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What is Phonemic Awareness?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Phonemic awareness<\/strong> is a subset of phonological awareness and involves identifying and manipulating the individual sounds in words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Phonological awareness<\/strong> develops in the preschool years, and is a good predictor of future reading and spelling abilities. Children need to develop their phonological awareness before they can learn to read and spell. Phonological awareness is the process of working out the sounds within spoken language, and includes picking out rhyming words, recognising alliteration and counting syllables in a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The diagram below shows the process of phonoligcal awareness:<\/p>\n\n\n Recognising that words are made up of discrete sounds, and that those sounds can be changed, is essential for success in learning to read and spell. Similarly, understanding the connection that words are made up of phonemes and that phonemes are represented by graphemes is a vital skill for understanding print. Being able to take words apart, put them together again and adapt them into a new word (or even a nonsense word!) is a fundamental skill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There would not be much benefit to teaching children new grapheme phoneme correspondences (GPCs) without some awareness of how they combine to make a word. Reading with a child would involve listening to them string out individual letters, without any meaning, and writing with a child would end up with them having to be told which letters they need to write. This would be a stressful and frustrating situation for all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is, of course, a time and a place for learning words by rote, for example ‘tricky words’ or ‘common exception words’, but the strategies for learning these would not be effective for learning to read and spell every single word. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Simple View of Reading<\/em> (Gough and Tunmer, 1986) is a useful model demonstrating how word recognition<\/strong> and comprehension<\/strong> are essential for learning to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Acquisition of these two abilities requires the development of more specific skills: <\/p>\n\n\n\n A child who struggles with one of these interrelated skills, such as phonemic awareness, is likely to have a poor reading ability.<\/p>\n\n\n There are six different types of phoneme awareness skills. The first three normally develop first with the last three taking a little longer to master:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oral blending and oral segmenting<\/strong> are the main aspects of phonemic awareness and are very important skills to develop when learning to read and spell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oral Blending <\/strong>focuses on the sounds we hear, rather than the words we see. It is when you blend phonemes together to make a word, and is a precursor for blending to read words. For oral blending you need to push the letters together to say the word, for example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oral Segmenting <\/strong>focuses on the sounds we hear, rather than the words we see. It is when you separate the phonemes from a word, remembering the order in which they occur. It is a precursor for segmenting to spell words. For this you need to stretch the word out to hear the sounds, for example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some children will develop the phonemic awareness incidentally, picking it up through phonological and other listening games and activities, while others may need it to be taught explicitly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Often children find the concept of orally blending and orally segmenting more meaningful and interesting if the activity involves a puppet, like an alien or a robot, and to communicate with it you need to use ‘sound talk’ or ‘robot talk’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Things to remember when teaching phonemic awareness are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Games and activities can be useful for supporting phonemic awareness. For these activities, start off with blending the phonemes to say the word. As the child\u2019s skills for this improve, they can have a go at segmenting the words for others to blend and to carry out the instruction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some games and activities you can try include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As children\u2019s ability to orally blend and segment improves, you should begin to model with words<\/strong>. Here are some examples of activities where the child blends and segments the words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sound buttons and phoneme frames: <\/strong>split words up into their phonemes and sound buttons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Full circle:<\/strong> change one letter at a time to make a new word each time, until you have gone full circle. For example, using the letters s,a,t,p,i and making sat, sit, sip, tip, tap, sap, sat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Washing line: <\/strong>peg out letters in the wrong order for children to rearrange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a child you are working with seems to be struggling with phonemic awareness, they may not be developmentally ready yet. If this is the case, it is worth spending some time focussing on listening<\/strong> games<\/strong>, and other phonological games and activities.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Listening games include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other phonological awareness activities include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many more examples of listening games available in Phase 1 Letters and Sounds Guidance<\/a>, as produced by the Department for Education.<\/p>\n\n\n There are a number of factors that can affect a child\u2019s phonemic awareness. Firstly, check that the child is pronouncing the phonemes correctly.<\/strong> There is a tendency for people to put an \u2018uh\u2019 sound on some phonemes, for example, \u201ccuh\u201d rather than \u201cc\u201d and \u201cduh\u201d rather than \u201cd\u201d. This leads to a struggle to blend phonemes: for example with the word cat, instead of blending \u201cc-a-t\u201d, they may attempt \u201ccuh-ahh-tuh\u201d, making \u201ccuhahhtuh\u201d, which can cause confusion as it\u2019s not a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other factors which can affect a child\u2019s phonemic awareness include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hearing difficulties<\/strong>: most children have a hearing test in their first year of school, though temporary hearing loss following a cold and glue ear are common. Hearing tests can be organised at any time by speaking to the child\u2019s GP, school nurse or health visitor. There\u2019s more information on hearing tests for children on the NHS<\/a> website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Speech and language difficulties<\/strong>: a child may have difficulty pronouncing sounds and words correctly. If this is the case they may need a Speech and Language Therapy assessment, which again can be organised through the child\u2019s GP, School Nurse or Health Visitor. There\u2019s more information on speech and language assessments on the ICAN<\/a> website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dyslexia<\/strong>: dyslexia is a learning difficulty which primarily affects accurate and fluent reading and spelling. One the characteristics of dyslexia is poor phonological awareness, and children with dyslexia will often need extra support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Autism<\/strong>: some children with autism have speech sound difficulties or auditory processing disorders. Many children with autism are visual thinkers, and find abstract concepts like oral blending and segmenting difficult to grasp. They are more likely to benefit from using concrete objects, like magnetic letters. Remember to avoid long verbal explanations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working memory<\/strong>: <\/strong>working memory is the ability to hold and manipulate information in the mind for a short period of time. <\/strong>There is evidence to suggest that verbal working memory can affect performance of phonological awareness tasks and activities which involve following and recalling instructions, rote learning, singing songs, retelling stories and copying sound patterns. Working memory co-exists with dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD, but can also be a stand alone problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you suspect a child you are working with does have difficulties, you should follow the guidance from the SEND Code of Practice (2015) – The Graduated Approach, of Assess, Plan, Do, Review. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Phonemic awareness is essential for success in learning to read and spell. We outline what it is and provide some strategies for teaching, here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":48835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[81,80],"class_list":["post-48736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-safeguarding","tag-education","tag-teachers-and-parents"],"acf":{"schema_disabled":false,"schema_properties_FAQPage_question_answer":null,"schema_properties_HowTo_howto_tools":null,"schema_properties_HowTo_howto_supplies":null,"schema_properties_HowTo_howto_steps":null,"schema_properties_WebPage_cssSelector":null,"schema_sameAs_repeater":null,"schema_custom_json_repeater":null,"schema_custom_json_override":false},"yoast_head":"\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/phonological-awareness-crop.jpg\")
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\n\n\n\nWhy is Phonemic Awareness Important?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nHow Does Phonemic Awareness Relate to Reading and Spelling?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Girl](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/girl-reading-1.jpg\")
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\n\n\n\nStrategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Group](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/classroom-reading.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nGames and Activities to Support Phonemic Awareness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Phoneme](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/word-cards-square.jpg\")
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\n\n\n\nIf a Child is Struggling with Phonemic Awareness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Children](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/phoneme-homework.jpg\")
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\n\n\n\nFactors that can Affect a Child\u2019s Phonemic Awareness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nFurther Resources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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