Phonological Awareness Before Phonics

 Focus on speech before print - What you can teach in the dark!

Children arrive in your classroom in junior infants, and it's likely you know very little about them and what level of language exposure they have had. Naturally, we want all the children we teach to become successful readers, but for children to learn to read successfully from the start they need to have a good awareness of the aural and oral structure of language. We call this phonological awareness. It is this skill that will form the foundations of their reading success. 

Therefore, it is vital that we teach phonological awareness skilfully, using teaching methods that are informed by current research. The good news is that when taught this way, most children will learn to read at acceptable levels. ​

Working in an infant school you become fairly familiar with sound awareness and phonics. Over the years I have tried various teaching strategies when it comes to teaching phonics. As long as I've been in my school we have followed the Jolly phonics program in some shape or form, teaching the 42 sounds. We have always started with phonological awareness in September before starting the JP program. Over time I have adapted the program in the following ways:

• ​Teaching one letter a week (sound, name, symbol and written formation)
• Teaching four letters a week (sound, symbol and written formation)

​Neither of the ways above is how I teach phonics now and here's why...

---

---

Last Year we had a visit from Eoin Shanahan who has just recently retired from the PDST. He gave us a fantastically informative talk about developing phonological awareness in infants. Following his visit I was greatly inspired to do my own research which lead me to question the way I currently taught phonics. This new found understanding of language and reading development in children lead me to change my current timeframe of introducing phonological awareness as well as my teaching of phonics and handwriting and the results were fairly impressive. The way I now teach phonics is also in line with the new Language Curriculum and suggested milestones in a child's reading development. 

---

What you need to remember when teaching phonological awareness:

• A few brief activities like the ones mentioned below that take only 10-15 minutes a day for 12-20 weeks is all that children need to improve sound awareness.* Hopefully Phonological awareness is the focus in play school/Montessori so that children will arrive in Junior infants with awareness of sound structure of language. But as teachers we know that this is not always the case.
• Regardless of the ability of children when they arrive to you in junior infants, you continue to teach sound awareness throughout the infant years and beyond for as long as they need it. Once you become familiar with the activities below you will integrate them into every part of your teaching including phonics, not just discrete lessons but referring to them throughout their playful learning day.
• Make their learning as multi sensory as possible, that's how children learn best so keep the sheet work to a minimal.
• Focus on sounds in the spoken word before you introduce their connection to the written letters (grapheme) in a written word. Children need to tune into speech first, then print.
• ALWAYS draw attention to the movement of your mouth, where your lips and tongue rest, do they feel their teeth? mouth open or closed? whether you can feel the vibration of a voiced sound. Have the children use their hands to touch and feel the vibrations and movement. Use mirrors so the children can see movement. You need to exaggerate your own movements and speak clearly when modelling language. This is particularly important for children with speech difficulties (early intervention of speech difficulties seem to be on the rise which is a good thing. But do be aware if you have a child arrives in September with significant speech difficulty, have the parents visit their doctor to be referred for intervention asap as it can take up to 8 months to be seen)
• Include all 42 phoneme sounds in the Jolly Phonics Program. (that number can vary depending on dialect and accent)

So here's how I did it last year and I won't be changing back... ​​

---

Sept - Jan I focused on Phonological Awareness and listening skills 

Even within the field of phonological awareness there are stages in which to introduce activities. Below are the five steps of phonological awareness that need to be focused on before we attempt to teach children phonics (teaching children to read by correlating sounds with symbols). Teaching phonological awareness means to focus on the sound awareness first but this awareness continues into phonics and beyond. Speech first, then print (Louisa Moats). "What you can teach in the dark". If children become more practiced in hearing sounds in spoken words (aurally and orally) they are more likely to link that pattern to the written words they later come to read e.g. if they can rime the word family hill, pill, bill, Jill orally, they will later find it much easier to read the written word pattern visually. The child that does not grasp step 2  below will not be able to get step 5. 

For all the steps mentioned below the elkonin box makes the best resource as it provides a visual and physical manipulative aid for letter, syllable, word and sentence building, subtracting, inputting and auditory discrimination. Used as a consistent methodology the children will become more phonologically aware. I got the tape in Mr Price in Blanchardstown Town Shopping Centre. 

---

Step 1 - Awareness of words in spoken sentences (Sep)

Firstly I make sure that children understand what a word is and how words form sentences. I have a lot of children with speech difficulties this year so I will have to make sure I spent plenty of time doing the following lessons.

Discrete learning Activities:

• Segmentation

Say, "I like red apples" for each word drop a pebble/cube into a tin container (it makes a good audible sound) "show me with your fingers how many words I said?" (Visual) Have a child move a cube for every word you say (touch) onto a small elkonin and/or use the class one pictured above and pop a child in each square to represent each word. Have them say their word one at a time (use a class microphone if you have one. Last year I found that using a microphone to carry the voice the quieter children really boosted their confidence to contribute in class). 

• Poster Rhymes

I use a large poster of a rhyme like Humpty Dumpty to teach print awareness. I point to the words just as a visual aid for the visual learner. I say the rhyme. I read it again pointing to the illustration as a way of reinforce comprehension. I teach left to right orientation. We touch count the first sentence. "How many words?" I highlight the word Humpty in the title and ask the children can they find it anywhere else on the page?
You mightn't do all this in one lesson though. Break it up.

I use this same tin can method for counting so the children are already familiar with how this activity works.

I am breaking down sentences here, but later I will use the same method for breaking down words.

Sentence Segmenting from InfantEd on Vimeo.

NOTE: If you move onto step 3, Syllable awareness before the children have an understanding of sentence segmentation, you may find children will say the a word like 'butterfly' is three words. So give this stage the time it needs before you move on. 

• Record Them and They Will Learn Quicker

​I did this lovely project in the second week of Junior Infants where the children recorded their favourite thing about school so far. We discussed descriptive sentences, choosing words to make what we say more interesting. You could add in some connectives and pronouns to sentences if you feel the child is able. Together the child and I would practice their sentence before recording it on my phone. We would then listen back to it. I would ask the child if they were happy with how it sounded and if they weren't we would re-record it. A lot of the children mumbled their words and nearly every child needed to be reminded about month movement to improve their speech. Once I had a sentence from almost everyone (only 2 children didn't want to be recorded, that's absolutely fine) I added the audio to a collage of photos that I had taken over the first few weeks. It made a lovely video to share with parents on my class blog. I will listen back to it with the children next week and we will discuss the importance of speaking clearly. We might stop to count the number of words in some of the sentences.

---

Step 2 - Listening for rhyme in spoken words. (Sep)

Next, I introduce rhyme and alliteration. I use plenty of "silly words" to get the children to tune into the sound rather than being thrown by the meaning. Also, plenty of nursery rhymes, pictures, stories and hands on manipulative. Make it as multi sensory and fun as possible. ​

---

Discrete learning Activities:

• Rhyming Judgment

Say, "words rhymes if the end of the word sounds the same. Hill and bill rhyme (a good time to draw attention and exaggerate that obvious mouth and tongue movement, particularly the final position of the month/tongue as it will be the same for the next rhyming word, make the children aware that their tongue is behind their teeth) so do cherry and merry (pointing to my mouth with my fingers). Do you think bat and cat rhyme? why? (see if children can identify why sounds rhyme) Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall (put vocal emphasise the rhyming words to prompt the children) what words rhyme?"

• Rhyming Matching

Using a puppet or a picture of something say, "Listen carefully. Rhyming Robbie wants to find a match for his favorite words. What word do you like Rhyming Robbie? (he picks up a picture of a ball) What did he pick up? A ball. Lucy, which other word can Robbie have? remember it has to rhyme/sound like ball." (have a choice of three... wall, tree, lamp. One should rhyme) 

• Alliteration 

Alliteration is when the rhyming emphasis is on the beginning sounds of the words in a sentence. Think of it as good old fashioned elocution lessons for children who need to learn to how to annunciate words and sentences correctly (most adults could work on this, myself included!) Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers... Have a set of visual aids that will prompt the children to finish the sentence. e.g. (a picture of a girl baking in the kitchen) Say, "Erin cooked cupcakes in the .... (kitchen)" and let them finish it for you. Have the children make up their own silly sentences. You could give them a prompt by giving them the noun or a letter e.g. Say, "Lizard" they say "Larry’s lizard likes leaping leopards".

• Odd one out

​When children start to understand what rhyme is you can teach them how to identify what words don't rhyme. Say, "Can we name these objects?" (have a selection of manipulative) holding up each object as the children say the word.  "Hen, pen, monkey. What doesn't belong in this set? what doesn't rhyme?"

---

---

Step 3 - Syllable awareness in spoken word (Sep/Oct)

When children have a good sense of rhyme and acceleration and an awareness of sentence segmentation they are ready to move onto the next stage of phonological awareness. Syllable blending, segmenting and omitting. Note: sometimes you might find it difficult to be sure of the syllables in a word, so remember that every syllable contains a vowel sound. 
​To find the number of syllables in a word, use the following steps of calculation:

1. Count the vowels in the word.
2. Subtract any silent vowels, (like the silent e at the end of a word, or the second vowel when two vowels are together in a syllable)

Or slightly easier is the 'Chin Rule'! place your hand under your chin. How many times does your chin hit your hand? that's how many parts there is in the word. This is my favourite one. I bet you have your hand under their chin right now! ?

Discrete learning Activities:

• ​​​Touch counting

Say, "A word can be broken up into parts (don't say sounds, save that for step five, phoneme awareness), Listen..." I start with the names of the children in the class, they enjoy it and involves everyone, even me... "Za-ra". When counting the syllables you can touch body parts (head, shoulders, hips, knees), clapping, rhythm stick, finger counting etc. I also link to my current topical vocabulary list and together we identify the syllables using the above methods. See below for a independent activity to link with this.

• Syllable Blending

Say, "Silly Cecil speaks very slowly. What word is Silly Cecil saying?" Stretch the words out using your hands, like you're stretching an elastic band apart then let your hands bounce back to say the word quickly (I use this same visual method for blending phonemes in words later in the year)  : ta-ble,  hos-pit-al,  roll-er-blades,  pine-app-le, la-dder etc.

• Syllable Deletion

Say, "let's play a game with words. We are going to break some long words into parts. If I say butterfly and leave out butter, then what is left? that's right, fly. (again I use my two fists pushed together to represent the two parts and take the corresponding hand away)
What is pineapple without pine?
What is telephone without phone?
What is sunshine without shine?
What is ladder without er? 

• Syllable counting

​Reach into a bag of objects and have the child select one. They have to clap the syllables.

• Visual counting activities

Have a look through the pictures below. I model these activities during circle time and then introduced them into morning work stations as independent activities or in pairs. Although these pictures have text on them (they were what was available to me in the classroom), this activity is completely focused on the phonological awareness. 

• Copy work

For every monthly topic I introduce a sheet with topical language for the children to cut up and stick into their copies. They stick the words into their copies and make a dot to identify each part of the word. While the written word is visible here, it is not necessary. The focus will be on the picture.

Below is a good starting point. They draw a topical word. You model how you make a dot to identify parts in the word.  Note: the word 'fire' is actually one syllable. My accent made me hear two. But if I followed my own advice I would know that fire has one vowel sound... i magic e! 

With practice they get good at this activity.

These labelled images are from twinkl.

---

Step 4 - Onset and Rime in spoken word families (Oct)

What is the difference between rhyme and rime? 
When the first sound in a word is a consonant, it’s considered the onset. For example, the onset in the word “tear” is /t/. What you see written after the /t/ is the word family, or rime, -ear.    When we say rhyme we are referring to the sound made by this word family. Turn out the lights and after the onset, the words tear, bear, fair, layer all rhyme (they sound identical after the onset). Turn on the lights and look at the words and you will see that they do not rime, they belong to different word families: -ear, -air, -ayer. It is very   difficult to explain to a beginning reader why two words that sound the same are spelt differently.  Using onset-rime/word families is a good starting point where teacher's can categories words more easily and make identifying pattern in the written words easier for young readers.  

Discrete learning Activities:

• Rhyme Production using word families

​Say, "Let's play a game. I will say some words that rhyme because they sound alike at the end. I want you to add a rhyming word to mine." give the children a good amount of words to help them hear the rhyme. Tell them that they can use silly words. 
hat, gat, cat, lat, rat, tat, slat... and so on.

• Onset and Rime games

You could turn some of the syllabic games above into onset/rime games by changing how you ask the children to group the visual aids. Group according to rime. i.e. group every thing that sound like cat.

---

Step 5 - Phonemes in spoken words (Nov-Jan)

"Focus students' attension on speech sounds before focusing on letters. Work with phonemes, not letters, until you are sure they can "tune in to" speech. Then transition to letters. " (Moats, 2010)

This is where I introduce an adapted version of the Jolly Phonics Program. 4 letters a week to give it momentum... If you want to learn to cycle a bike you need the sufficient pace. They also need to get blending orally as soon as they have the first s,a,t,i,p,n.  But I do not teach written letter formation or letter name at this stage.

At this point you need to assess where your children are. Some children will be really to make the link to the graphemes (print). I do not get the children to blend written words until I am sure they are attuned to sounds. Too often teachers jump into print and forget the phonological aspect of reading. The print offers a cue that overrides the oral and aural aspect of reading (a child doesn't have to THINK about the sound as much). Either way, for me, the focus is not on the letter symbol most of my lessons could be done in the dark!.* All blending is done orally and aurally on the elkinon. But children should move to print when they're ready. In this case it would be beneficial to work with resource team to start to move children to print when they are ready and continue working on phoneme awareness with the children who need more focused work. They will see the symbol on the board or display but I do not draw too much attention to it, the letter is there for the children who are ready to make the connection.

​It will take from November to end of January to get through the 42 sounds. Only when the all 42 sounds have been introduced do I  go back through the letters at a slower pace of two a week, in an order best suited to learning written formation. At the end of January I will connect the already familiar phoneme to the letter symbol, name and written formation. The reasoning behind this method is not to overload the children with too much information when they have not yet mastered auditory processing. Also, they may not be ready in November to begin written letter formation let alone the start of September. I also feel you need to give phonological awareness lessons the time they shouldn't be rushed. I continue working on fine motor skills and mark making which means that they are ready come February to learn to write letters at steady pace, while incorporating the many different hand writing rules. I did this for a number of years and these children become the best writers I ever had. I have posted separately about writing, visit the links highlighted above. 

A few things to remember when teaching Phonemes:

• Remember that Jolly Phonics is written for the English dialect. We say some of the sounds differently in Ireland e.g. the 'ar' sound in the Irish accent is more like a pirate saying "argh!" 
• Avoid quick repetition of letter sound i.e. p,p,p,p,p,p... try to say sound once.
• Be aware of voiced and unvoiced letter sounds. Put your hand on your neck. You should only feel vibrations for the letter in bold because they are voiced. p/b, t/d, f/v, c/g, s/z (the little 'uh' vibration when you say the letter sound)
• As I have already mentioned, is very important to constantly draw children's awareness to the position of lips, tongue and jaw when making the letter sound (use a mirror and hands)

Discrete learning Activities:

• Jolly Phonics Programme on the IWB

This is a lovely interactive visual aid. Make sure when listening to the story for each letter sound that you point to the words in the picture and help reinforce word meaning for children.

• Posters

For each sound I have a large poster with the focus letter on it, that just acts as a visual symbol to prompt the children. I fill it with pictures of things that start with the focus initial sound. I play a guessing game where I describe what is on my picture and the children have to guess what it might be, already aware of what the focus letter sound is. e.g. It shines high in the sky?... Sun.

• Elkonin

Keep it visual do lots of work on the class Elkonin. Have a child represent each letter sound as you begin to blend. I use the suggested words on the JB board and while the children who are able will make the connection to the print I practice oral blending on the Elkonin to make sure the children are hearing the sounds and not just relying on the cue (print).

• Making Booklets 

Children love to make their own booklets and bring them home. These booklets offer a better learning opportunity because children are asked to think of their own words around a focus sound at the end of the lesson rather than just handed them all on a page to colour. Having a greater ownership over thier work means they are more likely to remember the lesson content. ​You can grab your download here.

• Sound Aids

Have the children use resources to help them hear the phonemes. Use pipes, kitchen role tubes. Eoin showed us these, piece of pipe like a phone and a vacuum tube that stretches out. Children could work in pairs, speaking and listening. I use the long kitchen rolls.

---

Until there is a new phonics program that addresses the above mentioned skills I think we will have to continue amending and adapting the Jolly Phonics program. I hope you enjoyed this blog post. If you did please share it with other educators, parents or anyone who may be in a position to help a child learn to read. It is so important that we give every child the chance to become a successful reader and to do this we must be aware of the importance of phonological awareness. 

Thanks for reading. If you want to make sure you are first to read my future post, please subscribe by dropping your email into the subscription box to your right! 

You can also like me on Facebook and Instagram where I like to share lots of fun and playful teaching ideas daily ? Or visit me on Vimeo to watch loads of super Aistear videos!

*My summer reading this year was a suggested by Eoin Shanahan of the PDST. Speech to Print, Language Essentials for teachers by Louisa Cook Moats. It was a fairly technical read but very informative and some of the lesson ideas mentioned in this post have been adapted from this book. But most I have pick up from other teachers and made my own. Now they're yours! Enjoy. ​
* This post is about phonological awareness. Once I start print, repeated exposure to the graphemes is fundamental. On the second round of jolly phonics I put a big focus on writing and letter formation as well as print in writing and story. By the end of Junior Infants the children will have been exposed to print as much as someone who introduced print from day one. It's the time frame that makes my way of teaching phonics different.

---

© InfantEducation.ie 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to InfantEducation.ie with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.