Phonological
Awareness Continuum
Listening
Rhyme/Alliteration
Sentence Segmenting
Syllable Blending/Segmenting
Onset-Rime Blending/Segmenting
Phoneme Blending/Segmenting (phonemic awareness)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Phonological Awareness is the explicit awareness of the sound structure of phonological structure of a spoken word. In other words, this is just the awareness of language. Phonological awareness does NOT involve print. The continuum above shows the process through which children learn. They all start at listening and progress through. Every child learns at a different speed, so there is not a certain speed at which one may aquire these skills. Here is a brief overview of the Phonological Awareness continuum:
Listening is just hearing words and sounds that are spoken.
Rhyme focuses on creating rhyming words whether they are real words or not.
ex. "What is a word that rhymes with dog?" some answers could be jog, log, and fog.
example of non real words is: "What is a word that rhymes with dog?" some answers could be zog, rog, and vog.
**Notice that children name off a word that rhymes, sometimes it is or is not a real word. But the point is
that they understnad what you are asking for.**
Alliteration focuses on the repititon of a particular sound.
ex. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Here the student identifies that the "p" sound is repeated.
Sentence Segmenting is being able to seperate sentences into words.
Syllable Blending/Segmenting is being able to chop a word into syllables or being able to blend syllables together to make a word.
ex. syllable blending pen and cil combined together make pencil
ex. syllable segmenting popcorn segmnted into syllables make pop and corn
Onset-Rime Blending/Segmenting is taking the onset of the word (first part of word, up until the first vowel) and blening it to the rest of the word or segmenting it from the rest of the word.
ex. onset-rime blend is fr- combied with og makes frog
ex. onset-rime segmenting is taking the word slide and seperating the sl- ide
Phoneme Blending/Segmenting is taking each sound in a word and seperating or blending them to form a word.
ex. Phoneme Blending is taking f-r-o-g and blending it together to make frog
ex. Phoneme Segmenting is taking the word boat and segmenting the sounds into b-oa-t
Phonological Awareness is the explicit awareness of the sound structure of phonological structure of a spoken word. In other words, this is just the awareness of language. Phonological awareness does NOT involve print. The continuum above shows the process through which children learn. They all start at listening and progress through. Every child learns at a different speed, so there is not a certain speed at which one may aquire these skills. Here is a brief overview of the Phonological Awareness continuum:
Listening is just hearing words and sounds that are spoken.
Rhyme focuses on creating rhyming words whether they are real words or not.
ex. "What is a word that rhymes with dog?" some answers could be jog, log, and fog.
example of non real words is: "What is a word that rhymes with dog?" some answers could be zog, rog, and vog.
**Notice that children name off a word that rhymes, sometimes it is or is not a real word. But the point is
that they understnad what you are asking for.**
Alliteration focuses on the repititon of a particular sound.
ex. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Here the student identifies that the "p" sound is repeated.
Sentence Segmenting is being able to seperate sentences into words.
Syllable Blending/Segmenting is being able to chop a word into syllables or being able to blend syllables together to make a word.
ex. syllable blending pen and cil combined together make pencil
ex. syllable segmenting popcorn segmnted into syllables make pop and corn
Onset-Rime Blending/Segmenting is taking the onset of the word (first part of word, up until the first vowel) and blening it to the rest of the word or segmenting it from the rest of the word.
ex. onset-rime blend is fr- combied with og makes frog
ex. onset-rime segmenting is taking the word slide and seperating the sl- ide
Phoneme Blending/Segmenting is taking each sound in a word and seperating or blending them to form a word.
ex. Phoneme Blending is taking f-r-o-g and blending it together to make frog
ex. Phoneme Segmenting is taking the word boat and segmenting the sounds into b-oa-t
Phonological Awareness Umbrella
The easiest way to understand phonological awareness is to look at it as a broad umbrella. Underneath it is the categories word awareness, syllable awareness, onset-rime aawareness and phoneme awareness.
Phoneme awareness is the awareness of each individual sound and being able to segment, blend and manipulte the sounds. Each one of the shovels is a different aspect of Phonemic Awareness.
Phonemic Awareness Activity:
Segmenting Syllables with Pictures
Below is a phonemic awareness activity that young children can do. I used a felt board for this activity. The teacher gives an example of how many syllables are in the word mountain. There are 2, "Moun" and "tain." Then below the teacher sets up a master copy for the students and the kids move the pictures to the master picture. As they are placing them they say the syllable to that word. For instance monster, the child moves the first part of monster and says, "mon." they find the other half of the word and move it and say, "ster." The child then blends the syllables and says "mon" and "ster" makes "monster." this activity is used with 2, 3 and 4 syllable words depending on the childs need of difficulty.
Phoneme awareness is the awareness of each individual sound and being able to segment, blend and manipulte the sounds. Each one of the shovels is a different aspect of Phonemic Awareness.
Phonemic Awareness Activity:
Segmenting Syllables with Pictures
Below is a phonemic awareness activity that young children can do. I used a felt board for this activity. The teacher gives an example of how many syllables are in the word mountain. There are 2, "Moun" and "tain." Then below the teacher sets up a master copy for the students and the kids move the pictures to the master picture. As they are placing them they say the syllable to that word. For instance monster, the child moves the first part of monster and says, "mon." they find the other half of the word and move it and say, "ster." The child then blends the syllables and says "mon" and "ster" makes "monster." this activity is used with 2, 3 and 4 syllable words depending on the childs need of difficulty.
The "Tooty Ta" song is a great and fun way to practice alliteration with friends and family. This song practices the "t" sound. Have fun dancing! :)
Want to help?
Ways for parents to help their children at home:
Read to your children
Practice sound games with your child
I will send home links to videos or post them on here as I find more.
You can make up word blends to ask your children! Just use any simple word that is at their level. For example, you say the word "lamp" and you ask your child to seperate each sound they hear. Use some of my examples from above, to get you started.
Read to your children
Practice sound games with your child
I will send home links to videos or post them on here as I find more.
You can make up word blends to ask your children! Just use any simple word that is at their level. For example, you say the word "lamp" and you ask your child to seperate each sound they hear. Use some of my examples from above, to get you started.
How we assess your child's knowledge:
Depending on the school disctrict there are various ways to test a child's phonological awareness. Most of the time it is when I pull the child aside, either by themselves or in a group of 3-5 children. I practice with them and see what they know. Some districts participate in the Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI), which tests their phonological awareness and their scores are submitted to the state. The test tests a variety of different phonological items. The scores from the tests show me where your child is in learning phonological awareness and what I need to focus on with your child to help support their instructional needs.
I will always consult with the guardian to tell you how your child did. Otherwise this information is kept in privacy.
Sources:
Next Steps in Literacy Instruction Connecting Assessments to Effective Interventions by: Susan M Smartt and Deborah R. Glasser
National Reading Panel
Next Steps in Literacy Instruction Connecting Assessments to Effective Interventions by: Susan M Smartt and Deborah R. Glasser
National Reading Panel