Phonological Awareness - Mrs Badcock
Literacy-The Big 6
Research has shown that there are six key components that contribute to successful reading and because of the importance of these components, they have become known as the 'Big Six’: oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. The reading components of our school reading program focus on the Big Six.
Phonological Awareness
How does phonological contribute to reading success?
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognise and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words. Examples include being able to identify words that rhyme, recognising alliteration, segmenting a sentence into words, identifying the syllables in a word, and blending and segmenting onset-rimes. The most sophisticated — and last to develop — is called phonemic awareness.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. This includes blending sounds into words, segmenting words into sounds, and deleting and playing with the sounds in spoken words.
Phonological awareness (PA) involves a continuum of skills that develop over time and that are crucial for reading and spelling success, because they are central to learning to decode and spell printed words. Phonological awareness is especially important at the earliest stages of reading development — in pre-school, kindergarten, and Prep for typical readers.
Phonological Awareness at school
Instructional approaches to develope phonological awareness at school include the following:
- Word awareness-listening for words in spoken sentences.
- Syllable awareness-the speech sound “building blocks” of words.
- Rhyme-words that sound the same in the middle and at the end.
- Alliteration-words beginning with the same sound.
- Isolation-listening for the first, second, last sound.
- Segmenting-stretching out the sounds heard in words.
- Blending-converting sounds to words.
What can parents and caregivers do at home to encourage phonological awareness?
Phonological awareness skills start early as young children listen to and repeat rhyming texts and participate in word play.
Here are some ways parents and caregivers can encourage phonological awareness:
- Encourage your child to listen for words that rhyme when you say them aloud, such as fun, sun; hat, cat; and fish, wish.
- Classic Mother Goose rhymes can be fun to recite and sing. You can sing the rhymes, read nursery rhyme books, and use finger plays to act out a rhyme (i.e. The Itsy Bitsy Spider).
- Read rhyming books to and with your child. Many children’s books are filled with rhyming words and reading them aloud can help your child hear and recognise words that rhyme. Books by Dr. Seuss, Mem Fox, Julia Donaldson are excellent examples or stories such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear.
- Sing songs with your child. Songs like Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Hey Diddle Diddle and The Name Game are fun to sing with your child.