Phonemic Awareness: Part 3: Background Information

Directions: Read the background information. It summarizes the basics about teaching phonemic awareness.

The National Reading Panel Report stated that “the extent of phonemic awareness needed to contribute maximally to children’s reading development does not arise from incidental learning or instruction that is not focused on this objective” (NICHD, 2000, p. 2-33).

Before starting to teach phonemic awareness, it is important to assess the kinds of phonemic awareness tasks students are expected to perform and plan instruction according to their areas of weakness.
The following are key ideas for teaching phonemic awareness taken from the National Reading Panel Report (2000):
1. Focus on one or two phonemic awareness skills.
2. Allocate a reasonable amount of time to phonemic awareness instruction, i.e. a total of 5 to 18 hours.
3. Emphasize segmenting words into phonemes. While blending is an essential skill for use in decoding, Torgesen, et al. (1992) concluded that emphasis should be placed on segmenting words into phonemes.
4. Working with small groups of three to four children to teach phonemic awareness may be more effective than one-on-one tutoring.
5. Use letters when teaching about phonemes.
6. Connect phonemic awareness instruction to reading and writing
7. Use manipulatives to help students acquire phonemic awareness.
8. Focus attention on how the mouth changes when pronouncing different phonemes.
9. Use spelling to teach phonemes.
Teachers need to be aware of the key features that make phonemic awareness instruction effective so they can evaluate available instructional programs. Then, they should use the materials in a manner that is consistent with the research findings cited above.

Working with Words website http://www.wfu.edu/academics/fourblocks/block4.html. This is the official web site for the Four Blocks framework of teaching reading. Look at the section on Working With Words. What activities done in this block would support the development of phonemic awareness in children?

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