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| Didax "Class Ideas" Newsletter Archive |
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Welcome to another issues of Class Ideas. This issue turns its attention back to Language Arts with a focus on Phonological Awareness. Our guest author, Diana Rigg, brings you an exclusive article about the latest findings in Phonological Awareness research. We also have some Internet links for you to learn more and plan activities and a special free freight offer only for subscribers. And don't forget to download the reproducible activities to use in your classroom.
I always love to hear your ideas for future issues. Perhaps you have a topic you'd like to see covered or an idea for a new feature. Just email me with your suggestions or ideas.
Thanks for reading!
Anna Mullen, Editor |
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| What's All the Hype about Phonological Awareness? |
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 by Diana Rigg
For more than a century, teaching beginning literacy has been a ?battlefield? for advocates of different approaches. The choice of one method to the exclusion of another is not necessary, as there are a multitude of mixed approaches that are possible. However, regardless of the chosen approach, all K-1 programs require a consistent phonological component.
Since the 1980s, the role of phonological and phonemic awareness in literacy acquisition has been extensively studied. Bryant and Goswami (1987) characterize the connection between phonological awareness and reading acquisition as one of the greatest successes of modern psychology. Likewise, Adams (1990) views the discovery and documentation of phonemic awareness as the single most powerful advance in the science and pedagogy of reading this century. According to Stanovich (1987), it is a scientific success story. Therefore, it is necessary that educators understand what the research in this area is communicating.
A glance at the research findings:
? A child?s preschool level of phonemic awareness is widely held to be the strongest single determinant of success that he or she will experience in learning to read?or conversely, the likelihood he or she will fail (Adams 1990; Stanovich, 1986).
? Phonemic awareness is the best single predictor of reading ability in preschool, followed by knowledge of letter names (Share et al., 1988).
? Phonemic awareness can be developed and significantly accelerates subsequent reading and writing achievement (Ball and Blackman, 1991).
? Preschool phonological skills have also been shown to correlate with later word decoding development (Muter and Snowling, 1998) which is particularly important since early decoding ability predicts reading comprehension (Curtis, 1980)?the ultimate goal of literacy instruction.
In summary, the research strongly highlights a predictive correlation between phonological awareness and reading/writing skills. In general, the research suggests that children who possess phonological awareness generally become better readers and better spellers, and that deficits in this area are strong and accurate predictors of reading and spelling disabilities. Bus and van IJendoorm (1999) review the Western European and North America predictive and intervention studies.
These persuasive findings provide clear pedagogical implications. The presence of phonological awareness is one of the causes of age-appropriate reading and spelling development, this training in this skill prior to the onset of formal literacy instruction in Grade 1 is necessary. It is particularly appropriate since, without early instructional support, phonemic awareness eludes roughly 25% of middle year Grade 1 children and substantially more from less literacy-rich backgrounds (Adams, 1990). While all children benefit from phonological awareness training, those most in need of it include:
? Children with a history of ear issues (otitis media, fluctuating hearing loss)
? Children with a history of either subtle or pervasive speech and language difficulties
? Children coming from a family in which there is an incidence of speech and language, literacy, and/or learning difficulties
Understanding the Terminology
Children ordinarily concentrate on the meaning of words and do not think of the sounds in words. Since letters represent sounds, a child must learn to think of words as possessing both meaning and sounds in order to understand the alphabetic principle (Stahl and Murray, 1994).
So what is phonological awareness? It is the general ability to attend to the sound properties (or phonology) of a language, rather than attend to its meaning.
How does phonological awareness differ from phonemic awareness? Often in the research, these terms are used interchangeably. However, phonological awareness incorporates all the levels of the ?phonological awareness ladder? and phonemic awareness is the insight that every spoken word is comprised of a sequence of phonemes; e.g. the word ?rain? is made up of three phonemes r + ai + n.
Phonemic awareness is the more challenging part of phonological awareness and is also the more crucial proportion of the ladder for literacy acquisition. As Muno (1989) explains, a child?s ability to attend to phonemes in words provides the child with the ?hooks? on which our knowledge of letter clusters is hung.
The Hierarchy of Phonological Awareness Skills
According to Lenchner, Gerber and Routh (1990), phonological abilities are acquired over several years, starting in the preschool years. Based upon this account, the phonological awareness ladder was devised. It is ideal for children to scale the ladder prior to entry into Grade 1, so they possess the auditory skills to enable them to take full advantage of the literacy program.
Level 1 - Participation in rhymes
(nursery rhymes, songs, stories or books with rhyme, rhythm and word play)
Level 2 - Words in sentences
The child can identify the individual words in simple sentences (e.g. ?I like dogs? can be broken into I ? like ? dogs).
Level 3 - Rhyme
Child can identify that dog and log rhyme.
Level 4 - Syllabification
Child can syllabify simple words; e.g. computer ? com-pu-ter.
Level 5 - Recognition of initial sounds in simple words
Child identifies that dog begins with a ?d.?
Level 6 - Recognition of final sounds in simple words
Child identifies that dog ends in a ?g.?
Level 7 - Blending
Adult says ccc-aaa-ttt and the child blends the sounds and identifies the word ?cat.?
Level 8 - Phonemic segmentation
Child segments the word ?cat? into the following sounds: ccc-aaa-ttt.
The challenge in the current literacy climate
Watson and Badenhop (1992) explain that as top-down, whole language, literature-based approaches to reading instruction have grown in popularity, the phonological cuing system has been deemphasized. They go on to explain that in the current literacy climate, children who arrive at school with poor phonological awareness are at a great disadvantage, as it is unlikely that they will receive the early systematic explicit instruction that they require.
Currently there exists a discrepancy between what a vast quantity of current research is call for (explicit instruction in phonological awareness in the early years) and the predominant literacy approach. According to Watson and Badenhop ?we need to stop arguing about which is the best approach and concentrate on working out when each approach is most appropriate and how it should be implemented.?
Despite the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of phonological awareness training that has accumulated, it is still rarely a part of the pre-reading curriculum. |
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| Downloadable Phonics Activities |
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 This month's downloadable lessons come from Didax's popular series, Investigating Phonics. The books cover blends, digraphs and vowel sounds on a sound-by-sound basis. Give them a try in your classroom; simply download these sample pages, photocopy, and pass out to students. |
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| Phonological Awareness Internet Resources |
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 To help you find more information about Phonological Awareness and how to increase it in your classroom, I've collected these great Internet resources. You'll find in-depth articles about Phonological Awareness and specific activities you can use in your classroom. |
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| April Newsletter Theme: Number Sense |
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 Next month, Class Ideas will be packed with Number Sense resources. Look forward to an article from Dr. Paul Swan about hands-on number activities, many links to great Internet resources, and of course, downloadable activities and a subscriber-only special. |
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