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Aug 21, 20235 min read

Steps to Teach Reading: Step 1 Phonological Awareness

Updated: Sep 13, 2023


Whether you are trying to teach your child to read independently or you are trying to support your child's learning at school, understanding the steps of teaching reading can be useful in helping your child read better.

I used to teach fourth grade and reading was one of my favorite subjects to teach because I love to read. Even though I haven't been a teacher in several years, I recently became aware of the reading curriculum controversy between the science of reading and balanced literacy. It makes me incredibly sad that so many students were taught in a less-than-effective method, which may have led to generations of students who did not have the opportunity to love reading. There are still districts, schools, and teachers who have not been able to switch to the more scientific approach. So I decided I would share the information as I research it, to support anyone who wants to support their child in effectively learning to read.


This is just a brief overview of the first step of learning to read, phonological awareness. Teaching reading takes a lot of practice and patience. This post is just meant to give you an idea of where to start if you want to teach your child or support your child's learning.


Step 1: Phonological Awareness


This is a very broad term and is something you can start working on with your children from an early age. The science behind how students learn to read determines this is the first step in children learning to read.


What is phonological awareness?


Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds of spoken language.


Examples:

  • Identifying rhyming words

  • Identifying syllables in words

  • Identifying individual words in a sentence

  • Recognizing alliteration

  • Recognizing the starting sound in a word

  • Recognizing the ending sound in a word

  • Phonemic Awareness - understanding that words are made up of sounds


Phase 1: Word Awareness


Word awareness is the ability to identify the individual words in a sentence. For example: "The cat is black." is made up of four words.


While this may seem simple to you as an adult, it can be quite hard for young children. Have you ever heard someone speaking in a foreign language? It is hard to identify the individual words.


There are a number of activities you can do with your little ones to help them learn word awareness. Check out these blog posts from Littles Love Learning with some fun activity ideas!


Phase 2: Syllable Awareness


Once children can identify the individual words in a sentence, they can begin learning that words are broken into syllables.


A syllable is a unit of spoken language that has one vowel sound, but not all syllables have a consonant sound.


Malia Hollowell the author of The Science of Reading in Action recommends a couple of tips to help children gain syllable awareness.

  1. Chin taps - have your child hold their hand just under their closed chin. For each vowel sound their chin will tap their hand and these are syllables.

  2. Syllable Tapping - this activity links syllables to a physical action (Total Physical Response (TPR teaching method). Tap the top of your hand for the first syllable in a word, tap your elbow for the second syllable, tap your shoulder for the third syllable, and tap the top of your head for the fourth syllable.


Check out some awesome activities to practice syllable awareness on Littles Love Learning.


Phase 3: Rhyme Awareness


You are already probably pretty familiar with rhyming, but how do we help our young children with rhyme awareness?


So first, words are broken into two parts: onset and rime.


Onset: the initial consonant or consonant blend. (If a word begins with a vowel, the word does not have an onset.)


Rime: the letter following the initial consonant or consonant blend starting with the vowel. All words have a rime.


Why does this matter? You can determine if a word rhymes by identifying the rime in each word.


Read books, sing rhyming songs, and play rhyming games to help your child conquer the ability to identify rhyming words.


Check out some awesome rhyming awareness activities from Littles Love Learning and Resources for Early Learning.


Phase 4: First Sound Awareness


First sound awareness focuses on using the onset (see above) to determine the first sound in a word. To practice and work on first sound awareness, practicing alliteration is helpful.


An important note: Phonological awareness focuses on sounds, not letters. So when you are practicing alliteration, be sure you consider words that have the same beginning sound even if their beginning letters are not the same. Example: Knock and neck.


The first sound in a word is the easiest for little ones to hear, so it is best to start with the first sound in a word when beginning to teach children that words are made up of sounds.


For some great practice activity ideas, check out Miss Kindergarten's post.


Phase 5: Phoneme Awareness


Phonemic Awareness is the final phase and it is absolutely critical to your child's success at reading.


What is a phoneme? It is an individual sound in a word. The word "jump" has four phonemes /j/ /u/ /m/ /p/. However, not all sounds are made up of individual letters, so just because a word has four letters does not mean that it has four phonemes. For example, the word book is made up of three phonemes, /b/ /oo/ /k/.


How are phonemic awareness and phonics different? Phonemic awareness is the sounds spoken words make and have nothing to do with written words. Phonics is focused on the sounds written letters/letter combinations make.


When building phonemic awareness, it is best to start from easiest to hardest:

  1. Blending Phonemes

  2. Isolation Phonemes

  3. Segmenting Phonemes

  4. Adding Phonemes

  5. Deleting Phonemes

  6. Substituting Phonemes


Conclusion


This brief overview of phonological awareness can help you as a jumping-off point to understanding what skills and knowledge your child needs to support them in learning to read. There are a ton of free resources available and activity ideas out there so you can make learning the foundational skills fun for your little ones.


Reading is one of those critical skills that is needed to be successful in all academic areas across the board. However, it is important to not put too much pressure on your little one. Rather it should be fun, so they have positive feelings associated with learning and reading.


Have fun!



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