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Hallie Kay Yopp Ruth Helen Yopp Supporting phonemic Playful and appealing activities awareness that focus on the sound structure of language support literacy development in development. the classroom lthough it is widely acknowledged can blend phonemes together to form words that phonemic awareness is important (/h/-/o/-/p/ is hop). They have the ability to no- Ain learning to read, considerable con- tice, mentally grab ahold of, and manipulate fusion remains about what phonemic awareness these smallest chunks of speech. is, the role it plays in reading development, and Phonemic awareness may be better under- how it should be addressed in classrooms. stood when placed in the context of two super- Some educators confuse the term phonemic ordinate constructs: phonological awareness and awareness with the terms auditory discrimina- metalinguistics. Phonemic awareness is a type tion, phonetics, or phonics and believe that a of phonological awareness, that is, the aware- new label has been invented for an old idea. This ness of the sound structure of language in gen- is not true. The term phonemic awareness refers eral. Phonological awareness refers to a to a construct relatively new in our understand- sensitivity to any size unit of sound. Thus, the ing of how children become readers. Although ability to generate and recognize rhyming related, phonemic awareness is different from words, to count syllables, to separate the begin- auditory discrimination, phonetics, and phon- ning of a word from its ending (e.g., as in the st ics. The definitions of each of these terms can be and op in the word stop), and to identify each of found in Figure 1. (See also Harris & Hodges, the phonemes in a word may each be an indica- 1995; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998.) The defin- tion of phonological awareness. Phonemic ition of phonemic awareness, also in Figure 1, awareness—a subset of phonological aware- is elaborated upon here. ness—refers to a sensitivity to and control over Phonemic awareness is the awareness that the phonemes. the speech stream consists of a sequence of Phonological awareness can, in turn, be sounds—specifically phonemes, the smallest placed into the larger context of metalinguistic unit of sound that makes a difference in com- awareness. Like metacognition, which entails munication. It is a phoneme that determines the thinking about one’s thinking (or cognition), difference between the words dog and hog, for metalinguistic awareness entails thinking about instance, and between look and lick. These dif- one’s language. It refers to one’s awareness of ferences influence meaning. Place these words and control over one’s language in general; it is in sentences (“You dog!” vs. “You hog!” and the ability to focus attention on language in and “Take a look” vs. “Take a lick”), and the power of itself, independent of meaning (see Hodges & of the phoneme becomes obvious. Individuals Harris, 1995; Tunmer, Herriman, & Nesdale, who are phonemically aware recognize that the 1988; Yaden & Templeton, 1986). speech stream is a sequence of these small Thus, phonemic awareness is one aspect of sounds. They can identify the three sounds in the phonological awareness which is one compo- spoken word fish (/f/-/i/-/sh/), for example, and nent of metalinguistic awareness. Copyright 2002 International Reading Association, Inc. All rights reserved. 5 Copyright 2002 International Reading Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Figure 1 Definition of terms Term Definition Example Auditory discrimination The ability to hear likenesses and Say these sounds: /t/ differences in phonemes and words /p/. Are they the same or different? Phonetics The study of the speech sounds that occur in The first sound in languages, including the way these sounds are pie is a bilabial—it is articulated made with the two lips. Phonics A way of teaching reading and spelling that The symbol m is stresses symbol-sound relationships used to represent the (in alphabetic orthographies) italicized sounds in the following words: ham, jump, my. Phoneme The smallest unit of speech sounds that makes The spoken word a difference in communication fly consists of three phonemes: /f/-/l/-/ı¯/. It differs from the word flea by one phoneme. Phonemic awareness The awareness that spoken language consists of How many sounds in a sequence of phonemes the spoken word, dog? Say all the sounds you hear. Phonemic awareness and reading language in print. (Although not a pure alpha- The awareness that the speech stream is betic orthography, English is considered funda- made up of a sequence of small units of sound mentally alphabetic.) The young child whose and the ability to manipulate those small units— writing is shown in Figure 2 clearly is attending to the sounds in her speech stream as she records phonemic awareness—appears to be critical for her ideas. readers of an alphabetic orthography. Why? The temporary or inventive spellings seen in Because an alphabetic orthography maps speech Figure 2 reveal much about how the child is to print at the level of the phoneme. In other thinking about the written system. This child has words, users of an alphabetic written system made the empowering discovery that users of record the smallest units of sound of their spoken English write down the smallest pieces of the language. In order for a beginning reader to cap- ture the logic of this written system, it appears Figure 2 that he or she must notice that running speech is A kindergartner’s inventive spelling of “I like my cousin” made up of a sequence of small sounds. Without this insight—without phonemic awareness—the symbol system is arbitrary. The task of dealing with the symbol system, then, can quickly be- come overwhelming. It is, in short, to one’s ad- vantage to be aware of the level of sounds that the written system encodes. Much has been said about phonemic aware- ness in the literature in recent years, and many states in the U.S. are addressing phonemic awareness in standards documents and even in legislation governing the funding of professional 6 Reprinted from The Reading Teacher, 54, 130–143, October 2000. Copyright 2002 International Reading Association, Inc. All rights reserved. development activities and the content of teacher argued that phonemic awareness instruction for training programs. Professional organizations young children should be playful and engaging, such as the International Reading Association are interactive and social, and should stimulate cu- publishing position statements on phonemic riosity and experimentation with language. awareness and its role in the teaching of reading Second, phonemic awareness instruction (International Reading Association, 1998). should be deliberate and purposeful. Although Influential documents such as the report of the some teachers have engaged their students in Committee on the Prevention of Reading playful language activities for years, they may Difficulties in Young Children (Snow et al., 1998) have done so without knowing the full value of recommend that kindergartners have some basic these activities. Any phonemic awareness de- phonemic awareness by the end of their kinder- velopment that resulted was incidental; it was garten year. Moreover, the report asserts that en- an unrecognized byproduct of the activities. Yet, hancing children’s abilities to attend to the sound Adams and Bruck (1995) emphasized that play- structure of spoken language should be a priority ful language activities will be most effective in goal in kindergarten classrooms. Every Child developing phonemic awareness if they are used Reading: An Action Plan of the Learning First with that goal in mind. Thus, in addition to being Alliance (1998) identifies phonemic awareness child appropriate, phonemic awareness instruc- as one of the most important foundations of read- tion should be intentional, not incidental (even ing success and recommends that its development accidental), in classrooms. be addressed in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Third, phonemic awareness instruction must School administrators and teachers of young be viewed by educators as only one part of a children are anxious to apply recent research much broader literacy program. Phonemic findings to practice and are looking for guidance. awareness development is not meaningful in and What does phonemic awareness instruction look of itself. It is important only in the context of like, they ask. How much time should be devot- comprehensive reading instruction. Indeed, ed to it? The purpose of this article is to provide Griffith and Olson (1992) argued that phonemic some guidelines for planning phonemic aware- awareness activities will not be helpful unless ness instruction and to share 14 activities that are they can be placed in a context of real reading representative of the type of instruction appro- and writing. Furthermore, teachers must recog- priate for children in preschool, kindergarten, nize that while sensitivity to the sound basis of and first-grade classrooms. language supports literacy development, it is also an outcome of literacy experiences. There- Phonemic awareness instruction fore, to overemphasize this component of litera- What does phonemic awareness instruction cy instruction in the initial years of schooling is look like in the classroom? First, most experts to limit children’s opportunities for more com- call for phonemic awareness activities that are prehensive literacy development. child appropriate (International Reading Assoc- In addition to these general guidelines, iation & the National Association for the Edu- teachers should consider various dimensions of cation of Young Children, 1998). Adams and phonemic awareness instruction when planning Bruck (1995), for instance, submitted that songs, and designing learning activities. These include chants, and word-sound games are ideally suit- the unit of sound to be emphasized, the type of ed toward developing young children’s sensitiv- operation to be performed on those units, and ity to the sound structure of language. Beck and whether the activities are to be strictly oral or Juel (1995) posited that time spent on word play, include concrete cues such as chips and letters.

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