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reading

Uploaded by

Sphelele Mabuza
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© © All Rights Reserved
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You are on page 1/ 4

https://youtu.

be/PzyDG0_E-dk

Phonological awareness

Phonological awareness is about being aware of the sounds in speech. It is


concerned with the sounds we hear in spoken language, not the way we
write those words.

Phonological awareness is an “umbrella term” because it covers different


aspects of awareness of the sound system in a language.

When they have phonological awareness, learners can:

a) Distinguish individual words in the stream of speech (e.g. they know


that imini yonke is two words, not one continuous word).

b) Recognise words with similar sounds, such as rhyming words in


English and alliteration in isiXhosa (e.g. The fat cat sat on the mat
and USindiswa ususa isele).

c) Identify syllables in words (e.g. Kakuhle has three syllables, ka + ku


+ hle).

d) Recognise individual sounds in speech (e.g. they can tell that /t/,
/ts/ and /tsh/ are three different sounds).

e) Recognise different sounds within words and manipulate


them (e.g. they can tell that the first sound in dada is /d/, but in dlala the
first sound is /dl/. The sound at the end of both words is /a/).
Phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is a specific part of phonological awareness. It is the


ability to recognise individual sounds within words and to manipulate these
sounds.

A child with phonemic awareness can:


a) Isolate sounds or distinguish individual sounds in words (know that the
word “cat” is made up from three letter sounds, /c/, /a/ and /t/).
b) Delete sounds or remove them from words (know that if you remove
the sound /s/ from “cats”, then it becomes “cat”).
c) Substitute sounds or replace them with other sounds (if you replace
the sound /c/ in “cat” with the sound /b/, it becomes “bat”).
d) Blend sounds together with other sounds (if you add the sound /l/
after /c/ in “cap”, it becomes “clap”).

Why phonemic awareness is important

1. Hearing separate sounds in language is necessary for reading and


writing: In languages with an alphabetic writing system, letters
represent sounds. It is therefore important for learners to be able to
hear separate sounds within words so that they can match up letter
symbols and sounds in order to read written words. Developing
phonological awareness and phonemic awareness helps them do that.
Learners who do not have this awareness struggle to learn to read.
2. Manipulating sounds is key for reading and writing: When they have
phonemic awareness, learners can manipulate sounds by blending
(putting together sounds) or breaking words up (segmenting) into
sounds.
3. It connects auditory and visual language in the brain: Developing
learners’ phonological and phonemic awareness helps to form a bridge
in the brain that links the auditory perception of language (oral
language) with the visual perception of language (written language).
These are processed in different parts of the brain, so it is important
that these different brain parts get connected in early literacy
development.

When do I teach Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?


1. In Grade R and early Grade 1: With good teaching learners should
have phonological and phonemic awareness by mid-Grade 1, which means
you then only need to spend time on it with the learners who need extra
help.

2. Throughout the day: Look for opportunities to focus on sounds and


manipulating sounds throughout the day. You can do it whenever you teach
a new word, in all learning areas. Provide practice opportunities during mat
work, in small groups and individually.

3. With short, fast activities: Phonological awareness activities should be


short but fast paced. DO NOT spend 15 mins on phonological awareness
without any other learning objective.

4. In HL and in EFAL: Phonological awareness can transfer across


languages. If learners can do it in the HL, they’ll find it easier to do in FAL.

Well done, you have reached the end of Lesson 3!

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