March 27, 2024
Picture the scene….a group of pre-K children discovering all items that start with the letter “B”. Banana, ball, boy, blueberry, basketball…the list goes on and on. First, each child closes his or her eyes and reaches into a bag with all things that start with the letter “B”, and then the class claps how many syllables each word has. “How many syllables does banana have?” One child thoughtfully claps his hands and shouts “three!” The children in the room are learning a very important skill that predicts future reading skills, phonological awareness.
Here is a breakdown of beginning phonological awareness skills for young children (Sounds in Motion, 2024).
Why are these skills important? First, a child learns whole words by building his or her oral vocabulary skills, then a child learns how words are broken into smaller parts (syllables, identify rhyming words, and understanding words are made up of different sounds). The identification of initial sounds is a doorway to phonemic awareness when a child learns to manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) through segmenting words by breaking them apart (b+a+t = bat) and learning to blend sounds together (what word does b+a+t make?) (Rehfeld, Kirkpatrick, Guinn & Renbarger, 2022). When a child can manipulate the sounds of language, a child can learn to decode words to build foundational skills necessary for reading.
Going back to my group of pre-K friends, one way to build phonological awareness skills is to embed learning into meaningful experiences where children have background knowledge. Background knowledge is important for children to have context to relate new information and experiences to.
For example, before reading a story, children learn what the letter “B” looks like, sounds like, and an accompanying Sounds in Motion movement. The children interact with different items that start with the letter “B”. During reading of the story, children clap when they see the letter “B” in the beginning of words and hear the /b/ sound. After reading, the children share words starting with the letter “B” and made the /b/ sound.
To continue building phonological awareness skills after reading, children engage in play-based learning. Play-based learning engages a child’s imagination, integrates emotion, and draws on personal experiences to embed learning into long-term memory. Children interact with a variety of sensory and movement activities to foster play-based learning. In addition, a letter character (meet Boswell at the top of this post) goes home with each child to discover all things that start with the letter learned.
Resources
Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
References
Rehfeld, D. M., Kirckpatrick, M., O-Guinn, N., and Renbarger, R. (2022). A meta-analysis of phonemic awareness. Language, Speech, and Hearing in Schools. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-21-00160
Sounds in Motion (2024). Sounds in Motion Course – Bank Street College
Lyster, S. H., Snowling, M. J., Hulme, C., Lervag, A. O. (2021). Preschool phonological, morphological and semantic skills explain it all: following reading development through a 9-year period. Journal of Research in Reading. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12312