Strategies for Developing Phonemic Awareness

  Author: Julie Johnson

Phonemic awareness, a type of phonological awareness, is the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of speech (Yopp, H., & Yopp, R., 2009). It is a critical skill for young children to develop. Phonemic awareness skills facilitate a child’s ability to read and spell. These skills can be demonstrated through the ability to recognize words that beginning with the same sound, isolate a sound within a word, blend sounds to form words, or segment a word into its sound components (Ambruster, B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J., 2010). In this paper I will explore several strategies for developing phonemic awareness, identify the purpose of each strategy, and evaluate and rank each strategy based on a set criteria.

            There a many strategies, games, and methods that one could use to help children develop phonemic awareness. One possible method is rhyme generation. The ability to identify rhyme units is an important component of phonological awareness for emergent readers. Rhyming can be taught through songs, poetry, books, and games (Snow, C., Burns, M., & Griffin, P., 1998). It is a useful tool to help students learn about spelling similarities between words. Rhymes are a good strategy to use because they are fun. Children enjoy listening to rhyming and it allows the children to It ‘play with language’ and create their own rhymes, even if it’s not using real words. For example, the class can create new words by replacing the first sound to create new words. To modify this activity to suit a diverse group of learners with varied skill levels the teacher can use pictures in place of text for beginners, and include more scaffolding for ESL learners or other children who are struggling (Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness, n.d.).

            Another possible method is multisensory mapping. Multisensory Mapping uses auditory, visual, and tactile methods to help teach children to remember and process sounds in many different ways. An example lesson using multisensory mapping would include matching rhyming pair cards to pictures, using letter ‘toys’ to create the words, trace the words, chant the sounds as you trace the letters, and record the work on a study sheet. ESL learners and students with special needs especially benefit from repeated exposure to multisensory mapping because it incorporates a variety of methods to study one concept (Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness, n.d.).

Picture card snap is a game that can be used in small groups to encourage students to play with speech sounds. It is a repetitive game that allows beginning readers practice in identifying and matching initial, middle or ending sounds to different pictures. It is easy to differentiate the level by asking the students to identify easy or difficult sounds or including more/less challenging vocabulary in the pictures. To play the game, a student can choose a flash card. The teacher can ask the students to identify the picture, identify the first sound, and look for other cards that begin with the same sound (Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness, n.d.).

Another strategy is sound sorts. It is a game that helps teach the children that speech is composed of many different sounds put together to form words. To play sound sorts, the teacher should present the target sound, ie. words that end with /t/ and have students find words that end with the same sound. One way to differentiate the Sound Sorts activity for students with special needs is to give the students tactile letter cards to help them process and connect sounds to letters (Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness, n.d.).

Anther possible strategy for developing phonemic awareness is the use of Elkonin Boxes. They help by practicing the skills needed to divide words into syllables or phonemes. They are useful to teach students how to count the number of phonemes in the word, which is often different from the number of letters. This activity can be differentiated to suit a variety of skill levels by including pictures and using bigger or smaller words (Blachman, B. A., Ball, E. W., Black, R., & Tangel, D. M., 2000).

            Treasure Chest is a game that facilitates segmenting and blending sounds To play this game you need flash cards with pictures and pennies. To play, first you must identify all the sounds of the word in the picture. You then place a penny in the ‘treasure box’ for each sound. Finally you blend the sounds together to say the word. Differentiating treasure chest for special needs learners should be done in very small groups or individually. Make sure ESL learners know the vocabulary of all the pictures before playing this game (Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness, n.d.).

            Another strategy is alphabet matching. Learning the alphabet is the foundation of learning how to read in English. Alphabet matching is a good strategy for teaching young children the concept of phonics. Through alphabet matching, children can learn the alphabetic principle; the relationship between written letters and spoken sounds (Snow, et al., 1998). For emergent readers, being able to name the letters of the alphabet is correlated to later success in reading. It also helps children to learn the sound that that letter makes. Games for this strategy could include matching upper and lowercase letters, ‘writing’ the letter with sand or play-doh, and creating crafts for each letter to further familiarize students with the alphabet. Begin with fewer letters and simple fonts, and as learning progresses, more abstract fonts can be used and students can work with more letters at a time (Classroom Strategies, n.d.).

            Playing syllable games are amongst the top strategies for developing phonemic awareness. Teaching syllables is important because knowing how to divide words into parts helps with decoding and allows students to read with more accuracy and fluency. It can also aid students who are learning to spell (Adams, M., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I., & Beeler, T., 2004). Examples of games that could be used are using tokens or dots to count syllables in words, or playing clapping and jumping games to associate syllables with a rhythm. Playing syllable games with names or words the students are very familiar with is a good way to reach beginners while more advanced students can be challenged by more difficult vocabulary (Classroom Strategies, n.d.).

            Concept of word games are another strategy that can be used in developing phonemic awareness. These games help learners practice connecting spoken words to written words. It also helps illustrate sentence formation and punctuation (Morris, D., 1981). Some examples of concept of word games that could be used in the classroom are creating word walls, experimenting with cut up sentences, and dictation games like having the children draw one line for every word the teacher says, ie “I saw a yellow bus”, the student would draw 5 lines. Use of pictures for beginning or special needs learners is a good way to differentiate this activity (Classroom Strategies, n.d.).

            The last strategy I will explore is onset and rime games. Teaching children about onset and rime helps them identify words segments, which is helpful when spelling and trying to learn what new words mean (Goswami, U., & Mead, F., 1992). Some examples of games you could use for onset and rime are constructing a word from components, ie /p/ and /ig/ to make pig or using other materials and tools like the Onset and Rime Slide from the Florida Center for Reading Research (Onset and Rime Slide, 2008). This activity is difficult to differentiate for beginning learners. 

I have summarized the above ten strategies for developing phonemic awareness and compiled them in the chart below.

Criteria	1: Developmentally Appropriate	2: Interactive	3: Purposeful	4: Fun/ Entertaining	5: Relevant	Total
Rhyme Generation – identify a rhyme within a poem or a song.   Snow, C., Burns, M., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.	5	4	4	4	4	21
Multisensory Mapping – tracing, illustrating, and chanting of sounds allow children to process sounds in multiple ways.   Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness. (n.d.) Retrieved April 17, 2016 from http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/40626_1.pdf.	3	4	4	3	4	18
Picture Card Snap – provides developing readers with supported practice classifying and categorizing sounds.   Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness. (n.d.) Retrieved April 17, 2016 from http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/40626_1.pdf.	3	4	4	4	4	19
Sound Sorts – enables children to perceive that speech is made up of a series of sounds.   Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness. (n.d.) Retrieved April 17, 2016 from http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/40626_1.pdf.	3	4	4	4	4	19
Elkonin Boxes – build phonological awareness through segmenting words into sounds or syllables.   Blachman, B. A., Ball, E. W., Black, R., & Tangel, D. M. (2000). Road to the code: A phonological awareness program for young children. Baltimore: Brookes.	2	4	4	3	4	17
Treasure Chest – give children repeated practice segmenting and blending phonemes.   Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness. (n.d.) Retrieved April 17, 2016 from http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/40626_1.pdf.	2	4	4	3	4	17
Alphabet Matching – learning letter names and sounds, a strong predictor of later reading ability   Snow, C., Burns, M., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.	5	4	4	4	5	22
Syllable Games – dividing words into parts/syllables helps children to learn decoding a facilitates smoother reading   Adams, M., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I., & Beeler, T. (2004). Phonemic Activities for the Preschool or Elementary Classroom.	4	4	4	5	5	22
Concept of Word Games – matching spoken words to written words while reading   Morris, D. (1981). Concept of word: A developmental phenomenon in the beginning reading and writing process. Language Arts, 58, 659-668.	3	4	4	3	4	18
Onset and Rime Games – learning about word families   Goswami, U., & Mead, F. (1992). Onset and rime awareness and analogies in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 153-162.	3	4	4	3	4	18

 

The criteria I chose for my likert scale are developmentally appropriate, interactive, purposeful, entertaining and fun, and relevant. The strategies were then evaluated based experience from my current class of preschoolers and how they would likely receive and perceive each activity. I rated each strategy based on how well it fit each criteria using the rating scale below.

Extremely Poor 1

Below Average 2

Average 3

Above Average 4

Excellent 5

 

            After applying my likert scale criteria to the 10 strategies for developing phonemic awareness, three strategies stood out. The top three strategies are: (1.) Rhyme Generation, (2.) Alphabet Matching, and (3.) Syllable Games. Strategy 1, rhyme generation, was chosen because it is fun, interactive, and developmentally appropriate for 3 year olds. Children of this age love to listen to rhyming books, songs, and poetry, and then use their own creativity to make their own rhymes. Snow states, “Noticing similarities between words in their sounds, enjoying rhymes, counting syllables, and so forth are indications of such "metaphonological" skill (Snow, et al., 1998).” Identifying and creating rhymes are key to developing phonemic awareness. 

Strategy 2, alphabet matching, was chosen because this is a key skill that is a precursor to reading. Learning the alphabet is fundamental to reading and knowing the name of the letter helps emergent learners connect that letter to a sound. Snow states, “Reading should be defined as a process of getting meaning from print, using knowledge about the written alphabet (Snow, et al., 1998).” Knowing the alphabet is fundamental to reading and is an important strategy for phonemic awareness. 

Finally, strategy 3, syllable games, was chosen because syllable games are developmentally appropriate, entertaining, and relevant to understanding the concept of phonemic awareness. For example, clapping the beats or syllables in their own name is a good precursor to segmenting words. Children enjoy doing anything with their own names as it is personal and it helps teach the skills and concepts necessary to break down other words into their syllables and sounds. Snow states, “Understanding the basic alphabetic principle requires an awareness that spoken language can be analyzed into strings of separable words, and words, in turn, into sequences of syllables and phonemes within syllables (Snow, et al., 1998).” Syllable games are important tools to help children learn phonemic awareness.

These phonemic awareness and phonics strategies build early reading skills by developing the children’s knowledge of language an how to use it. All of these strategies provide the children with deliberate, repetitive exposure to the skills they will need to develop in order to be successful readers. Phonemic awareness lessons should be taught in a fun, encouraging and safe environment through various methods. Instruction should be intentional, focused, and relevant. Using alphabet matching, rhyme generation, and syllable games in a pre-k class will help the students to develop their phonemic awareness skills while at school.

At home, parents also can do many things to help their children develop phonemic awareness skills. Parents should create a print-rich atmosphere with lots of books, and text that is visible and accessible to the children. The children should have access to a variety of toys and time for imaginative play as well as access to books. Parents should read to their children daily if possible and model good reading behavior.

Phonemic awareness is an important skill to emphasize in your classroom. It improves children’s reading, reading comprehensions, and ability to spell (Ambruster, et al., 2010). The three strategies that I have highlighted are some of the most well-rounded and developmentally appropriate strategies used to teach early learners and I will definitely be using them in my classroom in the future.

References:

Adams, M., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I., & Beeler, T. (2004). Phonemic Activities for the Preschool or Elementary Classroom.

Ambruster, B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J. (2010). The research building blocks for teaching children to read: Put reading first. National Institute for Literacy.

Blachman, B. A., Ball, E. W., Black, R., & Tangel, D. M. (2000). Road to the code: A phonological awareness program for young children. Baltimore: Brookes.

Classroom Strategies. (n.d.) Retreived April 17, 2016 from http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies.

Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness. (n.d.) Retrieved April 17, 2016 from http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/40626_1.pdf. 

Goswami, U., & Mead, F. (1992). Onset and rime awareness and analogies in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 153-162.

Morris, D. (1981). Concept of word: A developmental phenomenon in the beginning reading and writing process. Language Arts, 58, 659-668.

Onset and Rime Slide. (2008). The Florida Center for Reading Research. Retrieved 17 April, 2016 from http://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/P_026a.pdf

Snow, C., Burns, M., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Yopp, H., & Yopp, R. (2009, Jan). Phonological awareness is child’s play. Young Children, 64(1), 12-21.