Let Us Start with the Terms
Despite the differences in interpretation, phonological awareness traditionally refers to humans’ fundamental ability to understand the sound structures of speech and manipulate them to create rhymes, alliterations, use syllables in words, and explore the language.
Simultaneously, phonemic awareness is a more advanced understanding of language, the next level of phonological awareness, when a person can identify and manage the smallest units of speech, the phoneme.
A More Detailed Understanding
Phonological awareness arises when a student is able to hear and control sounds. Here are some examples of what is meant by such control:
- in the word Apple we clearly hear /ap/ and /ple/;
- we can combine /d/, /o/, and /g/ to get the word dog, and vice versa;
- we can add sounds to change the number of objects: dog + /s/ = dogs.
- On the contrary, phonemic awareness occurs when a student hears the smallest parts of words. Here are a few examples:
- in the word shack we hear /sh/, /a/, and /ck/;
- in the word cat: /c/, /a/, and /t/.
Connection with Literacy Development
Both types of awareness are essential predictors of literacy development in early childhood. In other words, how well a child will read in the future depends on how successfully a child learns sound skills before. Linkage, when letters are soundly interpreted, is crucial: phonological awareness helps to understand the alphabetical principle so that later this knowledge can be used for faster and more careful reading, and phonetic one allows to understand that words consist of sequences of sounds, phonemes. On the other hand, a deep understanding of sounds is a key skill for developing language abilities, in which the child clearly understands the structure of the word, using rhymes and syllables. Thanks to this knowledge, the preschooler makes fewer spelling mistakes since they have an idea of how sound and letters are connected, which means they can write the whole word without making mistakes.
Early Reading and Literacy
There is no doubt that early reading has a positive impact on the harmonious development of the child. There are at least three factors that make it possible to justify this connection. Here they are:
- early childhood reading prepares children for school reading, which means they have more advantages compared to inexperienced classmates;
- reading and rhyming form a deep understanding of semantics and develop a child’s literacy, which creates the ground for further learning;
- if a child gets acquainted with phonetics and tries to read short stories, in the future, it becomes easier for them to learn the language, and reading complex books is mastered more quickly.
As noted, phonetic and phonological awareness plays not the least role in the formation of literacy and reading skills. Although children at an early age may face significant difficulties with the sound interpretation of language, it was shown that proper instruction could improve reading skills.
Early reading is at the core of timely or even advanced literacy development. This is confirmed by the fact that if children start trying to write before they have mastered cursory reading, it is mostly phonetic writing. However, special attention should be paid to discussing how conscious a child’s reading is. If it is viewing letters without thoughtful analysis of what is written, then such training also makes sense: by connecting the visual memory, the child forms literacy.
Activity Examples
- Reading — in small groups, practice reading together, reading by role, or by sentence. For children with disabilities, it is advisable to have a private session with a tutor or let classmates help the child.
- Listening — while children are busy with everyday activities, include audiobook stories in the background. Children with disabilities (CwD) can be offered an individual headphone.
- Acquaintance with printed letters — offer children a book with lots of pictures so that the child can form an association between words, pictures, and sounds. For CwD, the help of an assistant is recommended.
- Speaking — it is enough to get together and discuss how the day has passed, what is the weather on the street or children’s hobby: it is essential to allow each child to talk. For CwD, it is possible to change the approach, for instance let them draw or write words.
- Letter naming — offer children a joint game: give them phoneme cards and ask what letter this symbol can represent. CwD requires some help from an assistant.
- Vocabulary — in a group of 5-10 people, the tutor offers 44 phoneme cards to children. The task of the children is to form a word from the phonemes and determine their meaning, and these may be words that do not exist. CwD may require assistance in manipulating the cards.
- Phonological awareness — start playing rhymes with children, namely, let one of the pupils call the word, and the next one rhymes with it. For example, “cat-fat-bat-hat.” CwD will not have difficulties with this activity, but it may take time.
References
Berrill, D. (2018). Learning to read: The importance of both phonological and morphological approaches. Web.
International Literacy Association. (2019). Phonological awareness in early childhood literacy development[PDF document]. Web.
Moran, R. & Billen, M. (2014). The reading and writing connection: Merging two reciprocal content areas. Georgia Educational Researcher, 11(1), 188-208.
Morris, D. (2015). Preventing early reading failure. The Reading Teacher, 68(7), 502-509.
Moustafa, M. (2014). Improving the common core’s foundational skills in reading, K-2. The California Reader, 48(1), 11-19.
Phonological and phonemic awareness: Introduction. (2016). Web.
Phonological awareness. (2020). Web.