Phonemic Awareness In English Language

Phonemic awareness is the notion that spoken words can be broken down into smaller sound units, known as phonemes. It is likely that, children who are read to from an early age, in particular texts that rhyme, often acquire the foundation of phonemic awareness. Along with this, it is also likely, that children who are not read to, will need to be taught the concept of phonemes and breaking down words into smaller sounds once they reach school. According to Berg and Stegelman, (2003, as cited by Hamilton, 2007) children must first become aware of the sound structure of language to make the transition from oral language to literacy. Likewise, Chard and Dickson (1999, as cited by Hamilton) established the idea that phonemic awareness can establish

It is through rhyme generation that students become involved with the ‘isolating, blending and manipulation’ (Antonacci & O'Callaghan, 2012, p.6) of sounds on numerous levels. Furthermore, Fellows, Janet and Oakley (2014), explain that rhyme generation can be a challenging activity for some children whose vocabulary is limited, and those who do not speak English as a first language. To overcome this, Fellows et al., (2014) encourage teachers to ask students to create ‘nonsense’ words instead of actual words that rhyme. For example, if a child was asked to rhyme with ‘play’, they could make up words such as ‘tay’ or ‘fay’. Frequent assessment and ongoing observations should be continual when teaching phonemic awareness, this is so children who gain competency are not required to partake in activities that won’t necessarily benefit them. Additionally, Foorman and Torgensen (2001, as cited by Hamilton, 2007), claim that phonological awareness coaching is successful when delivered to small groups of students (no more than five), as well as the inclusion of alphabetic letters and less phoneme

While there are a wide mix of methods to teaching phonics, teachers generally practice instruction with a balanced, assorted program that involves reading skill instruction and engagement in literacy rich experiences (Hill, 2012). It is commonly agreed upon in the field of reading, that a child’s capacity to segment and blend sounds that create words is paramount in becoming a skilled reader (National Reading Panel, 2000, as cited by Daly, Chafouleas, Persampieri, Bongiglio & LaFleur, 2004). To ‘blend’ is to pull individual sounds and syllables together within a word, for example “ca” in “cat”, whereas ‘segment’ is where words are broken down into individual sounds and syllables, for example, “kitch|en”= 2 syllables/ sounds. Both practices demand that each individual phoneme is recognised by the student, in this instance, clapping is a useful tool to count how many syllables there are in a word. …Studies have shown that pictures of objects can also assist in developing blending and segmenting skills (reference). Students could be provided a picture, eg. a dog and asked to sound out each of the individual sounds in the word. For example, /d/…/o/…/g/ is comprised of three sounds. Phonics International (2011), also encourage the emphasis of letter sounds when initially teaching