Yopp mentions that when reading a
story to students, the teacher should exaggerate a certain sound in order for
students to become more comfortable with hearing the initial sounds.
With phonemic isolation there comes Phonemic Deletion.
Phonemic deletion is deleting certain words from compound words or certain
letters from words and having the students recognize other words within a word.
For example, if we delete the word “snow” from “snowman” we will have
the word “man”. Also, if we were to delete the letter “s” from “slap”
we now have the word “lap”. Phoneme deletion helps the child in reading,
writing and spelling by the breaking-down of words or having the child delete
sounds from words and helping them how to spell.
Vellutino mentions how to systematically teach phonemic
awareness. He says that one way to teach phonemic awareness is by Direct
teaching of individuals or clusters of letters/letter patterns/sound
correspondences (p. 68). He says one should Demonstrate for example, say
“Don‘t stop between the sounds. Listen to me sound out the word without
stopping.” Something else Vellutino mentions is Practice. He says the
teacher should say, “Sound it out. Get ready!” He says that practicing
should be an ongoing process. Students should practice until they master these
techniques.
Independent Practice is relatively the most important
technique Vellutino mentions. He says the teacher should “test by having the
student sound it out him or herself” (69). The teacher should reinforce
correct presentation and praise the student when following what he or she is
suppose to do. The final step Vellutino mentions is Repeat. He says the
student should repeat the first word on the list of four to five and keep
repeating until the student can sound them all correctly. Now Vellutino never
mentions the fact that there could be students from certain countries where they
cannot pronounce certain letters of the alphabet because they are rarely used. I
believe he should consider the fact that not all students will be able to
pronounce all words correctly, but this process will take a longer time than
what might be expected.
He also mentions Word Work. Word work is having the
students play with words, by omitting certain parts or letters from words such
as Yopp’s example of Phonemic Deletion. He also says students should
organize word groups by sounds (p. 71). Vellutino’s final process is Implicit
teaching, for example, shared reading. He says there should be “direct
attention to explicitly taught phonics elements where encountered in shared
reading materials.
He says that read alouds are very effective with written
languages. Books which help develop phonemic awareness focus on certain
features. He says that rather than just read aloud, to invite students to play
with the language in the book, filling in the rhyme at the end of the line, etc.
(p. 71).
He mentions that students in preschool should hear: separate
words, recite rhymes, recognize rhyming words, pretend to write, and be exposed
to letters and their names (p. 73). Students in kindergarten should segment
compound words, blend phonemes (/k/+/a/+/t/= cat), understand basic concepts
about print, know some sight words and recognize and write their own name.
Students in first grade should move from phonemic spelling to transitional
spelling, gradually use standard conventions of writing, know decoding
strategies, automatically recognize 50+ high frequency words, realize that one
symbol can stand for multiple sounds and that a sound can be represented in
multiple ways, among many other things. Students in second and third grade
should continue to use rhyming words when writing, recognize rhyming words in
text using visual or auditory word family cues to hear and read a variety of
poems and songs, use alliteration in creating poems and rhymes, continue to
apply syllabication with two-syllabication, problem-solve unknown words in text
through syllabication, and use syllabication knowledge to assist in spelling (p.
74-75).
Phonemic Awareness is important to reading, writing, and
spelling. As a teacher when I see students far behind in their development of
phonemic awareness, I cannot just assume that they will just get this awareness
by singing songs and listening in whole group readings or discussions. I believe
that if we can keep students in small groups and help them in small group
interventions it will very much help them more than whole class instruction on
phonemic awareness.
Phonemic awareness should be explicitly taught in order for
students to become better readers, writers, and spellers.
Au, K. Balanced Literacy Instruction: a teacher’s
resource book. Norwood, MA Heinemann Press 1997.
Batzie, Janine The Bridge to Written Language.
Irvine, CA, Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc. 1998.
Stanovich, Carroll Metalinguistic Awareness and
Beginning Literacy: conceptualizing what it means to read and write. New
York, NY Oxford University Press 1991.
Vellutino, David Phonological Awareness in Reading: the
evolution of current perspectives. New York. NY Longman, Inc. 1981.
Yopp, Hallie Developing Phonemic Awareness in young children.
The Reading Teacher, Vol 45, No. 9 New York Springer-Verlag New
York Inc. May 1992.