TEFL Susanville California

The purpose of phonological awareness instruction is to teach students the skills they need in order to understand the alphabetic system of english. Phonological awareness skills are a necessary component of beginning reading instruction and are the appropriate beginning point of instruction for many poor readers. Some students require instruction in analyzing sounds within words prior to beginning actual decoding and encoding instruction. Until a student understands that words can be broken into individual sounds and is able to perform tasks such as segmenting, blending and manipulating sounds within spoken words, the student will have difficulty learning how to use sounds and letters to read and spell words. For remedial purposes, phonological awareness instruction should begin at the level indicated in the student's individual assessment. For example, some students may need to practice segmenting words into syllables before they are ready to learn to segment words into phonemes. If you are working with a group, it will be best to begin instruction at the lowest level that will meet the needs of most of the students (even if this means reviewing skills for some students). If one or two students are significantly below the level of the others, it may be necessary to work with these students on more basic skills. Phonological awareness skills typically develop slowly during preschool and kindergarten and are usually not fully developed until after students learn to read (during grades 1 and 2). There is a reciprocal relationship between phonological awareness skills and reading: i.e., students with higher levels of phonological awareness learn to read more easily and reading instruction enhances the further development of more sophisticated phonological awareness skills. Phonological awareness is an “umbrella” term, which includes many different types and levels of skills. The typical STAGES of development of phonological awareness skills are listed below with examples of activities for each stage: 1. Sentences can be broken up into individual words - Sentence Segmentation 2. Rhyming words can be recognized and produced - Rhyming 3. Words can be broken into syllables - Syllable Segmentation 4. Words can be broken into onset and rime - Onset and rime 5. Beginning, ending and medial sounds of words can be identified - Phoneme Identification 6. Words can be segmented into individual sounds and sounds can be blended into words - Phoneme Segmentation and Blending 7. Individual sounds within words can be analyzed and manipulated - Phoneme Analysis Within this developmental sequence, it must be recognized that these skills are all performed orally. In addition, students typically are able to perform tasks of recognition before production. For example, it is usually easier to tell whether or not two words rhyme than to produce a rhyme for a given word. Blending is also usually easier than segmenting. Notice that, at stage 5 of the above sequence, the student begins analyzing the individual sounds of words (phonemes); stages 5-7 are often referred to as Phonemic Awareness, which is still under the “umbrella” of phonological awareness. Sequence of Instruction Instruction in phonological awareness should take the developmental sequence into account. Most programs designed for students in kindergarten begin with the most basic level and proceed forward. For older students, the process is not as straightforward since instruction must be tied to assessment. The goal of phonological awareness instruction is to prepare the student for decoding and encoding instruction. The following instructional sequence indicates the skills, which should be taught prior to beginning decoding instruction. It is rarely necessary to start remedial instruction for older students below the syllable level as older students begin with the phoneme level. Syllable Level 1. Indicate the number of syllables in words. 2. Pronounce each syllable of words. 3. Begin with compound words and progress to multisyllable words. Phoneme Level 1. Identify words as having same or different beginning, final, and medial sounds. (Phoneme Identification) 2. Blend sounds into words. 3. Segment words into sounds.