Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness

1. Phonemes, the smallest units making up spoken language, combine to form syllables and words. Phonemic awareness refers to the student’s ability to focus on and manipulate these phonemes in spoken syllables and words

   • What Is Phonics?
     • Phonics is "a system of teaching reading that builds on the alphabetic principle, a system of which a central component is the teaching of correspondences between letters or groups of letters and their pronunciations"
       • Why Is Fluency Important?
         • Over 30 years of research indicates that fluency is one of the critical building blocks of reading, because fluency development is directly related to comprehension
           • The Importance of Vocabulary Development
             • the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world.” We continue to develop vocabulary throughout our lives. Words are powerful. Words open up possibilities, and of course, that’s what we want for all of our students
               • General Strategies for Reading Comprehension
                 • The process of comprehending text begins before children can read, when someone reads a picture book to them
                   • Making Inferences In order to make inferences about something that is not explicitly stated in the text, students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself.
                     • Spelling The National Reading Panel Report did not include spelling as one of the essential components of reading. The report implied that phonemic awareness and phonics instruction had a positive effect on spelling in the primary grades and that spelling continues to develop in response to appropriate reading instruction.
                       • Why Correct Spelling Is Important
                         • Correct spelling is still important. The National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges (2005) reported that 80 percent of the time an employment application is doomed if it is poorly written or poorly spelled. Here are other examples of situations where spelling is important
                           • Writing so others can read and understand  Recognizing the right choice from th  Filing alphabetically  Playing word games like Scrabble®e possibilities presented by a spell checker  Looking up words in a dictionary
                             • Spelling Is Important for Writing
                               • Research also bears out a strong relationship between spelling and writing: Writers who must think too hard about how to spell use up valuable cognitive resources needed for higher level aspects of composition