Phonological Awareness (PA). Study after study has consistently linked the level of PA a child possesses prior to entering school to their ability to learn how to read and to their later reading development

University Degree Education and Teaching

Phonemic Awareness

Phonological Awareness (PA) has been a buzz word in preschool and elementary schools within the last decade. Study after study has consistently linked the level of PA a child possesses prior to entering school to their ability to learn how to read and to their later reading development (Love and Reilly, 2007.)

Research also revealed that PA was an essential skill for not only learning to read but also to write, and correctly spell. When PA has been part of a literacy program it has not only impacted future reading scores of children with written and oral language difficulties, it has also improved scores of children who have no problems with language (Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2004, Schuele & Bondreau, 2008.) Educators throughout the country reacted to these results by demanding that PA literacy programs be implemented into their curriculum.

Attention also became focused on phonological processing problems. PA is a skill which is a component of the larger abstract process of metalinguistics. Metalinguistics “refers to one’s thinking about one’s language in general [and ] the ability to focus attention on language in and of itself, independent of meaning” (Yopp and Yopp ,2000.) Tasks requiring metalinguistics not only require a child to think abstractly but to store language in short term memory. PA takes this language awareness one step further, it is a general understanding of the “sound structure of language in general. Phonological awareness refers to a sensitivity to any size unit of sounds (Yopp and Yopp,2000.)” To have PA allows you to recognize and count syllables within a word, to distinguish between parts of a word, and to identify the specific phonemes within a word. Once these individual phonemes can be identified, they can be removed, added or repositioned within a word to make a new word. “Phonological awareness is the ability to consciously reflect on or tune into the sound system of language, (Love and Reilly,2007). Tuning into the melodic aspects of PA allows you to produce and name rhyming words.

Another level of PA is phonemic awareness which involves the ability to link an individual speech sound or phoneme with a corresponding alphabetic letter. Once aware of the relationship between speech and the written word it needs to then be applied to reading, writing and spelling. Phonemic awareness is the key to the code of the arbitrary assignment of symbols to sounds,and the mental manipulation of these letters and phonemes. Although this may sound like an easy concept, for some children this relationship is difficult to understand. When children have difficulty they are said to have a phonological processing problem.. Studies have suggested at the core of phonological processing problems is the “inaccurate laying down, storage and retrieval of sounds, (Love and Reilly, 2007).” Part of phonemic awareness involves the understanding that the speech stream is made up of individual phonemes. Finding showing that the overwhelming majority of children who have difficulty grasping PA and phonemic awareness also have a history of oral language learning difficulty are not surprising (Schuele & Bondreau, 2008.”) This is further supported by the results of numerous studies that “reading originates in and relies upon the neural systems used for processing the sounds of language. (Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2004).” Studies have been done to find a cause of phonological processing issues. Many people with phonological processing issues have been identified as having a learning disability and 80% have been diagnosed with dyslexia. Although not all children with learning disabilities have dyslexia, those with language impairment may share similar ways of processing language. “Young children with expressive phonological impairment show similar patterns of phonologicalPHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS awareness difficulty as children with a genetic disposition for dyslexia (Caroll & Snowling, 2004). One study looking at brain activity during reading to see if those who diagnosed with dyslexia showed any differences at the cognitive processing level to those without dyslexia. When comparing the two groups of children during a reading task, those with normal reading ability “activated three neural systems for reading, one in the front of the brain and two in the back of the brain. In contrast, dyslexic readers under-activate the reading systems in the back of the brain and over-activate the systems in the front of the brain (Shaywitz, 2003.)” If a child with dyslexia is taught by teachers who are educated in reading instruction, specifically in phonemic awareness and PA they have been shown to progress an age appropriate reading level. (Shaywitz,and Shaywitz 2004.) Studies have also found those with deficits in PA and phonemic awareness seem to have inferior auditory processing speed. When auditory processing speed is impaired there is an increased demand placed on working memory. One study found that children who had difficulty with oral language were found to have difficulty processing variations in frequency or pitch. Speech is continuous and therefore the frequency,(pitch) is ever-changing. To identify differences in phonemes it requires an ability to distinguish changes in pitch. One researcher described this skill as “critical for language since speech is a series of rapidly successive acoustic changes that have to be tracked, encoded, and represented. When processing a word, the word needs to be broken down into individual sounds, decoded, and then reassembled and then processed once again as a whole (Tallal, 2003.) Although the decoding that is done through phonemic awareness is essential, without adequate processing speed and memory, information is lost preventing the ability to assign meaning to a unit of sound. This in turn interferes with the “mappings of letter-sound patterns (Love and Reilly, 2007)” Mapping of letter sound patterns is critical to word recognition, which is an ability essential in reading. Recognizing letter sound patterns also contributes to accurate spelling. PA is a critical skill, without it the learning process is disrupted. In today’s society PA is even more important than before. Educators and professionals in the field of speech language pathology are keenly aware of this fact. In a recent interview Dr. Dee Lance, a highly respected professor of the elite SpeechLanguage Pathology department of University of Central Arkansas strongly agreed with this statement. Lance specializes in the study of children and language acquisition. When asked if she saw any changes in research or treatment of those with delays in PA, her response was that there were currently no changes in treatment, instead what has changed is the impact of the disorder. She then discussed how society is becoming increasingly technology dependent and how culture is responding to this change. Today the majority of our communication is no longer face to face; instead communication is now by way of the internet. Reading and writing are necessary to daily living. Bills are paid online, personal and professional communication is done through emails and texts. In the past, one could get by without adequate reading and writing skills. Today this is no longer possible. This makes literacy critical to function in today’s society. (D.Lance, interview, November 14, 2011.) After the importance of PA was established and insight into what cognitive processes involved were uncovered studies began to focus on determining the best teaching techniques and strategies to be used for children to learn the skill. It was found to be effective PA must be taught in a progression, stressing specific elements while being seen as part of a bigger picture. The big picture being the application of phonological awareness in the context of reading, writing and spelling. If the skill is taught outside of this context it may not be generalized to these areas and thus losoe it’s effectiveness (Yopp and Yopp, 2000,(Schuele & Bondreau, 2008). PA is learned along a continuum, each skill overlapping with one another. At first the focus is being aware of the melodic characteristic of language, this is expressed in the ability to identify rhyming words. Then the next step is to be able understand that language is made up of sentences and these sentences can be broken down into words. After understanding this relationship then it is taken one step further, fist breaking down words into syllables, and then into the onset and rimes of the words and then finally into the specific sounds in the word..Once it is understood that each word has different sound parts, they can be isolated and manipulated. A child can now play around with sounds and exchange them, blend them and notice similarities between them. These concepts do not need to be learned in this specific order, some may be established at the same time. PA is not a “rigid sequence” not every child will put the pieces together exactly the same way. What is important is that when PA is being taught that it is taught with intention and the connection that is being established is continually addressed.These ideas also need to be taken and then applied in the larger picture of how they fit in to reading and writing. For example when telling a story that contains rhyming words, to state explicitly which words rhyme and which words do not and why. It is also equally as important to teach language

in an atmosphere that is playful and engaging. With children this can be done through word games, riddles, nursery rhymes. (Yopp and Yopp, 2000,(Schuele & Bondreau, 2008) Follow up studies are beginning to be done of children who had previously received
training in PA. Results have shown that PA training not only affects children in the short term but has long term influence as well. One researcher, Gail Gillion, conducted a study with children with language impairment which was published in 2000. These children received PA training and progressed significantly testing at or above their reading level. Dr. Gillion followed ...

Phonological Awareness (PA). Study after study has consistently linked the level of PA a child possesses prior to entering school to their ability to learn how to read and to their later reading development

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