Phonemic awareness and phonics are two components of a balanced literacy program in K – 3 classrooms. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are made of sounds. Phonics builds on this awareness by teaching the relationships between sounds and letter-symbols. Research supports direct instruction of these components as a precursor to reading success. Commercially-published programs and books, software and apps, and numerous Internet sources can provide teachers with materials needed for a strong program of direct, explicit instruction. Kindergarten programs level attempt to level the playing field, as students begin school at various stages of reading readiness. Phonics builds on early phonemic awareness activities. By the time students
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Numerous studies also show there is a widening gap in reading between students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and their more affluent peers. Clearly, what takes place in the pre-school years matters very much to reading success. The kindergarten teacher has no control over what happened prior to a student’s arrival in her classroom; because the playing field is not level, the kindergarten program must meet the needs of all students in preparing them to become readers. Phonemic awareness is developed with various activities in the kindergarten classroom; these activities typically continue through first and second grades. Activities are oral activities, since they deal with the sounds in spoken words. Children demonstrate phonemic awareness in several ways, including:
• Recognizing which words in a set of words begin with the same sound (e.g., mat, mop, and mud all have /m/ at the beginning)
• Isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word (e.g., the beginning sound of dog is /d/. The ending sound of sit is …show more content…
Reading specialists Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell have developed a comprehensive phonics program that is available for different grade levels. The World Wide Web is also a resource for many teacher-tested ideas. According to the National Reading Panel Reports, effective programs do the following: teach children how to relate letters and sounds; break spoken words into sounds, and blend sounds to form words; help children understand why they are learning about letter-sound relationships; help children apply this knowledge as they read and write words, sentences, and texts/messages; include alphabetic knowledge, phonemic awareness, vocabulary development, and the reading of text; adaptability to the needs of individual students, as determined by assessments (“Phonics,”
Numerous studies also show there is a widening gap in reading between students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and their more affluent peers. Clearly, what takes place in the pre-school years matters very much to reading success. The kindergarten teacher has no control over what happened prior to a student’s arrival in her classroom; because the playing field is not level, the kindergarten program must meet the needs of all students in preparing them to become readers. Phonemic awareness is developed with various activities in the kindergarten classroom; these activities typically continue through first and second grades. Activities are oral activities, since they deal with the sounds in spoken words. Children demonstrate phonemic awareness in several ways, including:
• Recognizing which words in a set of words begin with the same sound (e.g., mat, mop, and mud all have /m/ at the beginning)
• Isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word (e.g., the beginning sound of dog is /d/. The ending sound of sit is …show more content…
Reading specialists Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell have developed a comprehensive phonics program that is available for different grade levels. The World Wide Web is also a resource for many teacher-tested ideas. According to the National Reading Panel Reports, effective programs do the following: teach children how to relate letters and sounds; break spoken words into sounds, and blend sounds to form words; help children understand why they are learning about letter-sound relationships; help children apply this knowledge as they read and write words, sentences, and texts/messages; include alphabetic knowledge, phonemic awareness, vocabulary development, and the reading of text; adaptability to the needs of individual students, as determined by assessments (“Phonics,”