It’s Mind-Boggling!!
Understanding this was such an eye-opener!!
In my last post, First Things First, I shared my first insightful steps into an initial understanding of phonemic awareness.
I shared my amazing a-ha moment when I realized the connection of hearing the 3 or 4 separate notes in a chord played on the piano to hearing the separate sounds within a word.
To continue my journey –
I felt as though I was closer to an understanding of phonemic awareness, but it wasn’t totally clear to me. This was stressful. I needed to know all that could be known about phonemic awareness for my daughter, for my students and for myself.
My daughter’s piano teacher, Gay Pool, diligently teaches her piano students to listen to the individual notes within a chord. She’s adamant that they hear all of the notes within chords.
This fit in with what I had learned in the reading workshop I took, so I visited with Gay to understand why it is so important to her that her students hear all of the notes within chords.
She reminded me of many things I already knew about language development in children but hadn’t quite connected them to phonemic awareness.
She reminded me that children begin oral language development by listening to sounds followed by attempts to imitate those sounds in spoken words and in singing.
Ah, now I was beginning to feel more clarity. The clouds around phonemic awareness were lifting.
She said, “If a young child has access to a piano, they might be able to discern the minute differences in tone between the keys that they are “pounding away on” in the same way they are discerning the individual sounds in the spoken language they are hearing.”
It’s all about the sounds and differentiating between them.
Gay added another twist: everyone perceives sounds differently.
She continued, “A child born with perfect pitch will be able to tell you which notes are in a chord, and they will be able to tell you how far apart the notes are in that chord. A child with perfect pitch will begin to play the correct notes on a piano to imitate a song without having been taught to read music.” They are acutely aware of the difference in the sounds of the notes.
But a child not born with perfect pitch must develop phonemic awareness both in music and in speaking. Think of a baby—they listen intently as we sing, talk, and read to them. Very quickly they begin to work at imitating the sounds we are making. They are learning to differentiate the sounds by:
· listening to sounds
· imitating sounds
· receiving positive feedback from others for their attempts at imitating sounds
· speaking and singing
Finally, I truly understood exactly what is meant when we say a person has phonemic awareness! A person with phonemic awareness has an awareness of all sounds, the differences between them and how they fit together to communicate with others.
It’s an innate part of most of us to have the ability to acquire the foundation of language. We develop phonemic awareness skills naturally and early unless we are dyslexic.
If a child is dyslexic or has an auditory disability, their processing and sequencing of language into print becomes muddy. They will not naturally develop phonemic awareness.
If they do not receive explicit instruction in phonemic awareness so they understand the process of phonemes becoming words with meaning, the transition from oral language to print is a steep, frustrating mountain to climb.
C – A - T
This became very clear to me.
A dyslexic who has not had explicit instruction in phonemic awareness cannot hear the three phonemes in “cat” just as most of us cannot hear the 3 or 4 separate notes in a chord on the piano.
They are hearing “cat” as a single unit of sound.
It’s interesting to realize that hearing “cat” as a single unit of sound had not been a problem for them until they tried to learn to read and spell and they were asked to connect THREE symbols (c, a and t) to the ONE sound they were hearing. They immediately became confused and they didn’t have a way of sorting out why they felt confused. It all just didn’t make sense. Why were they being asked to connect 3 symbols to something that is obviously (to them) one sound?
Without explicit instruction, reading (that transition from oral language to print) is frustrating and impossible for them to comprehend.
Further, at the same time they perceive every word as an individual unit of sound, they perceive every individual letter sound as a single unit.
Because they perceive sound in this way, the sound of /c/ or /a/ or /t/ has no connection at all with the sound of /cat/. To them these are 4 different, unrelated sounds.
Even further, they don’t make the connection between the common sounds represented by the same letters in different words (such as the /c/ sound in “can”, “cat” and “cap”). They hear and perceive every word as an individual unit of sound regardless of the common letters/sounds in words.
Think about this!!
It’s mind-boggling!!
Understanding this was such an eye-opener!!
Dyslexic students, like my daughter, feel like a ship floating aimlessly in an ocean of disconnected sounds and letters, and so will any other student who does not have phonemic awareness for whatever reason.
Quite often, since the sounds, letters and combinations don’t make sense to them, they compensate by trying to memorize the letters and the letter configurations for every word in first and second grade with no regard to phonemes.
This may be semi-successful for them in first and second but falls apart in third grade when words get longer with the addition of suffixes and prefixes. They are just not able to memorize the configuration of letters for thousands of words.
This explained to me why some children who seemed successful in first and second fell apart in third grade. Everyone has to have phonemic awareness.
Students in pre-school, Kindergarten and first grade need to be assessed for phonemic awareness and if they do not have it, they MUST HAVE EARLY explicit instruction in phonemic awareness.
They will not be successful without it.
Those are strong statements, I know, but research has proven that acquired phonemic awareness skill in Kindergarteners is the best predictor of their future success in reading.
It makes so much sense.
Thanks to the gentleman teaching the Lindamood Bell class and Gay Pool:
I got it!!
I understood!
It made sense to me!
It changed my teaching!
It changed how I looked at my daughter.
It became the foundation of Silent Elephant “e”, because IT IS the foundation.
I wrote the first 44 lessons in Silent Elephant “e” to explicitly teach phonemic awareness and nothing else. I also included a Phonemic Awareness assessment, so you don’t have to go searching for one.
These 44 lessons are fun, individual whole-child learning games that activate all parts of the brain to ensure that all children (and adults) quickly, successfully and confidently master phonemic awareness.
Every learner needs these 44 explicit phonemic awareness lessons to develop their strong foundation to become a successful reader.
To sum up the last two posts:
Why is phonemic awareness so important?
It’s the key that opens the door to reading! Without that key, the door to meaning in print stays closed.
What’s the first question for you to ask as you begin teaching or tutoring new students no matter what age level you teach?
“DO MY CHILDREN HAVE PHONEMIC AWARENESS?”
As educators, whether homeschooling, in a school setting or tutoring, we must ensure the success of all and we must know if our children have phonemic awareness or not. If they don’t, we must explicitly teach it.
If you have further questions about phonemic awareness, feel free to contact us.