Phonological Awareness

WHAT IS IT?

Phonological awareness is a broad topic that addresses a student’s ability to manipulate larger parts of spoken language. These parts include, words, syllables, and onset and rimes. Phonological awareness also addresses the following aspects of sound: rhyming, alliteration, and intonation. Phonological awareness also contains a more focused subcategory called phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness regards a student’s ability to notice, think about and manipulate individual sounds in words (Armbruster, Lehr & Osborn, 2006).

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness is important because they are excellent predictors of children’s success in learning to read. In order to read print, students first need to understand how sounds work within a word. This process begins with providing instruction in phonological awareness, then continues with more focused instruction in phonemic awareness (Armbruster, Lehr & Osborn, 2006).

HOW WILL I ASSESS IT?

I will assess phonological awareness using the Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST). This test will assess the following skills:

• concept of spoken words
• rhyme recognition & production
• syllable blending
• syllable segmentation
• syllable deletion
• phoneme isolation
• phoneme blending & segmentation
• phoneme deletion of initial & final sounds & initial blends
• phoneme substitution

HOW WILL I TEACH IT?

Objective: Students will be able to manipulate phonemes by adding phonemes to words in order to make new words.

Materials Needed: uni-fix cubes, word list (flag, flags, flat, flats, plant, plants)

Activity: Have the word list ready. Tell students you are going to say a word, and they are going to segment and blend the word using uni-fix cubes. Each uni-fix cube will be used to represent one sound. Tell students that once they have segmented and blended the word, you will tell them a sound to add to the end of the word. They will then segment and blend the new word using their uni-fix cubes. Model: Sound out “flag” using your uni-fix cubes. Place one finger under each uni-fix cube as you say the sound: /f/-/l/-/a/-/g/. Place your finger at the start of the word and sweep right, blending the sounds, “fffflllllaaaagggg.” Next, tell students you are going to add /s/ to the end of the word to make a new word. Add another uni-fix cube to the end. Place one finger under each uni-fix cube as you say the sound: /f/-/l/-/a/-/g/-/s/. Place your finger at the start of the word and sweep right, blending the sounds, “fffflllllaaaaggggssss.” Tell students that you are going to give them more words to practice with. Monitor. Continue this process until students have practiced all the words.

DIFFERENTIATION

There are often language differences among the students that I teach even if English is their first language. Those who speak in the Navajo Influenced English (NIE) dialect, may have trouble with forming plurals as they often overgeneralize, adding -s or -es endings when they aren’t needed, or leaving them off when they are needed. This may result in students having trouble hearing and processing the -s endings on words.

If this is the case, I would likely spend more time working on articulation with those students. One strategy I would use is to guide students through the process of formulating sounds in their mouths and give students mirrors to watch their mouths as they form and say words with plural endings. For example, changing from the word “plant” to “plants,” I would emphasize how /t/ is formed by placing your tongue behind your teeth and stopping the flow of air. The /s/ is formed with the tongue just behind the teeth, but the air stream must be continuous.

STANDARDS

Arizona English Language Arts Standards, Grade 1

1.RF.2

Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes). a. Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single‐syllable words. b. Orally produce single‐syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends. c. Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words. d. Segment spoken one-syllable words of three to five phonemes into individual phonemes (e.g., /s/p/l/a/t/).                   e. Orally generate a series of rhyming words using a variety of phonograms (e.g., -ed, -ake, -ant, ain) and consonant blends (e.g., /bl/, /st/, /tr/). f. Manipulate phonemes (add, substitute, and delete individual phonemes) in words to make new words.