Betsy Sewell: Phonemic Awareness

On Wednesday 20 February Betsy Sewell gave a presentation on Phonemic Awareness to the Junior school.  This discussion was very pertinent as we have so many children who struggle with reading.  It sounded as if this could be one area that we could use her findings to help these children to gain a love of reading and to be competent, fluent readers who could think about what they are reading and answer comprehension questions.

She began her presentation by explaining how complex and challenging English language is with 40 plus sounds but we only have 26 letters thus many sounds are represented by 2 or more letters.  To further complicate things English has words that come from Old English, French, Latin and Greek - a sound maybe represented by "sh" in old English maybe written using the letters "ch" in French or "ti, ci, si, su or ud" in Latin!  We also have letters in English that our students do not have in their first language.

We need to learn the patterns of letters and the sounds they make to be able to make sense of words.  Being able to decode may be adequate with reading but the skills involved in decoding break down for spelling.  This is because the link between the spoken word and sounds is different.

In a spoken word sounds may not be emphasised so heavily.  We run sounds together and often children do not hear where one sound begins and another ends.  Maybe a child had glue ear when they were learning to speak and could not differentiate the sounds.  Saying a word slowly can help a child notice how the mouth is held for different sounds.  Some pairs of letters such as "p" and "b" may sound similar but there is a difference in how you say them.  By learning how sounds go together they can see that there are repeated patterns in chunks, blends or substituted sounds.  Children who have difficulty detecting some of the tricky sounds need to be taught strategies that work for them and then practise, practise until it is secure.

In print, letters are necessary seperate and discreet.  This knowledge of thinking in sounds and patterns can then be transferred into reading.  A competent reader may pause at an unknown word as he notices and absorbs the word, thinking of the differences and how he can put the chunks together using his sound skills, having developed a mental agility to manipulate sounds and make substitutions instantly and effortlessly.  He can also use emphasis and expression and think about comprehension because he knows the strategies to use.  A struggling reader can not do this automatic processing of sounds and finding patterns.  It is unnatural, not instinctive, and leads to the default of guessing.  As a child works so hard on looking at the words their comprehension is compromised.

A struggling reader will often invent their own spelling when they write, maybe as they say it.  They will try and think of how it looks, look at the Teacher for clues, look somewhere else and hope they will be "rescued" by the teacher who might know that the child has trouble with a particular sound such as "ph" and "f" sounds and always writes "with" as "wif" and will interpret for them. 

The essential skills around sounds and words need to be in place for efficient decoding and spelling.  They need to be able to - 
* detect individual sounds in words and identify them
* represent them in print
* manipulate and blend sounds
* be attuned to patterns and chunks

While these strategies may apply more to the older reader who is struggling I am sure there is much that I can take from this presentation to help some of my year ones who find learning the high frequency words and even identifying individual alphabet letter sounds a struggle. 

Thank you Betsy for your presentation.