First Cycle: Phonemic Awareness and Decoding

(Phonics Instruction)

Essential Element 1: PHONEMIC AWARENESS

Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words
(phonemes1) and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of
sequences of speech sounds. It is sometimes called “phonological awareness”, though
there is a slight difference between the two concepts, because phonological
awareness is an inclusive term that describes an awareness of all levels of the sound
system used for speech including words, syllables, rimes, and phonemes.

•Phonemic awareness is not phonics.

•Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not necessarily involve words in print

Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills:

•Segmentation: How many sounds can you hear in mop?
• First sound isolation: What is the first sound you can hear in mop?
• Last sound isolation: What is the last sound you can hear in mop?
•Segmentation (complete): What are all the sounds you hear in mop?
•Blending: (Teacher sounds out2 the word m-o-p ) Which word can you hear if I say m-
o-p?
One of the most compelling and well-established findings in the research on beginning
reading is the important relationship between phonemic awareness and reading
acquisition.

1
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. For example, the word cat is made up of three
phonemes (or three sounds): /c/ /a/ and /t/. The word fish is also made up of three phonemes (or three
sounds) even though fish has four letters: /f/ /i/ /sh/.
2
Sounding Out: The process of saying each sound that represents a letter in a word without stopping
between sounds.

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Phonemic awareness is essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system,
because letters represent sounds or phonemes. Without phonemic awareness, phonics
makes little sense.

Phonemic awareness is fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear

that "man" and "moon" begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds
/rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run", he or she may have great difficulty
connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a
word.

Phonemic awareness is a strong predictor of children who experience early reading

success. "The best predictor of reading difficulty is the inability to segment words and
syllables into constituent sound units (phonemic awareness)".
Strengthening a child’s phonemic and phonological awareness involves helping them
to recognize, single out, and manipulate letters.
Some of the activities that specifically address phonemic awareness are: saying
rhymes, identifying the onset and rime in spoken words and syllables, hearing and
isolating individual sounds in words, connecting words that sound alike and words that
sound different, blending and segmenting words, making new words by deleting or
substituting phonemes, and attending to sounds of words in stories, songs, poems, and
rhymes. In a phonemic awareness lesson, the teacher provides a brief, explicit lesson
on an auditory discrimination, phonemic awareness, or phonological awareness
principle.
The most reliably effective approach is always through a systematic and explicit
instruction.

Essential Element 2: DECODING (PHONICS INSTRUCTION)

Decoding is the ability to apply your knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including

knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words.

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Understanding these relationships gives children the ability to recognize familiar words
quickly and to figure out words they haven't seen before.

Phonics is the relationship between a specific letter and its sound, only as it relates to
the written word. Phonics is used, for example, when a reader comes across an
unknown word. With knowledge of phonics, s/he can try to read the word by focusing
on the specific sound of each letter or combination of letters.
For example, if a child does not recognize the word chant, he might break the word
apart into pieces, such as /ch/ /a/ /n/ /t/ (or /ch/ /a/ /nt/, or /ch/ /ant/), assigning an
appropriate sound to each separate letter or combination of letters. Then, the child
combines those sounds to create the word chant.

Phonics instruction involves teaching children the relationships between letters and
individual sounds (phonemes), and teaching them that there are systematic and
predictable relationships between written letters and spoken words.

Phonics is taught explicitly with sounds, letters, and words in isolation, and through
the use of meaningful text (phonics decodable books). The alphabet is considered to
be a basic tool of the reader and writer, and many children have incomplete
knowledge of letter-sound correspondences. The teacher first assesses the letter-
sound correspondences the children do know, and works to increase their knowledge.

The teacher starts with simple words and letter-sound associations familiar to the
children, and progresses to less predictable sound patterns and their spelling. Through
explicit lessons, the children learn to identify letters, to associate phonemes with
letters, and to use phonics principles when reading and writing. Children do exercises
with individual words, which they sort by sounds and letters. They create personalized
alphabet books, write letters on a variety of surfaces, and work extensively with
magnetic letters, which children enjoy manipulating. The teacher keeps careful records
of the children’s progress to determine the sequence of instruction.

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Before, during, and after reading selected texts, the teacher brings children’s attention
to sound-spelling patterns using magnetic letters or white erase boards. Teachers
demonstrate phonics principles when teaching the children how to spell words. The
children use their phonics knowledge when reading aloud and when writing words,
sentences, and longer texts.

Source References:
http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/literacy/components.pdf
http://www.nhpirc.org/files/Five%20elements%20of%20Reading%20Tip%20Sheet.pdf
http://www.cde.state.co.us/coloradoliteracy/CLF/EightElements_01-FiveComponents.htm