by Miscese Gagen
from www.righttrackreading.com
May 2005

Miscese Gagen is a mother with a passion for teaching children to read with effective methods and the author of Right Track Reading Lessons, a new reading program featured on the NRRF Phonics Products list. The purpose of this article is to provide parents with information related to effectively teaching children how to read. More information on teaching children to read is located at www.righttrackreading.com

Phonemic awareness is literally "sound" awareness. Phonemic awareness is understanding that words are made up of sounds and being able to hear, recognize, and manipulate the individual sounds that make up a word. For example, it is the ability to recognize the word "mom" is made up of the separate sounds /m/ /o/ /m/.

Phonemic awareness is a critical foundation to reading success. Research has shown that children with poor phonemic awareness struggle with reading and spelling. The child’s natural phonological abilities are not related to intelligence. In fact, many highly intelligent children have phonological weakness that leads to reading difficulty. Phonemic awareness, NOT intelligence, is the best predictor of reading ability.

Children vary greatly in their natural ability to hear the sounds within words. Many children don’t realize the words they hear break apart into smaller hunks of sound. Hearing the individual sounds within a word is difficult because when we speak, we effortlessly blend all the sounds together. The natural ease of seamless speech hides the phonetic nature of our spoken language. For example, the kid says and hears the word "puppy" as one seamless word /puppy/, without recognizing the separate sounds /p/ /u/ /p/ /ee/ that make up the word.

Although some children and adults have a definite natural phonological weakness, the good news is that phonemic awareness training has a significant positive effect on reading and spelling.¹ In other words, you can directly teach children how to hear, recognize, and manipulate sounds within words so they develop the phonemic awareness skills necessary for reading success.

You can directly teach your child phonemic awareness skills with fun oral activities beginning at the preschool age. These simple, fun "sound games" of listening, sound identification, sound discrimination, word play, and rhyming help your child learn how to hear, recognize, and manipulate sounds in words.

Start simple and increase complexity as the child develops skills. Once the kids get the hang of beginning sounds (the easiest to hear and distinguish), move on to ending sounds, rhyming, and finally to manipulating middle sounds. Remember some sounds are harder to hear, especially the "fast" sounds such as /d/, /t/, /p/, & /k/, and some blended consonants. Always demonstrate the activity. Showing the child exactly what you want him to do is more effective than giving instructions.

Phonemic Awareness Activities

These oral sound activities can easily be played for 5-10 minutes while driving in the car, making dinner, or playing outside (anytime, anywhere). Suggested activities include:

Practice beginning sounds. Say, "The word ___ starts with the sound ___. What other words start with the ___sound?" Give a few examples to get the kid started. For example: "‘Milk’ starts with the sound /m/. What else can you think of that starts with the sound /m/?" To help him out say, "/mmmmmm/," then give another example: "/mmmm/...mud.../mmmm/...mom." If the child says a word like "cat," simply say, "Oops that word starts with the /k/ sound...What starts with /mmmm/?"

Play "silly word" games with beginning sounds. Have the child modify the first sound in a word to make silly words. For example, use the child’s name: "Jessica, if your name started with /mmm/, what would it be?"..."Messica."..."How about /t/?"."Tessica."

Sing silly sound songs. Have the child help you make a "silly sound song" of a specific sound. For example, sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star with all the words starting with the /sss/ sound: "Swinkle, Swinkle, Sittle Star."

Do rhyming activities. Rhyming is terrific for developing phonemic awareness. Help the child learn how to rhyme. Say a word like "cat" and see how many rhyming words he can say. At first, this rhyming needs to be demonstrated, as kids will often just say a word that starts with the same sound. For example, say, "What would rhyme with cat?" The child may say, "Hat, mat, pat, sat."...Come up with silly rhyming words: "Zat...dat."

Practice orally segmenting sounds within a word. Have the child tell you the sounds he hears within a word. Remember this is an auditory skill based on sound, not letter names or spelling. For example, if you say, "Tell me the sounds in the word ‘cat’"...the kid should say, "/k/ /a/ /t/." If you say, "Tell me the sounds in the word ‘shut’"...the kid should say, "/sh/ /u/ /t/." Say the word slowly and clearly to help the child hear and distinguish sounds.

Play "sound changing" games. Give the child a word and instructions on how to change it: "Say _____ without the ____ sound." For example, if you say, "Say ‘milk’ without the /mmm/...the kid should say "ilk." You can also say, "How would you say ____ if the /__/ sound was changed to /__/?" For example, if you say, "How would you say sing if the /sss/ was changed to /rrr/?"...the kid should say, "ring."

Create and adapt your own sound games to fit your kid. Keep them age-appropriate and fun. The focus is for your child to learn how to hear, recognize and manipulate sounds in words.

It is important to realize that while phonemic awareness provides an essential foundation, this primarily auditory skill is not going to teach your child to read. You will still need to take the next step and directly teach your child to link the printed letters to the sound they represent. Validated research proves the most effective way to teach child to read is with direct, systematic phonics instruction.²

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¹ National Reading Panel’s "Teaching Children to Read" Summary Report www.nationalreadingpanel.org/publications/summary.htm
² National Reading Panel’s "Teaching Children to Read" Summary Report www.nationalreadingpanel.org/publications/summary.htm

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