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Phonemic Understanding

Phonemic awareness is not a skill or strategy, but is an essential understanding that must be developed before and while a student learns to read. It is an understanding that speech is composed of a series of individual sounds. For example, most kindergarten children know what a cat is, but few know that it is made up of a series of sounds, or phonemes /k/, /a/, and /t/. Phonemic awareness is a reciprocal skill in that it is both a prerequisite for and a consequence of learning to read.

In two separate studies, (Bradley & Bryant, 1983: Lundberg, Frest, & Peterson, 1988 as cited in Yopp 1992), kindergarten children who were given phonemic awareness training became significantly better readers and spellers in first grade. This remained true even when socioeconomic factors were held constant. In another study the level of phonemic awareness a child had entering first grade indicated their level of success in grade four.

Although I teach first grade and not kindergarten, I still have children who need phonemic awareness training. I have always had children who are able to isolate very few sounds in words or consistently miss the second letter in blends (they will only hear the "b" in brick and no "r"). I also have children who do not hear rhyming words and despite numerous examples (cat, rat, sat, fat, Matt) will insist that "car" rhymes with "cat."

Yopp and Ivers (1988 as cited in Yopp 1992) developed a series of activities teachers could easily implement to develop phonemic awareness. Yopp and Troyer (1992 as cited in Yopp 1992) field tested them and proved that children significantly gained from the activities in comparison to a control group who did not receive the training and showed no gains.

I used many of these strategies and noticed an improvement in my students overall spelling, but particularly noticed an improvement in my children who were having extreme difficulty with invented spelling. I also found that my children would carry information over into their reading. They constantly came to me and said things like, "Look, this work is just like the tr song." The best part of the activities was that they required little prior planning and no materials and that all students, whether they already had developed phonemic awareness or not loved the activities and often requested them.

For example, Yopp and Ivers suggest an activity to help match sounds in the beginning of the word. Since my children were in the middle of First Grade when I began this, I adapted it so children had to think of the end of a word. To the tune of "Jimmy Cracked Corn and I Don't Care" I sang:

Who has a /d/ word to share with us?
Who has a /d/ word to share with us?
Who has a /d/ word to share with us?
It must END with the /d/ sound.
A student may say "bird," "David," "hard," etc. The class would then together sing:

Bird is a word that ends with /d/.
Bird is a word that ends with /d/.
Bird is a word that ends with /d/.
Bird ends with the /d/ sound.
In the above activity children had to think of a word for a given sound. The next activity requires just the opposite. Children are given a word and have to tell what sound occurs at the beginning, middle, or end. The tune used is "Old Mac Donald Had a Farm."

What's the sound that starts the words?
Chicken, chin, and cheek?
(wait for children's response)
/ch/ is the sound that starts these words,
Chicken, chin, and cheek.
With a /ch/,/ch/ here and a /ch/, /ch/ there,
Here a /ch/, there a /ch/, everywhere a /ch/, /ch/.
/ch/ is the sound that starts these words,
Chicken, chin, and cheek.
The middle of the word can be the focus as in the following example:

What's the sound in the middle of these words"
Leaf and deep and meat?
/ee/ is the sound in the middle of these words..........
Likewise the end can be the focus:

What's the sound at the end of these words?
Duck and cake and beak?
/k/ is the sound at the end of these words....
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