Phonemic Awareness

So, why is Phonemic Awareness so important in the reading process? First and foremost, Phonemic Awareness lays the foundation of phonics instruction. This instruction of Phonemic Awareness helps children acquire fluent and precise decoding skills. Children who do not have this instruction have trouble connecting speech sounds to letters which ultimately leads to the fact that the teaching of phonics will not make much sense to them. Phonemic Awareness is crucial when learning to decode language. Torgesen and Mathes (2000) give three reasons for the importance of learning Phonemic Awareness: 1) "It helps children understand the alphabetic principle," 2) "It helps children notice the regular ways that letters represent sounds in words," and 3) "It makes it possible to generate possibilities for words in context that are only partially sounded out."

Laying a Foundation

It is important that the proper foundation be laid by parents and teachers. The first building block of the foundation is Sound. As adults we know that words can be pulled apart and broken into a series of sounds, transformed into words and manipulated again into sounds. Children do not have this understanding. So, the first step toward reading is helping the child develop what is known as Phonemic Awareness. Phonemic Awareness allows one to be able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, or the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning. Separating the spoken word "cat" into three distinct phonemes, /k/, /æ/, and /t/, requires phonemic awareness skill (Wikipedia). Playing with sound, rhyming, isolating beginning sounds, and blending are ways to help a child develop phonemic awareness.

Introduction

Reading has become America's number one priority for very good reason. How else does one learn to read from a menu, training manual or understand how to vote? Reading can change the way we think and shape who we are. Reading makes life more meaningful by allowing us to participate socially, economically, politically as well as reading just for pure joy. Some kids learn to read easily and others struggle every step of the way. There is no one method that works every time for everyone. Reading is not a method but a process. This process is crucial, and this is what we will be discussing in the coming weeks. The building blocks are Sounds, Letters, Words and then Sentences.

Welcome Parents and Students

Welcome to the Title I Reading blog. This blog will be continually updated with current reading strategies and ideas on how to help your child learn to read. I am looking forward to communicating and sharing information. Please feel free to respond and ask questions.