Effective Phonemic Awareness is "the ability to notice, think about, and work with Reading the individual sound
in spoken words" (Put Reading First, 2001, p.2). These individual sounds are called phonemes.
Evidence suggests that phonemic awareness instruction draws attention to the
sounds that comprise
words enhance the beginning reader's ability to decode, comprehend, and spell.
The more general term, phonological awareness, refers to the ability to distinguish
sounds in the everyday environment. Phonological awareness involves working
with the sounds of language at the word, syllable, and phoneme level.
| PHONEMIC AWARENESS INSTRUCTION |
| WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO LEARN | HOW TO TEACH IT |
- The spoken words consist of individual sounds (phonemes).
- How words can be segmented
(pulled
apart) into sounds, and how these
sounds can be blended (put back
together) and manipulated (added,
deleted, and substituted).
- How to use their phonemic awareness
to blend sounds to read words and to
segment sounds in words to spell them.
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- Provide explicit and systematic instruction focusing on only one or two phonemic
awareness skills at a time, such as segmenting and blending.
- Link sounds to letters as soon as possible using letters as manipulatives for
segmenting and blending activities. Use screening and progress monitoring
phonemic awareness assessments to inform
instruction.
- Provide intensive interventions for students who are not
making adequate progress.
- Time: Allow 20 hours of targeted instruction throughout each year with individual
sessions of no more than 30
minutes.
- Grouping: small group instruction is preferable to individual or whole group
instruction.
- Use active teaching strategies such as modeling,
demonstration, and explanation.
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