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October 6-8, 2003

Do You Hear What I Hear? Phonological Awareness in Young Children

Michael Marks
Education Specialist, University Primary School, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contents

• Terminology
• Print Resources
• Support Aids
• Web Resources
• ERIC Database: Selected Records

Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of a child's ability to read easily and fluently. Educators are placing increasing emphasis on this skill development during the early childhood years. Studies show that around 30% of children have some degree of difficulty with phonemic awareness and need assistance understanding and applying phonemic awareness skills. Poor readers consistently show poor phonemic awareness skills.

While related to phonics, phonemic awareness can be thought of as a necessary precursor to phonics. Phonemic awareness is the ability to break spoken language into its basic sounds or phonemes and the ability to play or manipulate them. Phonics emphasizes the relationship of sounds to their written letter(s). Phonemic awareness deals with the spoken sound.

Phonemic awareness includes the following skills:

• Rhyming
• Identifying beginning, ending, and middle sounds in words
• Phonemic segmentation - Breaking a word or syllable into phonemes, counting the number of phonemes in a word or syllable
• Phoneme manipulation - Changing beginning, ending, or middle sounds of words.

Terminology

Read a Glossary of Terms related to phonological awareness
http://illinoisearlylearning.org/chat/marks/glossary.htm

Print Resources

There are many resources available on phonemic awareness. I wanted to highlight just a few that I felt have the most potential impact.

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum.
Marilyn Jager Adams, Barbara R. Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, Terri Beeler.
Paul A. Brookes Publishing Company, 1998.

This is one of the best all-around resources I have found. It has clear explanations of phonemic awareness as well as great activities. It is appropriate for teachers and parents. I highly recommend it. For more information and to view sample pages, check this title at http://www.amazon.com.

Phonemic Awareness: An Important Early Step in Learning to Read. Roger Sensenbaugh. ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication Digest #119.

This is a good summary and list of professional references on phonemic awareness.

Support Aids

If you would like more support for a child who is having difficulty with phonemic awareness, you may wish to explore these professional resources:

Lexia Phonics Based Reading. Computer software by Lexia Learning Systems, Inc. PO Box 466, Lincoln, MA 01773.
http://www.lexialearning.com.

This program was originally developed for students with dyslexia and is based on the Orton Gillingham system. It helps children practice and apply phonemic awareness and phonics skills for children ages 5-8. It is available in both a family and a school version.

Lindamood Phonemic Sequencing Program (LiPS).
http://www.agsnet.com/Group.asp?nMarketInfoID= 42&nCategoryInfoID=2659&nGroupInfoID=a11420 Editor's note: This url has changed: http://ags.pearsonassessments.com/group.asp?nGroupInfoID=a11420

This is an intensive speech-language program for children with weak phonological processing skills. It helps children become aware of the mouth actions that produce speech sounds.

Phonics You Can Feel kit. Marilyn Kay, Med, and Andrea Colwell, MA, CCC-SLP. The Reading Group, #6 Lincoln Square, Urbana, IL 61801. www.readinggroup.org

This is a collection of phonics objects that teachers or parents can use with young children to help them represent and manipulate basic phonemes. Concrete, multisensory experiences can be a great help for children struggling with this concept. The kit includes an instruction booklet and training video.

Web Resources

• Phonemic Awareness: An Important Early Step in Learning to Read. ERIC Digest.
  This Digest discusses the concept of "phonemic/phonological awareness"--the awareness that spoken language is made up of discrete sounds. The Digest also discusses why this concept is so important to early childhood educators.
  http://reading.indiana.edu/ieo/digests/d119.html
• Phonemic Awareness Instruction
  This full-text article includes definitions of terms used in reading instruction, including phonological awareness and phonemic awareness.
  http://wilearns.state.wi.us/apps/default.asp?cid=625
• How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities for Collaborative Classrooms
  This article presents a set of developmental phoneme awareness training activities that the special educator can integrate collaboratively into existing kindergarten reading programs.
  http://www.ldonline.org/article/388
• Phonics and Phonemic Awareness for Young Learners
  This Web site suggests some activities and resources designed to make both the teaching and learning of phonics more fun for teachers and students.
  http://www.esl4kids.net/phonics.html
• Phonemic Awareness Activities
  This site contains a variety of learning activities from TEAMS, a service of the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE).
  http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/patti/k-1/activities/phonemic.html
• Phonemic/Phonological Awareness
  This review of phonemic awareness is linked with instructional guidelines.
  http://www.literatureforliterature.ecsd.net/phonemic_awareness.htm
• Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness
  This site notes that the objective of any phonemic awareness activity should be to facilitate children's ability to perceive that their speech is made up of a series of sounds. The suggested activities focus on sounds in speech and fit into a meaning-based framework.
  http://www.literatureforliterature.ecsd.net/strategies.htm

ERIC Database: Selected Records

• To search the ERIC database for resources on this topic, use this search strategy: descriptor "toddlers." Combine with descriptors "emotional development" or "social development." Also, use "temper tantrums" as an identifier.

How to Obtain ERIC Documents and Journal Articles:

References identified with an ED (ERIC document)or EJ (ERIC journal) are cited in the ERIC database. ERIC Documents (citations identified by an ED number) may be available in full text from ERIC at no cost at the ERIC Web site: http://www.eric.ed.gov. Journal articles are available from the original journal, interlibrary loan services, or article reproduction clearinghouses.

If you would like to conduct your own free ERIC database searches via the Internet, go directly to http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=advanced

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• ERIC Journal No.: EJ658877
  A Comparison of Two Phonological Awareness Techniques between Samples of Preschool Children
  Author(s): Maslanka, Phyllis; Joseph, Laurice M.
  Source: Reading Psychology, v23 n4 p271-88 Oct-Dec 2002
  Publication Date: 2002
  Abstract: This article examines the differential effects of sound boxes and sound sort phonological awareness instructional techniques on preschoolers' phonological awareness performance.
• ERIC Journal No.: EJ655244
  Parent-Child Pre-School Activities Can Affect the Development of Literacy Skills
  Author(s): Wood, Clare
  Source: Journal of Research in Reading, v25 n3 p241-58 2002
  Publication Date: 2002
  Abstract: This article considers the nature of joint (parent-child) preschool activities in the home and their potential to contribute to the development of early reading skills. It finds that children who engaged in a variety of preschool, parent-child activities showed the best achievement in reading one year later.
• ERIC Journal No.: EJ653717
  Using Storybooks with Preschool Children: Enhancing Language and Emergent Literacy
  Author(s): McCathren, Rebecca B.; Allor, Jill Howard
  Source: Young Exceptional Children, v5 n4 p3-10 Sum 2002
  Publication Date: 2002
  Abstract: This article provides an overview of the critical elements of emergent literacy, discusses specific strategies for using storybooks with preschoolers to facilitate language development and emergent literacy skills, and provides specific strategies for children learning English as a second language.
• ERIC Journal No.: EJ626919
  Promoting Early Literacy through Rhyme Detection Activities during Head Start Circle-Time
  Author(s): Majsterek, David J.; Shorr, David N.; Erion, Virginia L.
  Source: Child Study Journal, v30 n3 p143-51 2000
  Publication Date: 2000
  Abstract: This article discusses the effect of developmentally appropriate literacy interventions integrated into circle time in a Head Start setting on the detection of rhyme by 4- to 5-year-olds.
• ERIC Document No.: ED452485
  Road to the Code: A Phonological Awareness Program for Young Children
  Author(s): Blachman, Benita A.; Ball, Eileen Wynne; Black, Rochella; Tangel, Darlene M.
  Publication Date: 2000
  Availability: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., P.O. Box 10624, Baltimore, MD 21285-0624
  Abstract: In order to help kindergartners and first-graders who need extra work on their literacy skills, this book offers a plan for teaching phonemic awareness and letter sound correspondence.
• ERIC Journal No.: EJ596532
  Writing Development: A Neglected Variable in the Consideration of Phonological Awareness
  Author(s): Vernon, Sofia A.; Ferreiro, Emilia
  Source: Harvard Educational Review, v69 n4 p395-415 Win 1999
  Publication Date: 1999
  Abstract: Children's ability to benefit from phonics depends on their writing level. Encouraging writing in kindergarten and first grade can stimulate analysis of spoken words and smaller units.
• ERIC Journal No.: EJ636923
  Rhyme and Alliteration Sensitivity and Relevant Experiences among Preschoolers from Diverse Backgrounds
  Author(s): Fernandez-Fein, Sylvia; Baker, Linda
  Source: Journal of Literacy Research, v29 n3 p433-59 Sep 1997
  Publication Date: 1997
  Abstract: This article examines the phonological awareness and home experiences of 59 prekindergartners from different sociocultural groups.
• ERIC Journal No.: EJ520964
  The Effects of Early Phonological Awareness Training on Reading Success
  Author(s): Kozminsky, Lea; Kozminsky, Ely
  Source: Learning and Instruction, v5 n3 p187-201 1995
  Publication Date: 1995
  Abstract: A significant difference in phonological awareness (PA) skills was found between 35 students measured in grades 1 and 3 who had received PA training in kindergarten and 35 who had not.
• ERIC Journal No.: EJ511093
  The Development and Cross-Language Transfer of Phonological Awareness
  Author(s): Cisero, Cheryl A.; Royer, James M.
  Source: Contemporary Educational Psychology, v20 n3 p275-303 Jul 1995
  Publication Date: 1995
  Abstract: Whether phonological awareness skills develop in a specific pattern and whether they transfer to another language were studied in two experiments with 126 English- and Spanish-speaking kindergartners and first-graders.
• ERIC Document No.: ED373314
  Unpacking Phonological Awareness: Comparing Treatment Outcomes for Low-Skilled Kindergarten Children
  Author(s): O'Connor, Rollanda E.
  Publication Date: April 07, 1994
  Abstract: A study explored the construct of phonological awareness by examining the effects of different instructional treatments on the development of generalized phonological skills, reading, and spelling.

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