Phonics and Phonemic Awareness

Phonics and Phonemic Awareness

Introduction

This paper will demonstrate the five to seven techniques to teach phonics and promote phonemic awareness. It will also focus on the basic understanding about these domains, strategies, assessment and effort for helping students in achieving their educational goals.

Discussion Analysis

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness is the understanding of the words that are made up of phonemes and single units. These individual units have a significant impact on the meaning of the word. For instance, the word drum consists of 4 individual phonemes which are D R U M. changing any of these phonemes will change the meaning of the word significantly. For instance, if the word /d/ is replaced with /st/ drum will become strum. The meaning of the word strums which is a verb means making sound with the fingers by running them on the object. This is different from the original word which is drum. In order to get awareness regarding the phonemic awareness one need to have basic understanding of three concepts which are syllables rhymes and beginning sounds. Children who need to get acquainted with phonemes must be able to manipulate these basic concepts in order gain edge on reading.

Phonemic Awareness and impact on reading ability

Phonemic awareness indicates the child's ability to read and it also impacts the other basic components of reading. When phonemic awareness is strong, it helps children to decode the world and get a better understanding of what they are reading. The focus on phonemic understanding leads to increased ability of reading and understanding among the children. More phonemic awareness must be attained by the children in order to get better grip on reading and comprehending the material which they read.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological Awareness deals with the concept of understanding the sounds which are related to words and are used while pronouncing the words. Each word is made up of different sounds due to which and understanding and pronouncing them correctly makes the reader more effective. As soon as children are able to get the understanding of the sounds, they are also able to get awareness of the syllables and due to that children are also able to segment those words.

Techniques

Research suggests that majority of the phonological awareness can be learned by the students who have the ability of increasing their awareness of phonemes. Another important aspect is the teacher's training and self understanding regarding the phonological awareness. The teachers should be aware of the modern instructional activities can help the students to enhance their awareness of phonemes during the course of formal reading instruction. They should also bear in mind that a student's phonemic awareness gets polished with time and it also helps in developing the reading skills of the students.

The following techniques for instruction related to phonemic awareness are widely used:

When the student is at preschool level, try to engage the child in those activities which attract the attention through sounds and bodily actions. Rhyming and alliteration games work best in these ...