Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is not phonics. Phonemic awareness is an understanding about spoken language. Children who are phonemically aware can tell the teacher that bat is the word the teacher is representing by saying the three separate sounds in the word. They can tell you all the sounds in the spoken word dog. They can tell you that, if you take the last sound off cart you would have car. Phonics on the other hand, is knowing the relation between specific, printed letters (including combinations of letters) and specific, spoken sounds. You are asking children to show their phonics knowledge when you ask them which letter make the first sound in bat or dog or the last sound in car or cart. The phonemic awareness tasks that have predicted successful reading are tasks that demand that children attend to spoken language, not tasks that simply ask students to name letters or tell which letters make which sounds.
Recent longitudinal studies of reading acquisition have demonstrated that the acquisition of phonemic awareness is highly predictive of success in learning to read - in particular of successful reading acquisition.
Programs for teaching phonics often emphasize rules rather than patterns and focus on "separate" sounds, called phonemes. In contrast, the most effective and efficient phonics instruction focuses children's attention on noticing letter/sound patterns in the major components of syllables: that is, on noticing the letter/sound patterns in initial consonants and consonant clusters and in the rime, which consists of the vowel of a syllable plus any following consonants, such as -ake, -ent, -ish, -ook (Moustafa, 1996).
Conventional blending and segmentation instruction improves the ability to manipulate phonemes. When instruction emphasizes phoneme manipulations, children learned what they were taught. In contrast, teaching beginners about phoneme identities does not seem to enhance phoneme manipulation skill.
Kindergarten children with explicit instruction
Recent longitudinal studies of reading acquisition have demonstrated that the acquisition of phonemic awareness is highly predictive of success in learning to read - in particular of successful reading acquisition.
Programs for teaching phonics often emphasize rules rather than patterns and focus on "separate" sounds, called phonemes. In contrast, the most effective and efficient phonics instruction focuses children's attention on noticing letter/sound patterns in the major components of syllables: that is, on noticing the letter/sound patterns in initial consonants and consonant clusters and in the rime, which consists of the vowel of a syllable plus any following consonants, such as -ake, -ent, -ish, -ook (Moustafa, 1996).
Conventional blending and segmentation instruction improves the ability to manipulate phonemes. When instruction emphasizes phoneme manipulations, children learned what they were taught. In contrast, teaching beginners about phoneme identities does not seem to enhance phoneme manipulation skill.
Kindergarten children with explicit instruction