Phonics

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The video above gives a breif description of what phonological awareness is.

According to Pollard (2000) most adults are unaware of the phonological nature of language. Phonology is simply the sound structures in speech and phonemic/phonological awareness is the ability to isolate those sounds. For example, the middle sound in ‘dog’ is /o/. Usually we concentrate on the meanings of words rather than the sounds in them. This can become a problem for children when they begin to learn to read and write, because the sounds in words are not separated in speech, but instead intertwine and overlap. (Pollard, 2000) Below are some of terms often used in discussions about literacy and phonics:  ·  ** The alphabetic principle ** Sounds in speech can be represented by letters  ·  ** Phonics ** Instruction in relationship between sound and written symbol, aids understanding of alphabetic principle

 ·  ** Phoneme ** Individual sounds in speech that add meaning  ·  ** Graphophonics ** Sound-symbol relationship  ·  ** Phonology ** The way sounds of language operate  ·  ** Phonemic awareness ** Every word can be thought of as sequence of phonemes  ·  ** Phonological awareness ** Ability to isolate individual phonemes  ·  ** Sub-skills of phonemic awareness **  o  ** Alliteration ** Successive words beginning with same sound  o  ** Rhyme ** Words with similar sounding end  o  **Syllables/ Syllabification** Words are made up of smaller units, these units are heard as one sound  o  **Oral Blending** The combining of phonemes to make a word  o   **Segmentation** The sepatation of a word into phonemes  o  **Sound Manipulation** The adding removing and reordering of sounds within a spoken word (eg. Ask child to say "star" and then ask child to say it with a /t/ at the end. "start")  o    **  Onset  **   and   **Rime** Two components that make up a syllable. The onset is the consonant(s) before the vowel. The rime is the vowel and anything after it.

(Note: "Rhyme" and "Rime" do not mean the same thing)

Definitions sourced from: Hill 2006 Pollard 2000 Barratt-Pugh & Rohl 2000 Freese 2006