Phonemic Awareness

Sources:
Teaching Phonemic Awareness by Rasinski and Padak

Recently we have been talking a lot about phonics in E339, and to be honest I didn't realize even realize phonemic awareness was a term until we started learning about it in class. In order for children to learn how to read, they first need to learn phonemic awareness. As the article, Teaching Phonemic Awareness states, "Recent research suggests that phonemic awareness is a very important precondition for learning phonics as well as reading (pg. 43)." A lot of children develop phonemic awareness naturally; however, some students enter school with insufficient awareness of language sounds. I think this puts a huge responsibility on us teachers to teach those that are suffering the correct sounds and spellings because this is something they will use for the rest of their lives, and phonics is the framework for a lot of students' success.
In my classroom I want to assess phonemic awareness more often than not so I can get the struggling students on the right track. The article gave a lot of fun and concrete activities that I want to use in my classroom to teach and nurture phonemic awareness. I think the fun and engaging activities are more appealing to the kids because it allows them to be silly while also learning at the same time. It talked about bringing nursery rhymes, chants, poetry, and songs into the classroom in order to learn sounds, and I think this would be very enjoyable for the kids and motivate them to learn. For example, playing with nursery rhymes will help them grasp the concept of the same sound and then you can alter the nursery rhyme so the students can practice different sounds. This is also an activity that the students can connect with because most students probably have heard most of the nursery rhymes throughout their childhood.
Phonemic awareness was something I developed naturally as a child whether it was while I was playing with friends, singing childhood songs and nursery rhymes), being around family, and even just watching cartoons. Since it is something I developed naturally I didn't really view the idea of phonemic awareness from a teacher's perspective, and I didn't realize that it is something we will most likely need to teach in our classroom. It doesn't come naturally to all children, so it is important for me to be patient with those that need help and teach them in a way that is easy for them to understand.