(Question no 1)

What is phonemic awareness?

First of all, Phonemic awareness is not phonics. Phonemic awareness is the ability
to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds-phonemes--in spoken words.
Before children learn to read print, they need to become more aware of how the
sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech
sounds, or phonemes (the smallest parts of sound in a spoken word that make a
difference in a word's meaning).

Why Phonemic Awareness Is Important

 It improves students' word reading and comprehension.
 It helps students learn to spell.

Phonemic Awareness Can Be Developed Through Activities

 Identify and categorize sounds
 Blend sounds to form words
 Delete or add sounds to form new words
 Substitute sounds to make new words

Phonemic Awareness Instruction Is Most Effective When-

 Students are taught to manipulate phonemes by using alphabet letters.
 Instruction focuses on only one or two rather than several types of phoneme
manipulation.
 Phonemic instruction is taught in Kindergarten or First Grade.

Phonemic Awareness Instruction Basics

Children who cannot hear and work with the phonemes of spoken words will have
difficult time learning how to relate these phonemes to graphemes (A letter of an
alphabet, or all of the letters and letter combinations that represent a phoneme, as f,
ph, and gh for the phoneme-American Heritage Dictionary) when they see them in
written words. Early readers can show they have phonemic awareness in several
ways:
 recognizing which words in a set of words start with the same sound
  isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word
 combining or blending the separate sounds in a word in order to say the
word
 breaking up or segmenting a word into its separate sounds.

Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills

 Blending: What word am I trying to say? Nnnnn-oooo--t.
 Segmentation (first sound isolation): What is the first sound in not?
 Segmentation (last sound isolation): What is the last sound in not?
 Segmentation (complete): What are all the sounds you hear in not?
(Question no 2)
What teaching strategies should be used to teach phonemic
awareness?
Below are helpful strategies for teaching phonemic awareness.

1-Show printed material to your child and talk about the sounds and
structure of the words:

Research suggests that the greatest impact on phonemic awareness is achieved

when there is interaction with print, along with paying specific attention to
phonemes, sound/word structure. Seeing the words, hearing the sounds, and
studying the structure with a coach (parent, teachers, etc.) allows them to make the
connection between what they see and hear, a crucial skill for reading. It is
also helpful to point to each letter and say each sound.

2 – Play letter games/phoneme substitution games:

Research shows that letter/sound games help develop phonemic awareness. Here
are some game ideas:
 Take turns thinking of a word. Have the adult and child work together to say
each sound in the word. Write down the word (adult or child) and say each
sound individually pointing to the letter(s) that make that sound.
 Pick a word and take turns switching the first sound in the word to see how it
changes the word or switch the last sound to see how it changes the word and
sound (e.g., turn cat into bat or pop into pod).
 Put letters on index cards (e.g., give your child a, t, and c and ask them to
arrange them into cat, and talk about each sound-you can do this with a variety
of words-rat, pot, bed, mat, etc.).

3 – Use auditory, visual, tactile (touch), and kinesthetic (movement)

representations of sounds to teach phonemic awareness:

. For instance, auditory cues are in play when children are asked to clap the number
of syllables they hear in a spoken word. (Let’s clap the sounds in cat!)

Or you could use visual/tactile cues like blocks or chips to represent each sound in
a word (e.g., writing each sound or letter on each chip and seeing how you could
manipulate the chips to change the words or letters). How about making letters out
of play-doh and using those letters to create words, switch sounds around, etc.).

Kinesthetic cues are used when children jump as they repeat sounds, say a rhyming
word, or say each sound in a word. How about using your body to make letters
(give me a C, give me an A, give me a T!).

Model for your child how to clap the sounds or syllables in a word, jump while
saying letter sounds, or use playdown or blocks to manipulate or change words
around.

4 – Provide Early Writing Activities:. Let your child guess how to spell words. If
they are correct, talk about why. If they are incorrect, provide guidance on what
letters need to be changed and why.
If they can’t write letters yet, have them tell you what letters they think would
make up a word, or use magnetic letters, blocks or the computer to make words.
Show your child how to take your thoughts and put them on paper. Use simple
sentences like “I am hungry” or “I love cats!” I also love using dry erase boards for
writing practice!

5 – Practice at Home Before School Starts (if you didn’t do this it is okay-just
start practicing now):

Research shows that children who are frequently exposed to print and phonemic
awareness activities at home prior to starting school have higher levels of
phonemic awareness. Parents can model phonemic awareness by reading aloud to
their children, talking about the spelling, structure, and sounds in a word; showing
their child how to write a word while saying the sounds; or leading games that
incorporate letter and language play. Give your children opportunities to practice
early reading skills by talking, singing, rhyming, and playing guessing games.

We also know that many kids love the IPAD and do well with fun, interactive
computerized games! A great app to practice phonemic awareness is Kindergarten
Reading, Tracing, and Spelling-Learn to Read First Words School Adventure!

(Question no 3)
Design two activities to teach phonemic awareness?

Activity 1: Segmenting Sounds

Understanding that words are composed of individual sounds can be very
tricky for some early readers. To introduce my favorite phonological
awareness idea, I begin by reading If You’re a Robot and You Know
It by David A. Carter. It’s a new spin on the old song, "If You’re Happy
and You Know It" and kids love it. It’s written so that you sing it while
students do things like clap their hands, stomp their feet, jump and beep,
and — my favorite — "shoot laser beams out of their eyes!" I then ask
them to talk like a robot, which means that they pause between syllables.
An example would be “Say butterfly like a robot.” Their response should
be “but/ter/fly.” I tell them that now we are going to talk like a robot but
pause between each sound that they hear and give them an example like
“map” and then I say it like a robot “/m/ /a/ /p/." Moving like a robot is
the part that hooks the kids and takes an activity that can seem boring and
slow and makes it fun.

Activity 2: Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down for Beginning Sounds

This is one of my favorite games because we can play it anywhere at any
time and it requires no real prep time (which teachers will never have
enough of). The hardest part is remembering that you have this game in
your tool belt of educational strategies when you find those free minutes
during the day.
Do you find yourself sitting outside the cafeteria waiting for the line to
go down so you can enter? Play thumbs up/thumbs down.
What do you do with the kids who are waiting for the others to finish you
whole group bathroom time? Play thumbs up/thumbs down.
Here is how to play. You play say two words and kids have to determine
if the initial sound is the same. If it is, then it's a thumbs up. If the initial
sounds are not the same, then thumbs down.
 Examples of thumbs down word pairs would be:
 map/nap
 light/sound
 highlight/violet
 brown/down
This is a great game for many reasons:
 Kids frequently think that the beginning sound is what makes word
rhyme
 Auditory discrimination can be hard for certain letters
 It can be played anywhere at any time

(Question no 4)
Design an instructional plan to teach phonemic awareness?

Class:
Lesson Title: Phonemic Awareness – Beginning Sounds
Objective: To develop an awareness of the “sounds of English”(phonemes) and
practice picking out the beginning sound in simple words.
Activities:
  Teacher demo – iPad plugged into interactive smartboard, or small groups. Oz
Phonics 1 App: Exercise 1 - Sound Match.
 Students to play sound matching game.
 Teacher to play oral game. The word ‘bed’ starts with the sound /b/, what other
words start with a /b/ ?
 Teacher to play oral game asking class to guess the name of someone in the
class who starts with the sound /s/. “I’m thinking of a name and the name starts
with the sound /t/. Whose name is it?” There might be multiple answers in a
classroom.
 Oz Phonics 1 App: Exercise 2 – Odd-One-out beginning sound. Teacher can
demonstrate in small groups or using interactive whiteboard to reflect iPad screen.

(Question no 5)
How will you assess the phonemic awareness?
What it measures?
1. Phoneme matching is the ability to identify words that begin with the same sound.
2. Phoneme isolation is the ability to isolate a single sound from within a word.
3. Phoneme blending is the ability to blend individual sounds into a word.
4. Phoneme segmentation is the ability to break a word into individual sounds.
5. Phoneme manipulation is the ability to modify, change, or move the individual
sounds in a word.
When should it be assessed?
Phonemic awareness assessments should be done three times during the
kindergarten and first grade years to help guide instruction.
Examples of assessment questions
* Remember, when a letter appears between slash marks, you should say the letter
sound, and not the letter name.

Phoneme matching
 Which words sound alike? man, sat, sip (Correct response: sat, sip)
 Phoneme isolation – Initial (first) sound:
 What's the first sound in "sat?" (Correct response: /s/)

Phoneme isolation – Final (last) sound:

 What's the last sound in "sat?" (Correct response: /t/)
Phoneme isolation – Medial (middle) sound:
 What's the middle sound in "sat?" (Correct response: /a/)
Phoneme blending:
 What word do these sounds make? /h/ – /o/ – /t/ (Correct response: hot)
Phoneme segmentation:
 What sounds do you hear in "hot?" (Correct response: /h/ – /o/ – /t/)