The Role of Phonemic Awareness and Phonics in -...

26 JOURNAL OF ADVENTIST EDUCATION | APRIL/MAY 2006

Koi, a charming 6-year-old, has been in theUnited States for threeyears. An ESL (Englishas a second language)student, she is now en-rolled in a multigrade

classroom in the Pacific Northwest.Even though Koi speaks English flu-ently, she had a difficult time withphonemic awareness in kindergarten.The kindergarten teacher felt she wasready socially and intellectually for 1stgrade, despite her phonemic awarenessdeficit.

By participating in various oralphonemic awareness activities inkindergarten and 1st grade and usinginvented spelling in her daily journalwriting, Koi was able to develop phone-mic awareness. It was a sudden break-through. One week, Koi still needed a parent volunteer tosegment words for her to blend so that she could writephonemically in her journal. The next week she wrote pho-netically “When the opera lady sings, she breaks the glass”for her “-ing” word family sentences in spelling class—all byherself! She was able to transfer her decoding skills to otherlanguage-arts activities. Koi was on her way; she was able toread orally and do written work independently because shehad broken the code!

Phonemic aware-ness and phonicsenabled Koi to make

sense of the English alphabetic system.The California Reading Program Advi-sory states: “The lack of phonemicawareness is the most powerful deter-minant of the likelihood of failure tolearn to read because of its importancein learning the English alphabetic sys-tem or in learning how print representsspoken words. If children cannot hearand manipulate the sounds in spokenwords, they have an extremely difficulttime learning how to map those soundsto letters and letter patterns—the es-sence of decoding.”1

The Difference Between PhonemicAwareness and Phonics

Phonemic awareness has been de-fined as recognition that sounds makeup the English language, and that thewords we speak are each composed of

individual sounds. Children need to be encouraged to payattention to the sounds of words, separate from meaning.2

Phonics is based on the premise that words can be decodedinto sounds. When they study phonics, students learnspelling-to-sound correspondence.3

Rog states, “Phonemic awareness is not phonics. Phone-mic awareness is an understanding about the structures andpatterns of spoken language. Phonics, on the other hand,refers to the connection between letters and spoken

sounds.”4 Spiegeladds: “Phonemicawareness is a con-

THE ROLE OF

PHONEMIC AWARENESS

AND PHONICS IN BEGINNING READING

BY CAROL SPAULDING SERNA

“The lack of phone-mic awareness isthe most powerfuldeterminant of thelikelihood of failureto learn to read be-cause of its impor-tance in learningthe English alpha-betic system or inlearning how printrepresents spokenwords.”

JAE_april_may_swcg 4/26/06 2:19 PM Page 26

JOURNAL OF ADVENTIST EDUCATION | APRIL/MAY 2006 27

sciousness of sounds as entities that canbe blended and taken apart and ma-nipulated. Phonemic awareness in-cludes the ability to use sounds. It isdifferent from knowing about sounds,which may be what is taught in a tra-ditional phonics program.”5 The focusof this article, then, will be the impor-tance of phonemic awareness and

phonics instruction in teaching begin-ning reading.

Five Levels of Phonemic Awareness

Marilyn J. Adams, in her landmark1990 review of reading research, Begin-ning to Read: Thinking and LearningAbout Print, established that there are

five basic levels of phonemic aware-ness:

• Oral rhyming • Oddity tasks• Oral blending • Oral phoneme segmentation • Phoneme manipulation These levels move from the sim-

plest to the most complex. Likewise,the research-based activities that sup-port and develop them also becomeprogressively more complex.6

Phonemic Awareness Instructionand Activities

Hallie and Ruth Yopp, in theirReading Teacher article “SupportingPhonemic Awareness Development inthe Classroom,” discussed some as-pects of phonemic awareness instruc-tion and activities. They recommendthat phonemic awareness instructionand activities should be developmen-tally appropriate, “playful and engag-ing, interactive and social, and shouldstimulate curiosity and experimenta-tion with language.”7 They recommendusing songs, chants, and word playgames to enhance students’ awarenessof the sound structure of language.Neuman, Copple, and Bredekampwarn that “Few young children sponta-neously acquire phonemic awareness.But when teachers plan activities andinteract so as to draw attention to thephonemes in spoken words, children’sawareness develops.”8

Level 1In level one, oral rhyming, students

decide whether words rhyme.9 To helpdevelop students develop oral rhymingskills, the teacher can use an activitylike “Extend the Rhyme,” where he orshe says three rhyming words (frog, log,jog) and asks the students to provideother words that rhyme with those

Phonics is basedon the premisethat words can bedecoded intosounds.

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words (dog, hog, etc.).10 Much of chil-dren’s literature brims with rhyme, al-literation, and word play. Literaturewith predictable rhythms and rhymepatterns can be used as a springboard.Students are often able to supplywords to complete the sentence. Somechildren can make up their own sillyrhymes based on the pattern of thepicture book.11

Level 2In level two, oddity tasks, students

find similarities or differences betweeninitial, ending, and medial sounds.12

Activities that help develop these skillsinclude games such as “Stand, Sit, andTurn Around,” where the teacher saysa sound, such as /f/, and all the stu-dents whose names start with the /f/sound stand up, turn around, jump,clap, or do some other designated ac-tion.13 Teachers can also ask studentsto make hand signals each time theyhear a word that begins with a desig-nated sound in a read-aloud book.14

Level 3Level three, oral blending, requires

students to identify words in whichthe phonemes have been separated.15

One activity that helps students prac-tice oral blending is the game “Put ItTogether.” Using a puppet as a prop,the teacher tells the students that thepuppet likes to say only completewords. The teacher says a word inparts, then the students “guess” theword. The puppet restates the com-plete word and models blending asneeded.16 Another oral blending activ-ity is sung to the tune of “If You’reHappy and You Know It.” The classsings:

If you think you know this word, shoutit out!

If you think you know this word, shoutit out!

If you think you know this wordThen tell me what you’ve heard,If you think you know this word, shout

it out!The teacher says a segmented word

such as /w/-/i/-/g/, and the studentsshout out the blended word, wig.17

Level 4In level four, phonemic segmentation,

students are asked to say in order eachsound in a word.18 One activity thathelps develop phoneme segmentationis “Segmentation Cheer.” Teacher: Listen to my cheer, then shoutthe words you hear.

Cat! Cat! Cat! Let’s take apart theword cat!

Give me the beginning sound.Students: /c/!Teacher: Give me the middle sound.Students: /a/!Teacher: Give me the ending sound.Students: /t/!Teacher: That’s right!Students: /c/-/a/-/t/ Cat! Cat! Cat!19

Each time the teacher says thecheer, he or she changes the words inthe second line.

Level 5In level five, phoneme manipulation,

students change words by adding,deleting, or moving a phoneme.20 Oneactivity to help develop phoneme ma-nipulation is “Picture Search.” Theteacher turns to different pages in apicture book and says the name of anobject, animal, or person in the pic-ture, but leaves out the first phoneme.

For a picture of a fish, he or she wouldsay “-ish.” The students would supplythe missing phoneme /f/. Phoneme ma-nipulation also works with songs suchas “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” wherethe words merrily, merrily, merrily arechanged to nonsense words such aswerrily, carrily, tarrily, etc.21

An Important LinkPhonemic awareness is an impor-

tant link to reading instruction. It isnot meaningful in and of itself. In ThePhonological Awareness Handbook forKindergarten and Primary Teachers, Er-icson and Juliebo state, “Numerousstudies have shown that phonologicalawareness teaching programs that in-clude letter-name and letter-sound cor-respondence have a greater positiveimpact on reading development thaninterventions involving phonologicalawareness or sound-letter instructionalone.”22 The California Reading Pro-gram Advisory determined, “After chil-dren have demonstrated initial levelsof phonemic awareness, both phone-mic awareness and phonics can betaught simultaneously. At this point, itis also essential that both phonemicawareness and phonics be mutually re-inforced in the context of integrated,shared reading and writing activities.”23

Is Phonics Here to Stay?According to Hall, Prevatte, and

Cunningham: “Phonics instruction isclearly important because one of thebig tasks of beginning readers is to fig-ure out how our alphabetic languageworks. Adams reviewed decades of re-search and concluded that while somechildren can figure out the letter-soundsystem without instruction, directlyteaching this system speeds up the lit-eracy acquisition.”24

At one time, the field of readingwas embroiled in the “Great Debate”over which was best, the phonetic ap-proach or the whole-word approach toearly reading instruction. This debatespawned some major research initia-tives. The current debate no longercenters around the value of phonics in-struction—that has been accepted—but which approaches to teaching

Hallie and Ruth Yopp . . . recommendthat phonemic awareness instructionand activities should be developmentallyappropriate, “playful and engaging, in-teractive and social, and should stimu-late curiosity and experimentation withlanguage.”

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phonic relationships are the most ef-fective.25

Traditionally, there have been fourbasic approaches to teaching phonics:

• Implicit (analytic, incidental, con-textual)

• Embedded (incidental, discovery)• Explicit (synthetic)• Analogic (phonograms, word

families)Current educational research sup-

ports the use of explicit and analogicapproaches to phonics instruction. TheCalifornia Reading Program Advisoryfound that “The most effective phonicsinstruction is explicit—that is, takingcare to clarify key points and princi-ples for students. In addition, it is sys-tematic—that is, it gradually buildsfrom basic elements to more subtleand complex patterns. The goal is toconvey the logic of the system and toinvite its extension to new words thatthe children will encounter on theirown.”26

In 1997, the U.S. Congress askedthe National Institute of Child Health

and Human Development (NICHD), inconsultation with the Secretary of Edu-cation, to convene a national panel toassess the effectiveness of variousmethods of beginning reading instruc-tion. After two years of reviewing re-search-based reports, the NationalReading Panel concluded that “the de-tailed analysis of studies involvingphonics instruction revealed that sys-tematic phonics instruction producessignificant benefits for students inkindergarten through 6th grade andfor children having difficulty learningto read.”27

Why Not Use the Implicit or Em-bedded Approaches?

In implicit or analytic phonics in-struction, the teacher does not presentsounds in isolation from words.28 Hem-pentall argues that “teachers who limittheir instruction to pointing out word-parts to students in the context of au-thentic literature as the situation arises(incidental or analytic phonics) createparticular problems for at-risk stu-

dents.”29

The embedded phonics approach,a subtype of the implicit approach, at-tempts to teach reading skills by em-bedding phonics instruction in textreading. Instruction tends to rely onincidental or discovery learning. Theembedded approach “assumes that stu-dents will develop a self-sustaining,natural, unique reading style that in-tegrates the use of contextual andgrapho-phonic cues, without the possi-bly disabling influence (it is argued) ofsystematic instruction.”30 Current re-search does not support either the im-plicit or embedded approaches toteaching phonics.

Explicit Phonics Instruction andActivities

Explicit phonics refers to the syn-thesis or building up of phonics skillsfrom their smallest unit.31 The teacherpresents the skills sequentially, usingisolated, direct instructional strategies.In addition, he or she employs con-trolled vocabulary stories in the begin-


Picture Removed


ning stages of reading instruction tohelp build students’ confidence in us-ing the various decoding strategies.32

“Research shows that it is importantfor children to practice the phonicsthey have learned. It is therefore essen-tial that the intial books that childrenattempt to read on their own be com-posed of decodable text.”33 Further-more, “flooding children with an un-controlled array of words does nofavours for struggling students . . .”34

Beginning readers’ emergent decodingskills require simpler text to allowthem to develop the competence andconfidence they need.35

Analogic Phonics Instruction andActivities

According to Wagstaff, PatriciaCunningham was the first researcher todescribe decoding by analogy. Cun-ningham found that when readerscome across unknown words, they

tend to pay attention to patterns in thewords, because the human brain func-tions as a “pattern detector.” Whenstudents see an unknown word, theysearch their “memory stores” for wordswith a matching pattern.36 “Familiaritywith patterns promotes automaticity indecoding.”37 When students learn rimepatterns (word families—i.e., -ate fam-ily: date, gate, late, mate, rate) and canuse decoding by analogy, the decodingprocess requires less mental processingand attention. The reader can, instead,focus on comprehending text.38

An example of an analogic phonicsactivity is “Making Words,” “an active,hands-on, manipulative activity inwhich children discover letter-soundrelationships and learn how to look forpatterns in words. They also learn thatchanging just one letter or even justthe sequence of the letters changes thewhole word.”39 In a beginning lesson,students are given a card with one red

“Numerous studieshave shown thatphonologicalawareness teach-ing programs thatinclude letter-nameand letter-soundcorrespondencehave a greater pos-itive impact onreading develop-ment than interven-tions involvingphonologicalawareness orsound-letter in-struction alone.”


Picture Removed


vowel letter, which must be used inevery word they create. The teacherurges them to observe how wordschange as different letters are added.They begin to see the importance ofletters’ location in words. After theyhave created their words, students sortthem according to patterns (words thatstart alike, have the same vowel soundor the same spelling patterns, etc.).Every activity starts with small wordsand ends with using all of the letters tomake one big word.40

Implications for Teachers of Begin-ning Readers

Ellen White stated in the book TrueEducation, “Teachers should see to itthat their work tends to definite re-sults. Before attempting to teach a sub-ject, they should have a distinct planin mind, and should know just whatthey want to accomplish. They shouldnot rest satisfied with the presentationof any subject until their students un-derstand . . . and are able to stateclearly what they have learned.”41

This challenge to Adventist educa-tors of her era still rings true today!The California Reading Program Advi-sory concluded their study, TeachingReading, with these words: “We mustprovide a balanced and comprehensivereading . . . program in our schools sothat every child will be ensured suc-cess as an effective reader . . . andthinker . . . We are in this process to-gether, for the children.”42

As Christian educators, we havean even greater need to develop bal-anced and comprehensive reading pro-grams in our schools. We must use themost effective instructional methodsand materials available. Phonemicawareness and phonics instruction isone part of a total language-arts pro-gram. ✐

________________

Carol SpauldingSerna teaches grades 1and 2 at Redwood Ad-ventist Academy in SantaRosa, California. She hashad 31 years’ experiencein the Seventh-day Ad-ventist school system as amultigrade teacher, princi-

pal, and associate superintendent of education,and holds California State Reading and Lan-guage Arts Specialist credentials. Mrs. Serna hasserved on various curriculum committees, taughtcollege education classes, been a presenter at con-ventions, and authored nearly half of the litera-ture units for the new NAD Pathways readingseries.

_______________________________________

REFERENCES

1. Reading Program Advisory, State Superin-tendent of Public Instruction, California StateBoard of Education, California Commission onTeacher Credentialing, Teaching Reading: A Bal-anced, Comprehensive Approach to Teaching Read-ing in PreKindergarten Through Grade Three(Sacramento, Calif.: California Department ofEducation, 1996), p. 4.

2. Ashley and Suzanne Bishop, TeachingPhonics, Phonemic Awareness, and Word Recognition(Westminster, Calif.: Teacher Created Materials,1996), p. 9.

3. Frank Smith, Understanding Reading: APsycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning toRead, Fifth Edition (Hillsdale, N.J.: LawrenceErlbaum Associates, 1994), p. 18.

4. Lori Jamison Rog, Early Literacy Instruc-tion in Kindergarten (Newark, Del.: InternationalReading Association, 2001), p. 18.

5. Dixie Lee Spiegel, “Special Initiatives forSpecial Needs” in The Administration and Supervi-sion of Reading Programs, Second Edition, ShelleyB. Wepner, Joan T. Feeley, and Dorothy S. Strick-land, eds. (Newark: International Reading Asso-ciation, 1995), p. 267.

6. Wiley Blevins, Phonics From A to Z: APractical Guide (New York: Scholastic, 1998), p.28.

7. Hallie Kay Yopp and Ruth Helen Yopp,“Supporting Phonemic Awareness Developmentin the Classroom,” Reading Teacher 54:2 (Octo-ber 2000), p. 132.

8. Susan B. Neuman, Carol Copple, and SueBredekamp, Learning to Read and Write: Develop-mentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children(Washington, D.C.: National Association for theEducation of Young Children, 2000), p. 81.

9. Violet B. Robinson, Gretchen Ross, andHarriet C. Neal, Emergent Literacy in Kinder-garten: A Review of the Research and Related Sug-gested Activities and Learning Strategies (San Ma-teo, Calif.: California Kindergarten Association,2000), p. 32.

10. Blevins, p. 36.

11. Neuman, Copple, and Bredekamp, p.82.

12. Robinson, Ross, and Neal, p. 32.13. Blevins, p. 37.14. Robinson, Ross, and Neal, p. 72.15. Ibid., p. 32.16. Blevins, p. 37.17. Robinson, Ross, and Neal, p. 73.18. Ibid., p. 32.19. Blevins, p. 39.20. Robinson, Ross, and Neal, p. 32.21. Blevins, p. 41.22. Lita Ericson and Moira Fraser Juliebo,

The Phonological Awareness Handbook for Kinder-garten and Primary Teachers (Newark, Del.: Inter-national Reading Association, 1998), p. 64.

23. Reading Program Advisory, p. 8.24. Dorothy P. Hall, Connie Prevatte, and

Patricia M. Cunningham, “Eliminating AbilityGrouping and Reducing Failure in the PrimaryGrades” in No Quick Fix: Rethinking Literacy Pro-grams in America’s Elementary Schools, Richard L.Allington and Sean A. Walmsley, eds. (Newark:International Reading Association, 1995), p.139.

25. Lesley Mandel Morrow and Diane H.Tracey, “Strategies Used for Phonics Instructionin Early Childhood Classrooms,” Reading Teacher50:8 (May 1997), p. 645.

26. Reading Program Advisory, pp. 6, 7.27. National Institute of Child Health and

Human Development, “The Report of the Na-tional Reading Panel: Teaching Children toRead,” accessed April 23, 2005, at http://www.memory-key.com/parents/nrp.htm.

28. Kerry Hempenstall, “Some Issues inPhonics Instruction: Implicit and Explicit Phon-ics Instruction,” accessed April 15, 2005, athttp://www.educationnews.org/some_issues_in_phonics_instructi.htm.

29. Kerry Hempenstall, “The RelationshipBetween Phonics and Phonemic Awareness;”Accessed April 11, 2006, at http://www.educationnews.org/writers/kerry/relationship_between_phonics_and.htm.

30. Hempenstall, “Some Issues in PhonicsInstruction. . . .”

31. Ibid. 32. Morrow and Tracey, p. 646.33. Reading Program Advisory, p. 7.34. Hempenstall, “Some Issues in Phonics

Instruction. . . .” 35. Ibid. 36. Janiel Wagstaff, Phonics That Work! New

Strategies for the Reading/Writing Classroom (NewYork: Scholastic, 1994), pp. 11, 12.

37. Ibid., p. 13.38. Ibid.39. Patricia M. Cunningham and Dorothy P.

Hall, Making Words: Multilevel, Hands-On, Devel-opmentally Appropriate Spelling and Phonics Activi-ties (Torrance, Calif.: Good Apple, 1994), p. 1.

40. Ibid.41. Ellen G. White, True Education: An Adap-

tation of Education (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press,2000), pp. 142, 143.

42. Reading Program Advisory, p. 25.

Current researchdoes not supporteither the implicitor embedded ap-proaches to teach-ing phonics.

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