Hi, teacher friend. Let’s talk listening skills: Every teacher hopes for a classroom full of students with good listening skills, right? Follow directions, pay attention, don’t interrupt, ask good questions… All these are skills that students will use throughout their educational journey. But there’s another essential skill that involves hearing, and it’s absolutely foundational to a child’s learning to read. Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds that make up spoken language. More than just listening, phonological awareness is the broad awareness of sound in general, but especially the sounds of speech. So let’s look at how we can effectively teach our students to help them develop the skill of phonological awareness. Keep reading to learn my tips for teaching phonological awareness in the classroom!
Teaching Phonological Awareness: “Listen Up!”
Phonological awareness involves hearing sounds; and we know that before our kiddos enter our classroom, they’re already used to hearing the sounds of spoken language. But there are basic, foundational abilities they need to develop in order to master sound recognition and manipulation, and it’s our job to help ensure students master those skills. As a basis for the later skills of phonics and decoding, our students are required to know a lot. They must be able to hear and recognize sentences, words, and rhymes. In addition to alliteration, segmenting & blending onsets & rimes, and syllabication—the breaking of words into syllables. And that’s just to name a few! I know..it’s a lot when you start listing the skills, but its essential for our kiddos to learn them! It is best that your students master this prior to encountering instruction in phonics and decoding.
Phonemic Awareness: “Break it Down”
While phonological awareness is the broad awareness of sounds, the more specific skill phonemic awareness involves hearing and understanding phonemes: the smallest units of sound in oral speech. The ability to isolate, segment and manipulate phonemes lays the foundational base for learning to read.
Research has shown that the foundation for reading is rooted in the systematic, explicit instruction of phonemic awareness and phonics. There are 44 phonemes in the English language. Before a child can learn to read, he or she must learn how to hear and manipulate our sounds. Before the teaching of phonics—the concepts of sound/letter relationships in printed text—can occur, a child must have a solid foundation of phonological and phonemic awareness skills.
The Alphabetic Principle and Phonics: “Put it Together”
When children learn that specific sounds and letters go together, they’ve learned the alphabetic principle. The alphabetic principle is the understanding of the way printed letters connect with the spoken sounds of language. But the first essential stepping-stones on their way to learning to decode is that foundation of phonological and phonemic awareness that must come before you can begin to introduce the rules of phonics.
So Where Do We Start?
The broad foundation of phonological awareness is the starting point for your instruction, and phonemic awareness falls under this umbrella. But phonological awareness instruction involves the teaching of so many skills. It may seem overwhelming to consider this aspect of lesson planning. I feel your pain, teacher friend, and that’s exactly why I’ve created a complete, 38-week phonological awareness curriculum! Click HERE to check out my Phonological Awareness with E.A.S.E. Unit.
Teaching Phonological Awareness with E.A.S.E.
What does the “EASE” stand for? I’m so happy you asked! The acronym “E.A.S.E.” represents the Explicit and Systematic Elements. This program makes it easy for you to introduce phonological awareness skills to the kiddos in your classroom.
You’ve probably seen some of the research on the science of reading that shows that the foundation for reading is established by the systematic and explicit instruction of phonemic awareness and phonics. That’s why this curriculum unit focuses on the research-based, foundational abilities. These abilities are necessary for students to gain phonological awareness and master sound recognition and manipulation.
Believe me, I know it’s hard to know where to start. It’s even more difficult to find fun, engaging activities that will get your kiddos excited in learning about different sounds The period of Kindergarten through third grade is a pivotal time in a child’s journey on the road to learning to read. We can’t afford to miss when it comes to our instructional approach. That’s why I couldn’t be more proud to recommend the Phonological Awareness with E.A.S.E. curriculum.
Packed Full of Phonological Goodness!
Filled with fun themes, engaging activities and 38 weeks of complete lesson plans, my Phonological Awareness with E.A.S.E. maps out an entire year of phonological awareness instruction. It will help your K-3 students strengthen their recognition and manipulation of spoken words. Each week has a specific sound focus, and these sound-focuses spiral, building on the skills learned in previous weeks. To ensure opportunities for practicing those skills, there are whole-group, small-group, partnered and independent activities included to meet the needs of your little learners. With these varied options, you can tailor your use of the curriculum to meet your daily and weekly instructional needs.
Thirty-eight fun, engaging themes like Pets, Space, Camping, Earth/Earth Day, Safari/Zoo, Beach, and more, will grab your students’ interest. Themes change weekly, and the activities for each day of the week focus on a specific phonological awareness skill. There are detailed, color-coded master lesson plans for all of the 15 phonological awareness skills you will teach every week. This will save you hours of time in planning and organization.
44 Phonemes? Yikes!
There are 44 phonemes in the english language. So our kiddos have a BIG challenge ahead of them as they start their journey towards literacy! And WE have the challenge of equipping them with strong phonological and phonemic awareness skills. Syllable segmentation…initial phoneme isolation…phoneme isolation, deletion, segmentation and blending…short & long vowels….r-controlled vowels…dipthongs and more. So many skills to cover! But my Phonological Awareness with E.A.S.E. curriculum has got you covered! Click here to get the details.
You’re a teacher, so I know your life is super busy, but thanks for spending a few minutes with me. Here’s to you, my brave and beautiful teacher friend. Wishing you excellence, enjoyment and ease on your teaching journey.
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Hugs,
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