How familiar are you with the terms phonemic and phonological awareness activities?
Perhaps you know by now that I am writing a book on early literacy and more specifically, on the phonemic and phonological awareness that English language learners lack when they begin learning English as their second language. Let me just begin with some of the phonemic awareness research which is especially important for every elementary reading and remedial reading teacher. For every bit of research, there are phonologial and phonemic awareness activities.
- Research indicates that phonological awareness can be taught and that students who increased their awareness of phonemes facilitated their subsequent reading acquisition.(Lundberg et al, 1998) What does this exactly mean for teaching?
- Review and practice phonemes must be recycled deliberately and creatively. See the phonological awareness lesson plan for details.
- Simmons and Kameenui (1998) describe the "big ideas" of reading as the most essential concepts and principles in reading acquisition. These "big ideas" are phonological awarness, alphabet principle and fluency with connected text. Remember, in order for a students to gain fluency, it is necessary to review and recyle all letter-sound correspondences preferably within a word context.
