Phonological and Phonemic Awareness in the Primary Language Curriculum
This e-Bulletin will focus on developing Phonological and Phonemic Awareness, Learning Outcome 4, Reading: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness, Toradh Foghlama 4, Léitheoireacht: Feasach Fhóineolaíoch agus Fhóinéimeach
There is scope for the learning experiences described here to be used or adapted when addressing other Learning Outcomes across the Primary Language Curriculum / Curaclam Teanga na Bunscoile.
Freastalaíonn an e-bulletin seo ar chur chun cinn an Bhéarla agus na Gaeilge le páistí bunscoile.
Reading: Learning Outcome 4: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
Léitheoireacht:Toradh Foghlama: Feasacht Fhóineolaíoch agus Fhóinéimeach
What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness is the ability to listen to, recognise, and manipulate the sounds of spoken language.
"It is an umbrella term that includes an awareness of words within a sentence, syllabic awareness, an understanding of onset and rime, and phonemic awareness" (NCCA, 2015).
"Phonological Awareness differs from phonics because it is based on the sounds that we hear rather than the letters on a page" (NCCA, 2015 p.1).
"Phonological and phonemic awareness must be explicitly and systematically taught in the early years of school"(Kennedy et al. 2023, p.207).
Phonological Awareness Continuum
"Phonological Awareness can be placed on a development continuum, beginning with basic listening skills and progressing through an ability to identify rhyme and alliteration and to distinguish words within sentences. The continuum extends to include an awareness of syllables within words and onset and rime within words, until children are able to manipulate individual phonemes within words" (NCCA 2015, p.1).
While the continuum represents the developmental sequence for phonological awareness instruction. It is not essential that mastery be achieved at one level of phonological awareness before progressing to the next level. Rather than seeing these progression steps as discrete and linear, skills can be developed across a number of steps simultaneously. In other words, when a child has developed some skill at one level, it is appropriate to work at another level. A teacher can work from sentence level up to phoneme level in one lesson, if appropriate.
Below are task cards which detail learning expereinces that could be used for each step of the continuum, both in English and Gaeilge.
Listening/ Éisteacht
As we focus on developing listening skills with children, we ensure they are actively able to listen for components of language. These listening skills can be developed both explicitly and implicitly.
Implicit development happens through exposure to language rich environments, oral language and interactions with print, such as listening to stories being read for pleasure, book reading and engagement in purposeful listening.
Explicit development occurs by means of specific targeted listening tasks, for example, when children tune into environmental sounds or listen to specific audio clips, a child with strong listening skills will be able to listen to a series of sounds and name them in the correct order.
Introducing the concept of initial, final and medial sounds here will prove very beneficial as you progress to smaller, more complex phonological units.
Rhyme and Alliteration/ Rím agus Uaim
Traditionally, children’s knowledge of rhyme has been seen as a reliable predictor of future reading acquisition. However, there is some evidence that early difficulty with rhyme is more of a predictor of future difficulty with higher level skills of phonemic awareness (Shanahan, 2015).
Rhyme is a complex skill and one that benefits from being constantly spiraled back to. It begins by simply enjoying and reciting rhymes and progresses to imitating, then identifying rhymes, then distingushing rhymes and then finally producing rhymes.
Alliteration is on the phonological awareness continuum because as young children hear and notice words that begin with the same sound, they are also identifying initial sounds/ phonemes in a playful and holistic way. Drawing children's attention to alliterative phrases such as ‘Paula planted pink poppies in a pot’ enables them to enjoy and play with language in a natural setting whilst setting them up for success as they move to higher order tasks like separating the onset from the rime or identifying or isolating the initial sound in a word.
Sentence Segmentation, Syllables and Onset & Rime/ Deighlit Abairt, Siollaí agus Tús Foghar & Foghar Deireadh
The above image describes the type of manipulation which can occur with each sound unit. This includes not only the ability to recognise the manipulation but also, more crucially, the ability to perform it. Manipulation of the sound unit can take many forms and tasks range in complexity from easy to difficult. Isolating syllables or phonemes is easier than blending them; blending is easier than segmenting and manipulating is the most complex task of all (Kilpatrick, 2016).
Phonemic awareness provides the foundation on which phonics instruction is built. Thus, children need solid phonemic awareness instruction for phonics instruction to be effective. (Blevins, 1997 p.6)
Phonemes/Fóinéimí
Phonemic awareness refers to the specific ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.
Phonemes are the smallest units comprising spoken language.
Phonemes combine to form syllables and words. For example, the word 'mat' has three phonemes: /m/ /a/ /t/.
There are 44 phonemes in the English language, including sounds represented by letter combinations such as /th/.
Acquiring phonemic awareness is important because it is the foundation for spelling and word recognition skills.
Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of how well children will learn to read during the first two years of school instruction.
(www.readingrockets.org)
Transfer of Skills
Once a child develops specific phonological awareness skills, like rhyme, syllables and sentence segmentation in their first language, these skills can be transferred to subsequent languages such as Gaeilge.
In the video below, we see Aoife teaching for the transfer of skills with a particular focus on Phonological Awareness. The explicit teaching of specific phonological awareness skills were well developed in English and had been explicitly taught in the weeks prior to the video.
When considering the transfer of skills in your classroom, it is important to remember that children need to develop the language skills in their first language before teaching for the transfer to a subsequent language.
Glossary
References
Blevins, W. (1997). Phonemic awareness activities for early reading success: Easy, playful activities that help prepare children for phonics instruction. Scholastic.
Fiorentini, C. M. (2021). claramariafiorentini/post/let-s-talk-tongue-twisters. Available at: https://www.claramariafiorentini.com/post/let-s-talk-tongue. Retrieved, April 10 2023 from https://www.claramariafiorentini.com/post/let-s-talk-tongue.
Kennedy, E., Shiel, G., French, G., Harbison, L., Leahy, M., Ó Duibhir, P., & Travers, J. (2023). Towards a new literacy, numeracy and digital literacy strategy: A review of the literature. Department of Education (Ireland).
Kilpatrick, D. (2016). Equipped for reading success: A comprehensive, step by step program for developing phonemic awareness and fluent word recognition. Casey & Kirsch.
National Council for Curriculum and Assessment [NCCA] (2015). Phonological Awareness Curriculum Support Material. Available at https://curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/0760d1ed-5ba4-4cda-a647-8994f255bc6c/Phonological-Awareness.pdf
Reallygreatreading. (2019). https://www.reallygreatreading.com/six-layers-phonemic-awareness. Retrieved June, 7, 2023 from https://www.reallygreatreading.com/six-layers-phonemic-awareness.
Shanahan, T. (2015). Is Rhyming Ability important in Reading? https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-on-literacy/rhyming-ability-important-reading
Credits:
Created with an image by Ben White - "untitled image"