activities and the content of teacher argued that phonemic awareness instruction for

development
training programs. Professional organizations young children should be playful and engaging,
such as the International Reading Association are interactive and social, and should stimulate cu
publishing position statements on phonemic riosity and experimentation with language.
awareness and its role in the teaching of reading Second, phonemic awareness instruction
(International Reading Association, 1998). should be deliberate and purposeful. Although
Influential documents such as the report of the some teachers have
engaged their students in
Committee on the Prevention of Reading playful language activities for years, they may
Difficulties inYoung Children (Snow et al., 1998) have done so without knowing the full value of
recommend that kindergartners have some basic these activities. Any phonemic awareness de
phonemic awareness by the end of their kinder velopment that resulted was incidental; it was
garten year. Moreover, the report asserts that en an unrecognized byproduct of the activities. Yet,
hancing children's abilities to attend to the sound Adams and Br?ck (1995) emphasized thatplay
structure of spoken language should be apriority ful language will be most effective
activities in
goal in kindergarten classrooms. Every Child developing phonemic awareness if they are used
Reading: An Action Plan of the Learning First with that goal inmind. Thus, in addition to being
Alliance (1998) identifies phonemic awareness child appropriate, awareness instruc
phonemic
as one of the most important foundations of read tion should be intentional, not incidental (even
ing success and recommends that its development accidental), in classrooms.
be addressed in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Third, phonemic awareness instruction must
School administrators and teachers of young be viewed by educators as only one part of a
children are anxious to apply recent research much broader literacy program. Phonemic
findings to practice and are looking for guidance. awareness development is not meaningful in and
What does phonemic awareness instruction look of itself. It is important only in the context of
like, they ask. How much time should be devot comprehensive reading instruction. Indeed,
ed to it? The purpose of this article is to provide Griffith and Olson (1992) argued thatphonemic
some guidelines for planning phonemic aware awareness activities will not be helpful unless
ness instruction and to share 14 activities that are can be in a context of real reading
they placed
representative of the type of instruction appro and writing. Furthermore, teachers must recog
priate for children in preschool, kindergarten, nize that while to the sound basis of
sensitivity
and first-grade classrooms. language supports literacy development, it is
also an outcome of literacy experiences. There
Phonemic awareness instruction fore, to overemphasize this component of litera
What does phonemic awareness instruction cy instruction in the initial years of schooling is
to limit children's for more com
look like in the classroom? First, most experts opportunities
call for phonemic awareness activities that are prehensive literacy development.
In addition to these general
child appropriate (International Reading Assoc guidelines,
iation & the National Association for the Edu teachers should consider various dimensions of
cation of Young Children, 1998). Adams and phonemic awareness instruction when planning
Br?ck (1995), for instance, submitted that songs, and designing learning activities. These include
chants, and word-sound games are ideally suit the unit of sound to be emphasized, the type of
to be performed on those units, and
ed toward developing young children's sensitiv operation
structure of language. Beck and whether the activities are to be strictly oral or
ity to the sound
Juel (1995) posited that time spent on word play, include cues such as chips and letters.
concrete
or Dr. Seuss Units sound. As teachers plan phonemic
nursery rhymes, and general expo of
sure to storybooks contribute to phonemic awareness instruction, it will be helpful to con
awareness. Mattingly (1984) encouraged class sider the sequence displayed in Figure 3. Child
room teachers to provide their students with lin ren appear to be better able to capture and gain
stimulation in the form of storytelling, control over larger units of sound before smaller
guistic
word games, rhymes, and riddles in order to fa units of sound (Stahl& Murray, 1994;Treiman&
cilitate phonemic awareness. Yopp (1992), de Zukowski, 1991). Thus, with younger children,
activities, such as preschoolers, or older children who have
scribing developmentally appropriate

132 The Reading Teacher Vol.54,No.2 October

2000
 Figure3
A sequence forphonemic awareness instruction

Instruction Example
Activities that focus on rhyme Let's think of something that
rhymes with cow. (now)
Activities that focus on syllable units Clap twice for Harry's name.
Har (clap)?ry (clap)

Activities that focus on onset and rime Say just the first part of brown, (/br/)
Activities that focus on phonemes Let's put these sounds together,
/ch/?/?/?/n/ (chain)

very little sensitivity to the sound structure of lan Adams, 1990; Smith, Simmons, & Kameenui,
guage, teachers initially may wish to focus pre 1998; Yopp, 1988). For example, matching
dominantly on rhyme (see Bishop, Yopp, & sounds (especially initial sounds) is one of the
Yopp, 2000). Then, teachers may engage students easier tasks, and more difficult may be the abili
in activities that focus on the units of sound with ty to blend sounds together to form words. The
in words, the largest unit of which is the sylla ability to segment spoken words into their con
ble. In the word hopscotch, for example, there are stituent parts may be more difficult still.
two syllables: hop and scotch. Next, instruction However, the difficulty of the task depends in
might focus on the largest subsyllabic units?the part upon the number of sounds (fewer sounds
onset and rime. The onset is the part of the sylla are easier than more), which sounds they are
ble that precedes the vowel; the rime is the vow (liquids are typically easier than nasals or stops),
el and any consonants that follow it. The onset and their location in the word (middle sounds are
in hop is /h/ and the rime in hop is /op/; the onset more difficult to attend to than initial or final
in scotch is /sk/; the rime in scotch is /och/. Some sounds). (See McBride-Chang, 1995, for a dis
syllables such as it, un, and on have no onset. cussion.) Therefore, it is much too simplistic to
Finally, attention can be directed to the phoneme. identify a hard-and-fast order in which opera
Thus, when planning phonemic awareness in tions should be presented. Nevertheless, we pro
struction the size of the unit of sound to be ad vide a possible order of what appears to be easier
dressed should be considered, with a general plan to more difficult operations for many children,
tomove from larger to smaller units of sound. given that the same types of sounds, the same
Tasks or operations. Another dimension of number, and the same location are the focus of
phonemic awareness instruction is the task or attention. This information is offered only to
operation the students must perform with support the teacher in making thoughtful deci
sounds. For instance, children may be asked to sions about potential sound manipulation activi
match sounds, as when they indicate whether ties and is not intended to be prescriptive.
two words begin the same (e.g., Do these words Use of cues. A third dimension of phonemic
begin the same?fish fight). They may be asked awareness instruction to consider is the use of
to isolate sounds (e.g., What is the first/ cues. Some activities may be strictly oral. These
middle/last sound in run!) They may be asked to include games, activities, poetry, stories, or songs
blend sounds together to form a word (e.g., What that demand attention strictly to the spoken lan
word would we have if we put these sounds to guage itself. Other activities may make use of
gether? /j/-/u/-/m/-/p/). They may be asked to some sort of cue or concrete manipulative. Many
segment words into their constituent parts (e.g., successful training studies include concrete repre
Tell all the sounds you hear in the word dog). sentations of sounds in order tomake mental ma
A sampling of tasks is presented in Figure nipulations more overt (e.g., Ball & Blachman,
4, with examples for syllable, onset-rime, and 1991). For instance, auditory cues are in play
phoneme units. There is evidence to suggest that when children are asked to clap the number of syl
some tasks may be easier than others (see lables they hear in a spoken word. Visual cues are

Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom 133

 Figure4
Types of soundmanipulationwith examples using different linguisticunits

Syllable Onset-rime Phoneme

Matching Do these start the same? Do these start the same? Do these start the same?
sandwich sandbag start stand cat kite
(yes) (yes) (yes)
Isolation What do you hear at the What do you hear at the What do you hear at the
beginning of under? beginning of black!? beginning of bug?
(/un/) (/bl/) (/b/)
Substitution What word would you What word would you What word would you
have ifyou changed the have ifyou changed the have ifyou changed the
/b?/ inbaby to /bl/ inblack to /cr/? /ch/in chain to /rI?
/may/? (crack) (rain)
{maybe)

Blending What word would you What word would you What word would you
have ifyou put these have ifyou put these have ifyou put these
sounds together: sounds together: sounds together:
/pup/-/py/ /pl/-/ane/ /p/-/l/-/?/-/n/
(puppy) (plane) (plane)

Segmentation Tell the parts you Tell the sounds you Tell the sounds you
hear in this word: hear in this word: you hear in this word:
table spoon dog
(A?/?/ble/) (/sp/~/oon/) (/d/-/o/-/g/)

Deletion Say napkin without Say grin without Say meat without
the /kin/. the /gr/. the /m/.
(nap) (in) (eat)

used when blocks or chips represent sounds. grams described in the research literature sug
Kinesthetic cues are used when children jump as gest that relatively modest amounts of time
they repeat sounds. Finally, some activities may result in increases in phonemic awareness per
incorporate the use of letters as children manipu formance (Brady & Moats, 1998; Yopp, 1997).
late and reflect on sounds in speech. In fact, the The duration of instruction was anywhere from
combination of phonemic awareness activities 10 minutes to 30 minutes per session; in some
and letter-sound instruction has been found to be studies, instruction occurred daily; in other stud
particularly supportive of children's emerging un ies the instruction was less frequent, occuring
derstanding of the alphabeticprinciple (Bradley& two or three times a week. Training occurred
Bryant, 1983; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1993; over the course of a minimum of 3 weeks up to
Hohn & Ehri, 1983), although the optimal timing 2 years.
of combining these aspects of literacy instruction We will not recommend a particular amount
remains unclear. (Note that once letters are at of time be devoted to phonemic awareness in
tached to the sound manipulation in phonemic struction in this article, although we have seen
awareness instruction, the activity also becomes time allocation in a
requirements implemented
a phonics activity. This overlap explains some of number of school districts across the U.S.
the confusion between the terms phonemic time allocations do not take into
Unfortunately,
awareness and phonics.) account individual differences among learners. It
is the quality of instruction and the responsive
Time ness of the instruction to the individuals in the
How much time should be devoted to classroom that should have greater consideration
phonemic awareness instruction? Training pro than the amount of time.

134 The Reading Teacher Vol.54,No.2 2000

October