Procedures and Materials to Stimulate Growth of Phonemic Awareness
Source: Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall
Topics: Early Years (Birth-5), Middle Years (5-9), Learning to Read, Reading Building Blocks, Phonics and Sound
A large array of programs and sets of materials have been developed specifically to help teachers provide effective instruction in phonemic awareness for young children. In addition, most currently available "core reading programs" that claim to be research based also contain materials and procedures to provide explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness in kindergarten and first grade. Examples of some of the instructional routines from these materials are provided in the table below. Programs are available both to supplement and deepen the whole-class instruction provided by the teacher (e.g., Ladders to Literacy by O'Connor, Notari-Syverson, & Vadasy, 1998; Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum by Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1997) and to provide more intensive small-group or individual instruction for students who are having special difficulties acquiring phonemic awareness (e.g., Road to the Code by Blachman, Ball, Black, & Tangel, 1998; Phonological Awareness Training for Reading by Torgesen & Bryant, 1993; and The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program for Reading, Spelling, and Speech by Lindamood & Lindamood, 1998).
At least two organizations have published, or will publish, evaluations of many currently available programs. The Florida Center for Reading Research (www.fcrr.org) has reviews of many programs currently available, and Oregon Reading First at the University of Oregon (http://www.ode.state.or.us/cifs/grants/readingfirst/callprograms.doc) will soon have available reviews of a large number of programs designed to provide supplemental instruction in phonemic awareness and early phonemic decoding skills.
As with any instructional materials, most of the instructional programs and materials currently available can be adapted for uses other than those for which they seem most clearly appropriate. That is, skillful teachers should be able to adapt "whole class" materials to support instruction for small groups of at-risk children, and the more intensive materials can also be adapted for whole-class instruction (Howard, 1986; Foorman & Torgesen, 2001). In addition, it should be noted that many activities that teachers already engage in can be used to build phonemic awareness. Spelling and writing activities can be used to stimulate phonemic awareness (Ehri, 1998,2002), and any teacher-led reading activities that involve direct instruction in sound-letter correspondences or blending skills or that draw attention to similarities between the way words are spelled and the way they sound can be used to improve children's awareness of the phonemic structure of words. In general, instruction to stimulate phonological awareness should begin by providing exposure to rhyming songs, books, and activities for children in preschool and the early part of kindergarten. Once children begin to understand the concept of rhyme (as shown by their ability to decide whether words rhyme
Phonological Awareness Activities along a Continuum of Difficulty
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© 2005, Allyn & Bacon, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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