Phonemic Awareness (continued)

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Phonemic Awareness and Instruction

Synthesis of studies of the effects of phonemic awareness interventions on phonemic awareness development, reading, and spelling acquisition of normally achieving students and diverse students indicate that phonemic awareness is teachable (National Reading Panel, 2000).

The effects of teaching phonemic awareness were among the most instructionally salient findings in a review of seven intervention studies (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1990; Cunningham, 1990; Lie, 1991; Lundberg et al., 1988; O'Connor et al., 1993; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987). All seven studies reported positive effects on reading, spelling, or phonological awareness development. Six of the seven studies pointed to significant effects on various measures of phonological awareness, reading, or spelling. All studies looked at effects on reading; roughly 80% looked at effects of phonological awareness instruction on subsequent phonological awareness development, whereas roughly 60% looked at effects on spelling.

In addition to those short-term effects, two studies reported positive long-term transfer effects on reading and spelling and long-term maintenance effects spanning 1 to 2 years on phonological tasks (Lie, 1991; Lundberg et al., 1988). Long-term maintenance means that the effects were evident when measured again long after the intervention stopped. Three studies reported differential effects of phonological awareness training (Lie, 1991; Lundberg et al., 1988; O'Connor et al., 1993). For example, Lundberg et al. (1988) noted larger effects of phonological awareness training on segmentation than on tasks requiring rhyming. Particularly pertinent were the greater effects for diverse learners (Lie, 1991) and the significant facilitation of reading acquisition for diverse learners and normally achieving children in studies that compared both types of learners (O'Connor et al., 1993; Vellutino and Scanlon, 1987).

The National Reading Panel (2000) concluded that teaching letter as well as phonemic awareness to beginning readers is essential. The Panel also indicated that teaching students to segment and blend benefit reading more than a multiskilled approach and that teaching students to manipulate phonemes with letters yields larger effects than teaching children without letters. Finally, the panel concluded that phonemic awareness helps many different children learn to read, including, preschoolers, kindergartners, first-graders who are just starting to learn to read, and older disabled readers. The findings are consistent among various SES groups.

Phonemic Awareness and Alphabetic Understanding

Phonemic awareness involves the ability to hear and manipulate sounds. Alphabetic awareness refers to a reader's knowledge of the letters of the alphabet coupled with the understanding that the alphabet represents the sounds of spoken language. Alphabetic understanding refers to understanding that letters represent sounds and that whole words embody a sound structure of individual sounds and patterns of groups of sounds. The alphabetic principle is the combination of alphabetic understanding and phonological awareness. The alphabetic principle enables the reader to translate independently a visual symbol into a sound.