Confident and fluent readers utilize multiple components and processes as they develop into skillful readers. Learning to read is a complex process, but there are several things that we know from research that are incredibly helpful for learning to read and overcoming reading difficulty.
Here are my top 5:
- Advanced Phonemic Awareness Practice is essential.
- Phonics instruction helps learners crack the code in basic words and blending early, and later as they encounter multisyllabic words.
- Reading practice is important. Early on, a little practice (5-15 minutes) goes a long way. Once readers are fluent, practice time will grow based on book selection and interest.
- Sounds and sound writing, instead of letter naming, can help shorten the processing and encoding loop for readers and writers.
- Let growth happen at it’s own pace. Some elements will come quickly, others will take time. Don’t stress about the timeline. It will be different for every child and that is perfectly normal.
In this manual, we are beginning with Phonemic Awareness because it is essential and easy to practice. Let’s start with some basic definitions.
What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological Awareness is the practice of hearing words and breaking them into various sound parts. This is a completely auditory practice, no letters or printed words are involved. Readers practice listening to spoken words and breaking them into smaller parts including syllables, the onset and rime and phonemes. Correct pronunciation and enunciation of phonemes is important. You can use this app to practice and learn: https://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/phonogram-sounds-app/
What is a Syllable?
A syllable is a “unit of pronunciation,” in speech. Sometimes I explain it as a “beat” in a word. There are 6 syllable types and every syllable must have a vowel. Syllables have at least one vowel and sometimes they also include consonants.
What are Onset & Rime?
Onset and Rime: The onset is the initial consonant, consonant blend or phoneme at the beginning of a syllable. The rime unit includes the vowel through the end of the syllable. It is the chunk that we use when we create rhyming words. For example, in the word sat, “s” is the onset and “at” is the rime.
What are Phonemes?
The individual sounds in spoken words. There are individual sound units. This includes individual letter sounds like /t/, plus digraphs /ch/, vowel teams /ee/, and many more.
What are Graphemes?
The basic written letter or letter patterns that produce a corresponding sound (phoneme). Some graphemes can make multiple sounds. This video will teach you graphemes:
How do we learn to read and what is happening in the brain?
One of the most critical discoveries about reading is that we use oral and auditory memory as our filing system for words and language. This is critical to reading! Many people used to think that we stored words in our visual memory, but this is not the case. To prove this to yourself, think about how you are reading right now, do you hear your inner voice producing the auditory word in your head as your eyes move across each word and visually identify them? Yes! We take in multiple fonts and types of written language and our brain translates and connects them with our oral vocabulary.
Oral language and phoneme awareness are the most critical elements to becoming great readers!
Here’s the good news - Phonemic Awareness is easy to practice to build skills. You don’t need to be a teacher. Just know that it might take a little practice at first, when delivering the coaching. Some of these are tricky, especially if you are a great reader and don’t have practice in these unique exercises. I promise you will start to see some very interesting results.
Here is more on what the research says:
- "The best predictor of reading difficulty in kindergarten or first grade is the inability to segment words and syllables into constituent sound units (phonemic awareness).” Lyon, G. R. (1995). Toward a definition of dyslexia.
Annals of Dyslexia, 45, 3-27.
- The ability to hear and manipulate phonemes plays a critical role in the acquisition of beginning reading skills. Smith S. B., Simmons, D. C., & Kame'enui, E. J. (1998). Phonological awareness: Instructional and curricular basics and implications. In D. C. Simmons & E. J. Kame'enui (eds.),
What reading research tells us about children with diverse learning needs: Bases and basics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- The most significant difference between good and poor readers is the good reader's phonological processing ability. Shaywitz. S. (2003).
Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level. New York: Knopf.
Success stories from the classroom:
When I first learned that phonemic awareness was a critical component of reading success, we decided to add a 10 minute phonemic awareness routine to our day in kindergarten and first grade classrooms. Two years later, we are doing this work in prek and with our struggling readers in second through fifth grade.
It was interesting to learn what skills our readers were using and which ones posed challenges. It took a bit of navigating for teachers to familiarize themselves with the activities and mesh them with their current flow of reading instruction and practice. Learners were enjoying the routine and starting to make connections, but it took several months before we started to realize the major positive impact.
When we entered the spring, teachers kept stopping me to show me the growth in their running records. Compared to previous years, their readers were reading more challenging books earlier than any other group in previous years. It wasn’t one teacher or one classroom, it was happening across kindergarten and first grade, and it happened with early career teachers and very experienced teachers. Children that arrived in kindergarten knowing zero letters and sounds were reading, and early readers were developing strong skills and attaching much more challenging multisyllabic words and more difficult texts.
For only 10 minutes per day, with all other instructional routines staying the same, I would say it is a great return on investment!
Success stories for struggling readers and students receiving special education support:
As I walk through classrooms each day, I like to investigate what I’m learning with children around the school. I pulled some struggling readers aside to try out a phonemic awareness assessment. It was so interesting to see the gaps in skill for every single struggling reader.
My favorite aspect of identifying this area for growth is that it takes very little practice to build strong phonemic awareness skills. We started practicing a few minutes each day in one or two skills until readers mastered an area. Then we moved to the next level.
Phonemic awareness practice activities are a simple and powerful tool to develop reading skillfulness. I hope you give this a try with a new or growing reader that you know.
With Love,
Kristy