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Reading and Phonics

Karim is an elementary school teacher and he wants to make sure that his students are good readers when they leave his class. He's heard that phonics is important to reading and that his students should have something called phonological awareness and phonemic awareness, but he's not sure exactly what those are. At the end of the day, he just wants to know how to teach his students to read.

Reading is based on phonics, or the link between written and spoken language. When you see the letter 't,' you know that it makes a /t/ sound. If it is followed by an 'i,' 'm,' and 'e,' you know that the word is 'time.' That is phonics. A good understanding of phonics is crucial to the ability to read. To help Karim figure out how to teach his students, let's look at two elements of phonics-phonological awareness and phonemic awareness-and what types of activities Karim can do in his classroom to support each.

Phonological Awareness

Karim understands that phonics involves linking spoken and written language, but he still doesn't know what phonological awareness is or how he should teach it to his students. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize that words are made up of a variety of sound units. Phonology is the study of the sound of speech, so phonological awareness is about recognizing the different sound units in speech. For example, Karim loves the word 'polysyllabic.' It just sounds so cool! When he breaks the word down into its parts, he can see that it has 5 syllables and many different sounds, like the 'p' sound at the beginning of the word. He is using his phonological awareness. Recognizing syllables, including segmenting words into syllables and chunking letters into syllables, is a big part of phonological awareness. So is the ability to match sounds to words.

So how can Karim teach his students to develop better phonological awareness? Activities like rhyming games, breaking words up into syllables, and other activities like that will help them hone their phonological awareness.

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phonemic & phonological awareness: definitions & activities - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Phonemic & Phonological Awareness: Definitions & Activities - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Karim is an elementary school teacher and he wants to make sure that his students are good readers when they leave his class. He's heard that phonics is important to reading and that his students should have something called phonological awareness and phonemic awareness, but he's not sure exactly what those are.

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he method of teaching beginning readers to connect the sounds of spoken language with letters or a group of letters and yes, part of phonics instruction involves the teaching of children to blend the sounds of letters together to form words (technically referred to as decoding skills).

Phonics instruction typically starts with letters first and children are taught the sounds that those letters "stand for" or "make".

It is NOT the same thing as phonological awareness. The terms are not interchangeable.

Phonics involves the eyes AND ears. Phonological awareness involves just the ears. You can have phonological awareness without phonics but you cannot have phonics without phonological awareness.
(Phonics versus, n.d.)

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How phonics is different from phonological development

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How phonics is different from phonological development

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Building Literacy Knowledge for Education Professionals: Overview: Reading: Word Recognition. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2016, from http://www.emstac.org/registered/topics/literacy/overview/reading.htm
Automatic Word Recognition. (n.d.). Retrieved May 05, 2016, from http://www.powershow.com/view/ab61e-M2ZiZ/Automatic_Word_Recognition_powerpoint_ppt_presentation
Phonics versus Phonological Awareness? (n.d.). Retrieved May 05, 2016, from http://www.readingresource.net/phonicsversusphonologicalawareness.html

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Word recognition refers to the ability of students to develop automaticity when reading isolated words. 'Automaticity' is the accuracy and speed with which students are able to accomplish this task. Automatic word recognition is important because:

How well students recognize known words and are able to decode or figure out unfamiliar words can affect how fluently a student reads, and fluency is a building block of comprehension.. It's important to remember that constructing meaning is the goal of any literacy experience.

Developing strong word recognition skills is also critical for students who, for whatever reason, did not develop strong phonological awareness in early childhood, as they may need to rely more heavily on their vocabulary and less on decoding skills.

In order to recognize words automatically, students needs strong skills in decoding and a developed sight word vocabulary. This section on word recognition includes general information about how to help students develop these skills.

(Building Literacy, n.d.)

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Obtaining a sight word vocabulary is important because it enables readers to read without segmenting words into sounds and letters. This automatic recognition of words permits the reader to read seemingly without effort. It's especially important to teach students how to systematically identify words if they're still having trouble decoding one syllable words by the time they complete first grade, and multi syllable words by the time they complete second grade.(Building Literacy, n.d.)

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Decoding is what students do when they analyze the graphic symbols in words to break the reading "code." It's often referred to as "sounding it out," which is misleading because decoding involves the use of structural analysis, not just the phonetic knowledge required to "sound it out."
Decoding helps students develop strong sight word vocabularies needed for more advanced and efficient reading
(Building Literacy, n.d.)

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Decoding, Sight Words, and Automatic Word Recognition

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Decoding, Sight Words, and Automatic Word Recognition

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Phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics

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Phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics

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Phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics

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The ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken words, the understanding that spoken words consist of a sequence of speech sounds, ad an awareness of individual sounds or phonemes.

Phonemic awareness plays a critical role in the development of skills such as phonics and spelling.

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The ability to hear, recognize, and play with the sounds in our language.

It's the recognition that sounds in English can be broken down into smaller parts:
- Sentences can be segmented into words.
- Words can be segmented into syllables.
- Words can be segmented into their individual sounds.
- Words can begin or end with the same sound.
- The individual sounds of words can be blended together.
- The individual sounds of words can be manipulated (added, deleted, or substituted).

*Students can do most phonological awareness activities with their eyes closed