Phonemic awareness training

Phonemic awareness training:
Application of principles of direct instruction.

Spector, J. E. (1995). Phonemic awareness training: Application of
principles of direct instruction. Reading & Writing Quarterly:
Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 11, 37-51.

Summarized by Allison Osterloh

Spector's article focuses on the importance of phonemic awareness training as it relates to the learning to read process. Research supports the notion that poor readers have difficulty using the sounds of language in processing written and oral information. Difficulties manifest themselves in tasks such as: identifying the sounds heard within words, naming objects, letters, and numbers, and retaining sounds and words in short-term memory. For those of you who support whole language methods of reading, this may not be good news. For those of you who support phonemic training, this may help you to design a more effective phonemic awareness training program.

What is the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading acquisition? Research indicates that students who are better readers realize that spoken words can be broken down into individual sounds and that individual sounds can be blended together to form words. Further evidence supports the fact that adults who are poor readers still have difficulty identifying the component sounds within spoken words, despite years of reading instruction. Children do not necessarily acquire knowledge of the alphabetic principle by virtue of exposure. Explicit phonemic awareness training is required to learn to read and write in an alphabetic system such as English.

As children first learn the structure of language, they break down an utterance into phrases or propositions (e.g. "I'm going;" "to the store"). Next, children segment phrases into individual words, followed by syllables. The most difficult task is to break words into sounds or phonemes. Research indicates that children with reading, writing, or learning disabilities appear to be less sensitive to the sounds within words and may need systematic instruction to ensure the development of phonemic awareness. Not all phonemic awareness training is the same. Phonics taught using a word family approach, e.g. fat, cat, sat, etc., does not introduce individual sounds and evidence suggests not all children will develop phonemic awareness from this. Phonics taught using letter-sound correspondence, e.g. puh-ah-tuh yields pot, does not provide instruction in recognizing that some words share phonemes which is crucial for phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness, being able to recognize that words are made up of sounds and that sounds make up words, should be systematically taught to children.

What are the recommendations for instruction? Two tasks that are most directly related to beginning reading are phoneme segmentation (analysis) and phoneme blending (synthesis). Research confirms that the most successful phonemic awareness training programs provide instruction in both analysis and synthesis as well as letter-sound recognition. An example of phoneme segmentation would be to say cat, then say it slowly holding up one finger for each phoneme in cat. An example of phoneme blending would be to have cat written out and move a finger under each letter making the sound of the letter. Then the word could be said quickly so that the sounds could form the words. Letter-sound recognition can be taught in a straight forward manner such as using a visual prompt and saying, "This sound is 'c.' What sound?" "C." This system of instruction is similar to SRA Reading Mastery or DISTAR.

Specific suggestions for instruction are:
(1) Begin with segmenting words with two sounds first; then work up to three and four sounds, etc.
(2) Have students practice words that begin with continuing sounds versus stop sounds. For example, sounds like f, s, m, l, and n can be blended without stopping between sounds versus sounds like k, t, b, and p which are likely to be pronounced with a schwa attached such as kuh or tuh. Blending the sounds in the word fan would remove the chance that a schwa would be attached to any phoneme.
(3) Introduce words with simple consonants versus consonant blends.
(4) Use the strategies you teach outside of phonemic training, such as sounding out a word during oral reading, to help students transfer skills.

Just as this article provided helpful hints for phonemic awareness training, I wanted to share with you a program I work with which incorporates these skills in a supplemental reading program. Peer Assisted Learning Strategies involves pairing students in elementary classes to work on the activities previously described plus provides additional partner reading practice. Research indicates students, especially lower achieving students, have made greater gains in reading using this approach than traditional methods of instruction.

I would be happy to provide you with further information if you are interested. You can contact me at: aeo6438@mailer.fsu.edu