Key Concepts and Terminology in

Reading Instruction
Phonemic Awareness: The ability to recognize and manipulate individual
sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.

For example, in the word “cat,” there are three phonemes, or three units of sound,
/c/ /a/ /t/. Likewise in the word “night,” there are also three phonemes, even
though there are five letters, or graphemes. A phoneme isn’t the same thing as a
letter. Instead, it’s the sound a letter or letters make. /igh/ makes the long I sound,
so it’s only one phoneme.

“A grapheme is a letter of the alphabet, a mark of punctuation, or

any other individual symbol in a writing system. The grapheme has been
described as the "smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may bring about a
change of meaning."
Phonics: The understanding of the relationship between letters and the sounds
they represent. It involves decoding (sounding out) words and encoding (spelling)
words.

Phonics is a "way of teaching the code-based portion of reading and spelling that
stresses symbol-sound (letter-sound) relationships; especially important in
beginning reading instruction"

Phonics (letter-sound connections) - The letter and the phoneme/sound it

creates.

NOTE: (a combination of letter can create one phoneme, e.g. ph - /f/

Decoding is "the ability to translate a word from print to speech (or mental speech
in silent reading), usually by employing knowledge of sound-symbol
correspondences; also the act of deciphering a new word by sounding it out"
(Foorman et al., 2016 ).
How Phonics Contributes to Reading Development ?

All readers of an alphabetic language such as English use phonics knowledge and
decoding skills to read words (Seidenberg, 2017). Readers know the relationships
between letters or groups of letters and their sounds (called sound-symbol
correspondences or phoneme-grapheme correspondences) and rules for how
words are spelled. Readers can decode words, which involves using phonics
knowledge and phonemic skills to turn a printed word into sounds. Becoming a
proficient reader requires these skills.

"In alphabetic systems, the phonemes of the language are represented by letters or
groups of letters (graphemes, e.g., b → /b/, ph → /f/). If a child learns to decode
that symbol-to-sound relationship, then that child will have the ability to translate
printed words into spoken language, thereby accessing information about meaning"
(Castles, Rastle, & Nation, 2018 ).
Phonemic Awareness (PA) is:

1. the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding
that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp,
1992)

2. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent

sounds or phonemes. Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense.

3. fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon"
begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the
word "run", he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written
symbols or blending sounds to make a word.

4. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system.

5. a strong predictor of children who experience early reading success/ manifest reading
disability.
Phonemic Awareness is important ...

•It requires readers to notice how letters represent sounds. It primes readers for
print.
•It gives readers a way to approach sounding out and reading new words.
•It helps readers understand the alphabetic principle (that the letters in words are
systematically represented by sounds).
Examples of Phonemes

•The word "sun" has three phonemes: /s/ /u/ /n/. The table below shows different
linguistic units from largest (sentence) to smallest unit (phoneme).

Sentence The sun shone brightly.

Word sun
Syllable sun, sun-shine, sun-ny
Onset-Rime s-un, s-unshine, s-unny
Phoneme s-u-n

The word "shut" also has three phonemes: /sh/ /u/ /t/.
Hierarchy of Phonemic Awareness skills:
in order to provide appropriate intervention, it is important to understand the
hierarchy of skills involved in phonemic awareness. Skills must be taught
beginning with simple skills and moving toward more complex skills .

1. Rhyme Recognition – the ability to identify if a pair of words rhyme. For

example, do pat and fat rhyme ? ( yes ) . Do fox and fairy rhyme ? ( no)
2. Rhyme Production – the ability to produce a rhyming word. For example, tell
me a word that rhymes with “ Kiss” , “cat”, “dog”

3. Alliteration Identification – the ability to identify common sound in different

words. For example, tell me the sound that is the same in baby, bark and big ( /b/ )

4. Alliteration Discrimination – the ability to identify the word that has the odd
sound. For example , tell me which word does not belong in bake, bug and rat (rat)
5. Sentence Segmentation – the ability to identify individual words in a sentence.
For example, clap for each word you hear in a sentence, “ I love you” . The child
should clap three times.

6. Segmenting Compound words – the ability to identify that some big words are
made up of two little words. For example, one time for each little word you hear in
this big word: “ mailbox”, “snowman”.

7. Segmenting words into syllables – the ability to identify the number of beats or
syllables in a word. For example, say a word and have the child clap one for each
syllable “ cat “ (1), “garden” (2) “dinosaur” (3), “dysfunctional” (4)
8. Blending Syllables – the ability to blend parts of words. For example, say “cup-
cake” with a slight pause between the two words. Ask the child to identify the
whole word (cupcake0. other examples are “pen-cil” and “hap-py”.

9. Segmenting Phonemes - the ability to identify the individuals sounds in a word.

For example, ask the child to sat the word “cat” and place a block on the table for
each sound on the word “c-a-t” (3). “f-l-a-g” (4) or “g-o” (2).

10. Blending Phonemes- the ability to blend phonemes or individual sounds in a

word. Begin with two three phonemes and progress to four. For example, say “ g-o”
or “s-o-a-p” with a slight pause between each sound and ask the child to identify
the word.
11. Identifying the Initial Sound in a Word – the ability to identify the first sound
hear in a word. For example, ask the child to identify the first sound in the word
“time” /t// .

12. Identifying the Final Sound in a Word – the ability to identify the last sound
heard in a word. For example, ask the child to identify the last sound in the word
“time” /m/.

13. Identifying the Medial Sound in a Word - the ability to identify the middle
sound heard in a word. For example, ask the child to identify the middle sound in
the word ‘time” /i/
14. Deleting a Phoneme – the ability to manipulate the individual sounds of a
word. For example, say the word “bat” and say it again without the /b/ (/at/).

15. Adding a Phoneme- the ability to add a sound to a group of sounds or to a one
syllable word. For example, if you add the /b/ sound to /at/ you say “bat”. Add the
/h/ sound to /it/ “hit” or add the /p/ sound to /op/ “pop”.

16. Substituting the Initial Phoneme in a Word - the ability to change the first
sound in a word. For example, say the word “cat” and then say it again with /b/ for
/k/. You then have “bat” instead of “cat”.

17. Substituting the Final Phoneme in a Word – the ability to change the sound
in a word. For example, say the word “bit” and then say it again with /d/ for /t/. You
then have “bid” instead of “bit”.
18. Substituting the Medial Vowel Phoneme in a Word - the ability to change
the middle sound in a word. For example, say the word “bad” and then say it again
with /u/ for /a// you then have “bud” instead od “bad”