Why is phonology important
Why Phonological Awareness Is Important for Reading and Spelling
By: Louisa Moats, Carol Tolman
The phonological processor usually works unconsciously when we listen and speak. It is designed to extract the meaning of what is said, not to notice the speech sounds in the words. It is designed to do its job automatically in the service of efficient communication. But reading and spelling require a level of metalinguistic speech that is not natural or easily acquired.
On the other hand, phonological skill is not strongly related to intelligence. Some very intelligent people have limitations of linguistic awareness, especially at the phonological level. Take heart. If you find phonological tasks challenging, you are competent in many other ways!
This fact is well proven: Phonological awareness is critical for learning to read any alphabetic writing system (Ehri, 2004; Rath, 2001; Troia, 2004). Phonological awareness is even important for reading other kinds of writing systems, such as Chinese and Japanese. There are several well-established lines of argument for the importance of phonological skills to reading and spelling.
Phoneme awareness is necessary for learning and using the alphabetic code
English uses an alphabetic writing system in which the letters, singly and in combination, represent single speech sounds. People who can take apart words into sounds, recognize their identity, and put them together again have the foundation skill for using the alphabetic principle (Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989; Troia, 2004). Without phoneme awareness, students may be mystified by the print system and how it represents the spoken word.
Students who lack phoneme awareness may not even know what is meant by the term sound. They can usually hear well and may even name the alphabet letters, but they have little or no idea what letters represent. If asked to give the first sound in the word dog, they are likely to say "Woof-woof!" Students must be able to identify /d/ in the words dog, dish, and mad and separate the phoneme from others before they can understand what the letter d represents in those words.
Phoneme awareness predicts later outcomes in reading and spelling
Phoneme awareness facilitates growth in printed word recognition. Even before a student learns to read, we can predict with a high level of accuracy whether that student will be a good reader or a poor reader by the end of third grade and beyond (Good, Simmons, and Kame'enui, 2001; Torgesen, 1998, 2004). Prediction is possible with simple tests that measure awareness of speech sounds in words, knowledge of letter names, knowledge of sound-symbol correspondence, and vocabulary.
The majority of poor readers have relative difficulty with phoneme awareness and other phonological skills
Research cited in Module 1 has repeatedly shown that poor readers as a group do relatively less well on phoneme awareness tasks than on other cognitive tasks. In addition, at least 80 percent of all poor readers are estimated to demonstrate a weakness in phonological awareness and/or phonological memory. Readers with phonological processing weaknesses also tend to be the poorest spellers (Cassar, Treiman, Moats, Pollo, & Kessler, 2005).
Instruction in phoneme awareness is beneficial for novice readers and spellers
Instruction in speech-sound awareness reduces and alleviates reading and spelling difficulties (Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1998; Gillon, 2004; NICHD, 2000; Rath, 2001). Teaching speech sounds explicitly and directly also accelerates learning of the alphabetic code. Therefore, classroom instruction for beginning readers should include phoneme awareness activities.
Phonological awareness interacts with and facilitates the development of vocabulary and word consciousness
This argument is made much less commonly than the first four points. Phonological awareness and memory are involved in these activities of word learning:
- Attending to unfamiliar words and comparing them with known words
- Repeating and pronouncing words correctly
- Remembering (encoding) words accurately so that they can be retrieved and used
- Differentiating words that sound similar so their meanings can be contrasted
Why is Phonological Awareness So Important?
This post originally appeared on the blog Clever Classroom.
This post includes the following reading points:
Hey-ho! I just love all things literacy and specifically working with words. I want to delve deeper into phonological development, because… well… I just love it! I’m a bit of a nerd that way! Are you too?
You know that phonological and phonemic awareness skills are important and also necessary to understand as a Pre-K-2 teacher.
It is vital that you know and understand what phonological and phonemic awareness is, as it is the foundation for reading success.
According to Calfee, Lindamood & Lindamood, 1973: Children’s ability to attend to, and manipulate phonemes strongly correlate with their reading success through to the end of their schooling.
It can be tricky to wrap your head around. You may be confused by the terminologies, definitions, skills sets and acquisition. Well this is the place for you!
Lap it all up in one neat blog post that can also be downloaded fo’ free you all! Let’s get down to it straight up!
What is Phonological Awareness and why is it so Important?
Phonological awareness skills are the basis for reading.
Without these important skills, potential reading difficulties may arise in the early years.
A child who has concrete phonological skills will have a strong platform in which to develop reading skills.
What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sound structures within words.
Click here to download the image above fo’ FREE!
Phonological skills include:
Rhyme: rhyme awareness and construction
Alliteration: Discrimination and production
Sound and Word Discrimination: Hears units of sounds within a sentence, identifies which word is different
Syllabification: Syllable segmenting and blending
Onset and Rime: Blending and segmenting
Don’t confuse phonological awareness and phonemic awareness! While phonemic awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness, it is just one aspect of phonology.
What is Phonemic Awareness?
Phonemic awareness is one part of phonological awareness.
Phonemic awareness deals with the phoneme. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds aurally.
A phoneme is usually defined as the smallest unit of sound.
Phonics is the system in which sound structures and phonemes are represented.
Phonemic Awareness Skills (also fits under the phonological awareness skills umbrella) include:
Individual Phoneme Skills (aural, no print involved):
Individual Phoneme Isolation:(beginning medial and final): Isolates phoneme in given word
Individual Phoneme Blending: Blends phonemes to make a word.
Individual Phoneme Segmenting: Identifies phonemes in words
Syllable Manipulation:
Syllable (onset-rime) Deletion: Deletes onset and then rime in given words
Syllable (onset-rime) Substitution: Substitutes onset and then rime to make new words
Phoneme Manipulation:
Phoneme Deletion: beginning and final
Phoneme Addition: Adds phoneme to make a new word
Phoneme Substitution: Substitutes a phoneme to make a new word
Note: Phonological skill sets seen above are in chronological order of assessment and teaching.
Why is Phonological Awareness so Important?
Phonological awareness is a vital set of skills that allows us to learn how to read.
Phonological awareness skills provide children with a means to access the written form; phonics. You might know phonics as sound and letter combinations used to represent words.
Research suggests that trouble with phoneme awareness and phonological skills early on is a gauge for poor reading and spelling skills.
According to the National Reading Panel Report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), “The level of phonemic awareness that children possess when first beginning reading instruction and their knowledge of letters are the two best predictors of how well they will learn to read during the first two years of formal reading instruction.” (Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler: 1998 -Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum).
What does this Mean for me as an Educator?
Did you know that:
“According to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 37 percent of fourth graders and 26 percent of eighth graders cannot read at the basic level; and on the 2002 NAEP 26 percent of twelfth graders cannot read at the basic level.
That is, when reading grade appropriate text these students cannot extract the general meaning or make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, they cannot understand what they have read.” Reference: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
Based on this and similar research outcomes, it is vital that early childhood educators understand both phonological and phonemic awareness skills. It is necessary that these skills are explicitly assessed in the first year of formal schooling and again in the second year.
Moreover, teachers need to understand how to integrate phonological and phonemic awareness curriculums for their emergent readers.
Most importantly, it is essential that teachers have access to systematic intervention resources that complement individuals. These skills are most important for Pre-K, to first grade as they are the foundation for reading, as covered. Children with reading difficulties, may benefit in re-assessment and interventions.
How will Assessing and Providing Interventions Help my Students with their Phonics Development?
We know that a robust phonics base curriculum (among other things like: comprehension, vocabulary and fluency) lends itself to higher reading outcomes.
Comparatively, the same applies with the relationship between phonological and phonemic awareness skills, and phonics skills.
We spend a lot of time planning, implementing and assessing phonics skills and knowledge. Is this to the detriment of more foundational skills? Do the students struggling to grasp: letter-sound relationships, vowel sounds, r-controlled vowels, and other spelling conventions actually struggle on a deeper level? Have you assessed these students’ phonological and phonemic awareness skills? Are they missing something that can easily be revisited with an intervention session?
Where can I Find Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Assessments and Interventions for my Students?
There are many sites on the net that provide basic assessments.
However, I found many of them frustrating as I needed a more global assessment that was explicit for the developmental ranges in my students. So many sources seemed to leave out key skills, aghhh. After a year of investigating what will work, I came up with my own systemic and explicit assessment.
Here are the skills the assessments will cover.
Click here to download it fo’ FREE!
After almost 6 months, I devised a HUGE phonological and phonemic awareness assessment and intervention bundle that is conveniently, a ‘grab and go’ resource. I wanted to create intervention printables that involve very minimal prep, just copy, grab counters and die, and that’s about it! Click the images below to see the BUNDLE.
In the intervention digital download you have access to: information pages, tracking pages, assessment pages, as well as print and go games for interventions. I know children learn best from hands-on activities like games so I have included a few for each skill (as seen in skills listed above in the boxes).
The games are all black and white so you can place them in a binder, each inside plastic sleeves, or laminated. They will be ready to use at a moment’s notice with individuals or small groups.
Above is a snapshot of the Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Binder. Photos of the binder can be viewed here.
This will be a great time saver, not to mention an explicit and systematic way to ensure you’re assessing and teaching phonological and phonemic awareness skills and preparing competent readers.
Thanks for dropping by, I hope this post has been of value to you.
You can download the entire blog post for free here.
Happy word work!
Emma
***
Emma Farrell has 12 years of experience working with Pre-K to grade 2. She has a diploma in Social Science, and an Early Childhood degree. Emma has worked in special education and has extensive experience with ELLs. She is passionate about all things reading, especially word work.
Emma understands the importance of hands-on learning, both her Clever Classroom resources, and blog reflect this. Teachers who follow Emma on her buzzing Facebook page; Clever Classroom, are inspired by the reading ideas she shares. Emma is also an influential pinner on Pinterest, who aims to help teachers find literacy resources and ideas.
Foreword
This study guide Practical exercises in phonetics of the Russian language is intended for first-year Russian students of the Pedagogical Faculty of the Masaryk University in Brno, specifically, it is to be the basis for the Phonetics Exercises 1 and 2 (Fonetická cvičení 1 a 2) course and is designed for two semesters of study. The manual is therefore divided into two parts.
In the first part, the phonetic system of the Russian language is considered, the characteristics and features of the pronunciation of some Russian vowels and consonants, with special attention to those that make up the most difficult pronunciation for Czechs, for example, pronunciation of soft and hard consonants, pronunciation of Russian "l" and "u", pronunciation of "e", "yu", "ya" and "e" in different positions, reduction of Russian vowels, etc.
Attention is also paid to the Russian stress and rhythm of the Russian word. Not the last place in the manual occupy the rules of transcription of Russian sounds. Here we used the signs of the so-called. "practical transcription", which, for example, uses in his manual Exercises in the phonetics of the modern Russian language L. Lizalova and put into use by the famous Russian linguist E. A. Bryzgunova (see the list of used literature).
In the second part of the manual, we deal with the intonation of the Russian sentence and give a description and examples of the use of all seven intonation structures of the Russian language, again, relying mainly on the works of E.A. Bryzgunova, especially about her work Sounds and intonation of Russian speech . In addition to materials on the theory of phonetics and phonology, explanations of basic terms and concepts, the main thing in our manual is practical exercises on various phonetic phenomena.
The material is designed so that students, with the help of a teacher, already in the first year they were familiarized with the difficulties of Russian pronunciation and intonation, and studied from the very beginning of learning Russian language, its correct pronunciation. Therefore, we have supplemented our manual with an audio recording of most of the exercises on CD, written by a Russian-speaking speaker for better mastering of the material by students. Nobody argues today that phonetics and phonology play a crucial role in learning a foreign language, and that, in addition to mastering vocabulary and grammar rules, it is very important for students to learn the correct pronunciation and intonation, since without this it is impossible to actually master a foreign language the language and speech of the speaker without the correct pronunciation and intonation will not be understood by the native Russian listener.
Pedagogical the faculty prepares, first of all, future teachers of the Russian language, and it is very important that they themselves learn to speak correctly in Russian. We hope that in achieving this goal, our handbook on the phonetics of the Russian language will also provide them with significant assistance.
For better orientation of students in the subject of phonetics and phonology, we have supplemented our manual with a glossary of the most important terms and concepts.
Based on methodological considerations, and for better clarity and orientation in the text of the manual, we have omitted from giving specific authors of quotes and borrowed material directly in the text of the manual. In our work, we relied on the already existing works of Russian and Czech linguists, while trying to be as independent as possible. The main source of theoretical knowledge on phonetics and the phonology of the Russian language, we were served by the textbook of the famous Czech linguist - Russianist Z.
Oliverius Phonetics of the Russian language . In practical exercises, we relied on the textbook, as already mentioned above, by L. Lizalova Exercises on the phonetics of the modern Russian language , on the work of Odintsova Sounds, rhythm, intonation and the textbook by E. L. Barkhudarova and F. I. Pankov Russian with good pronunciation. Practical course of sounding speech. Our main task and the goal of the project was to compile for our students with the help of an affordable modern literature a visual, generalizing guide to the phonetics of the Russian language, where the main attention is paid to practical exercises . Each chapter is therefore designed for one lesson of the Phonetic Exercises (Fonetická cvičení) seminar.
A complete list of references we used is given at the end of the manual.
Irina Gobzova, author of the manual
First of all, I would like to thank Katarina Gertlova for the Russian-language notes for her help in working on the manual exercises and to Josef Strubl for technical support and production of CD recordings.
What child's abilities influence successful mastering of mathematics – News – IQ Research and Education Portal – HSE University
HSE researchers have shown that a child's phonological abilities (sensitivity to the sound composition of speech, the ability to identify individual sounds and syllables) are related to their mathematical achievements in elementary school. However, the relationship between sound speech sensitivity and math acquisition varies depending on the socioeconomic status of the child's family.
The results of the research work are published in the preprint The effect of phonological ability on math is modulated by socioeconomic status in elementary school.
According to many researchers, mathematical skills are the key to mastering the school curriculum in the field of exact and natural sciences. Mathematical achievement is considered an important factor in choosing educational paths and professional development in the field of science and technology.
That is why many studies in the field of education are aimed at identifying early cognitive predictors (prognostic parameters) of mathematical achievement. This allows, among other things, to identify children for whom the development of mathematics is problematic and to plan possible correction programs.
Discussing the prerequisites for mathematical achievement, many researchers distinguish between non-specific (general) cognitive predictors and specific ones (only for mathematics). General cognitive abilities include, for example, intelligence or working memory. These are the factors that are associated with academic achievement in any field, whether it be mathematics, reading or a foreign language. Specific mathematical predictors include, for example, knowledge of numbers and understanding of their sequence, spatial abilities. Phonological ability in this classification refers to specific predictors for reading.
Phonological abilities in a broad sense are understood as sensitivity to the sound structure of speech.
More narrowly, three main components of phonological abilities are also distinguished: phonological awareness (awareness), i.e. the ability to recognize and operate with individual speech sounds, phonological memory and lexical access.
More recently, a hypothesis has arisen that phonological abilities are also important for mastering mathematics. For example, when solving text problems, the ability to translate visual information into sound information and vice versa may be involved. Also, some studies have shown that phonological awareness is required to perform those mathematical operations that involve retrieving facts from long-term memory, such as when performing addition and multiplication. In addition, when solving mathematical problems, working memory is used, one of the elements of which is the phonological loop, where information is stored in a sound format.
Phonological is a component of working memory that is involved in the processing of sound information.
The words to be memorized are "spoken out" by the inner voice with the help of the phonological loop.
At the same time, it remained unclear whether phonological abilities are directly related to mathematical achievement, or whether this relationship can be explained by the fact that children with a higher level of phonological abilities master reading better. And this gives them advantages, for example, when solving word problems.
In terms of the number of respondents, the work of the Center for Monitoring the Quality of Education of the National Research University Higher School of Economics has become one of the largest studies of the relationship between phonological abilities and mathematical achievements of first-graders. The sample included 2948 first grade students. Their phonological abilities and mathematical achievements were measured twice - at the beginning of the school year (October 2017) and at the end (May 2018).
Mathematical achievements were assessed using the Russian-language version of the iPIPS (International Performance Indicator in Primary School) tool, which was adapted and validated in 2013-2015.
To measure phonological abilities, children were asked to complete two types of tasks. The first is for phonological memory. The child was told either a real-life word or an invented one, and he had to quickly repeat it. The second is phonological awareness. The child had to find a rhyme to the proposed word from the four available options.
Examples of addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers and word problems were included in the tasks for assessing mathematical achievements. The ability to correctly name two-, three- and four-digit numbers, which were visually presented, was also separately assessed.
In addition, the speed and ease of reading of the child and the extent to which he is able to understand the read text were taken into account.
The researchers also looked at the socioeconomic status (SES) of the student's family. Previous research has shown that children with low SES perform worse in both math and reading. The presence or absence of higher education in the mother of the child, as well as the number of books in the family, were used as SES indicators.
In addition, the researchers took into account the possible bilingualism of the student. Since the study was conducted in Kazan, some of the children, according to their parents, used the Tatar language at home. At the same time, school teaching for all was in Russian.
The results of the study showed that children who have a higher level of phonological abilities demonstrate better achievements in mathematics. At the same time, the relationship of phonological abilities with mathematical success remains significant even when reading skills and knowledge of numbers are taken into account. This reflects the independent contribution of phonological abilities to mathematical achievement.
First-graders from families whose mothers had higher education showed better results both at the beginning of the school year and higher progress during the year. Meanwhile, indicators of cultural capital (number of books and knowledge of a second language) had no effect on the mathematical achievements of children at the beginning and end of the first grade.
In addition, it was found that the relationship of phonological abilities with mathematical performance differs for children with different SES. For children from families with more books at home, this relationship was higher than for children with fewer books at home. This may indicate a higher involvement of phonological processes in the course of solving mathematical problems. Previous studies show that families with higher levels of cultural capital are characterized by higher levels of verbal interactions in the family, higher frequency of reading books and other verbal activities. It is possible that in the process of development, children from such families are better trained to operate with words, including numbers, in comparison with children with lower indicators of cultural capital.
The same applies to bilingual children. For those children who used a second language at home, a closer relationship was found between phonological abilities and mathematics.
The results obtained can be of practical use.
