Phonemic awareness (PA)

Phonemic awareness (PA)

The ability to manipulate phonemes in spoken words. The following tasks are commonly used to improve their PA through instruction and practice:

1. Phoneme isolation, which requires recognizing individual sounds in words, for example, “Tell me the first sound in paste.” (/p/) 

2. Phoneme identity, which requires recognizing the common sound in different words. For example, “Tell me the sound that is the same in bike, boy, and bell.” (/b/) 

3. Phoneme categorization, which requires recognizing the word with the odd sound in a sequence of three or four words, for example, “Which word does not belong? bus, bun, rug.” (rug) 

4. Phoneme blending, which requires listening to a sequence of separately spoken sounds and combining them to form a recognizable word. For example, “What word is /s/ /k/ /u/ /1/?” (school)

5. Phoneme segmentation, which requires breaking a word into its sounds by tapping out or counting the sounds or by pronouncing and positioning a marker for each sound. For example, “How many phonemes are there in ship?” (three: /š/ /I/ /p/) 

6. Phoneme deletion, which requires recognizing what word remains when a specified phoneme is removed. For example, “What is smile without the / s/?” (mile)  

Acquiring phonemic awareness is a means rather than an end. It helps children to attend to and manipulate speech sounds in words and learn to spell. It is the basis of fluent reading. Why?

Phonics instruction

 Phonics instruction involves learning the alphabetic system, that is, letter- sound correspondences and spelling patterns, and learning how to apply this knowledge in reading.   The goal in phonics instruction is to enable learners to acquire sufficient knowledge and use of the alphabetic code so that they can make normal progress in learning to read and comprehend written language.

Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Knowledge about the mechanisms (processes, strategies) used in order to learn vocabulary as well as steps or actions taken by students (a) to find out the meaning of unknown words, (b) to retain them in long-term memory, (c) to recall them at will, and (d) to use them in oral or written mode. 

Can you give examples? 

 

Vocabulary Instruction Methods  

Five main methods of teaching vocabulary were identified:  

1. Explicit Instruction: Students are given definitions or other attributes of words to be learned.  2. Implicit Instruction: Students are exposed to words or given opportunities to do a great deal of reading. 

3. Multimedia Methods: Vocabulary is taught by going beyond text to include other media such as graphic representations and hypertext. 4. Capacity Methods: Practice is emphasized to increase capacity through making reading automatic.  5. Association Methods: Learners are encouraged to draw connections between what they do know and words they encounter that they do not know.   

Reading vocabulary is crucial to the comprehension processes of a skilled reader. 

Reading comprehension is a cognitive process that integrates complex skills and cannot be understood without examining the critical role of vocabulary learning and instruction and its development