Phonemic Awareness: Part 2: Definition of Terms

Directions: The following bold words are important to understand to prepare yourself to teach phonemic awareness and phonics. Please read each definition carefully. Make sure you understand the differences between the terms.

Phonetics:
Phonetics is the segment of linguistic science that deals with:
1. Speech sounds;
2. How these sounds are made vocally;
3. Sound changes that develop in languages;
4. The relation of speech sounds to the total language process.

All phonics instruction in reading is derived from phonetics, but utilizes only a fraction of that body of knowledge. Phonics instruction focuses on phonemic awareness and the grapheme-phoneme relationship.

Phonological Awareness:
Phonological awareness is the first prerequisite for phonics instruction.
Phonological Awareness occurs naturally as children develop oral language. They play with sounds and gradually become aware that:
1. Words can rhyme.
2. Words have one or more syllables.
3. Words are in sentences.
4. Words can begin and end with the same sounds.
5. Words are made up of small sound (phonemes). This is the beginning of phonemic awareness.

Broader Phonological Awareness Narrower Phonological Awareness:
Identifying and making oral rhymes. Identifying and working with syllables in spoken words. Identifying and working with onsets and rimes in spoken syllables. Identifying and working with individual phonemes in words spoken, i.e. phonemic awareness

Phonemic Awareness:
Phonemic Awareness is a subset of phonological awareness and is the second prerequisite for phonics instruction. It is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken words. Phonemic awareness activities can be done in the dark because they are listening and speaking activities. Once a child becomes aware of the smallest sounds in a spoken word, he/she understands that:
1. Words have small sounds that can be pulled apart and put together.
2. Sounds in words have a specific order (first, middle, last).
3. Sounds in words can be counted.
4. Sounds in words can be moved, removed, and replaced to make new words.
5. Several sounds can be represented with many different letters.

Onsets and Rimes:
An onset is the part of the word before the vowel, i.e. a consonant, a consonant blend, or a diagraph.

A rime is the part of the word from the vowel onward. For example /k/ is the onset for /cat/, while /at/ is the rime. Rimes make poetry rhyme.

Nearly 500 primary words can be derived from the following 37 consistent letter clusters:

-ack -all -ain -ake -ale -ame -an ank -ap -ash -at -ate -aw -ay

-eat -ell -est

-ice -ick -ide -ight -ill -in -ine -ing -ink -ip -ir

-ock -oke -op -ore -or

-uck -ug -ump -unk

The alphabetic principle: This is the relationship between letters and sounds. It is sometimes called grapho-phonics, the grapheme-phoneme relationship, or the letter-sound relationship.

Graphemes and Phonemes:
Graphemes are the letter symbols for the sounds, or phonemes. For example, b is the letter symbol (grapheme) for the sound /b/ (phoneme).

Kinds of Phonemes:
• Consonants (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z)
• Vowels (a, e, i, o, u)
• Diagraphs—two letters that represent one speech sound (sh, ch, th, wh, ee…)
• Blends—two or more letters that retain their individual sounds (bl, str, sk…)
• Diphthong—a vowel blend, each of which is heard (ou, oi, oi, ow…)
• Schwa—a diminished stress or softening of any vowel sound represented by e (the = /th/ /e/)

Phonics:
Phonics focuses on the relationship between letters and sounds to create words and written language. Phonics activities cannot be done in the dark because they involve seeing the written letter(s) that corresponds to a sound or sounds. “Scientifically-based research” tells us that phonics instruction should be systematic and explicit.
• Systematic means that regular and irregular spellings are taught in a sequence.
• Explicit means that the teacher explains the letter-sound relationships, leaving nothing to chance.

Conventions of Language:
Conventions of language are universally agreed-upon aspects of language, such as reading from top to bottom and left to right in English. The alphabetic principle is a convention of language.

Phonemic Segmentation:
Phonemic Segmentation is breaking a syllable or word into its constituent phonemes, e.g.
cat = /c/ /a/ /t/

Morphemes:
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language.

Free Morphemes:
Free Morphemes have meaning independent of any other utterance.
• cat
• lock
• man
• weight

Bound Morphemes:
Bound Morphemes must combine with other morphemes and include prefixes, suffixes, or inflectional endings.
• cats
• unlock
• man’s
• weightless

Visual Discrimination:
Visual Discrimination is the Third Prerequisite for Phonics Instruction. Visual Discrimination is the ability to differentiate the forms of the different letters. This starts long before a child enters school, but reading requires finer discrimination. Being able to name letters is a predictor of reading success, not because children can label the letters, but because they can differentiate between their shapes.