Phonological awareness essay

d. It is crucial to develop phonological awareness in children because successful early reading and spelling prowess have been attributed to phonological awareness by numerous studies. Developing the skill of phonological awareness in children involves having the children recognise patterns such as rhyme and alliteration, making the children aware of syllables within words and making sure that they can hear and distinguish multiple phonemes in words. II. Why do you think the standards in FIGURE 4. Additionally, since music is a natural part of the world of a child, they very quickly become active participants in the process of learning when songs are involved. Phonemes, being the smallest units of speech, are very critical in developing phonological awareness skills. Phonemes are the individual sounds of spoken language and they are what kids pick up on very easily.

Phonemic awareness is the child’s ability to identify and manipulate the smallest sounds of speech, and to recognize that words are made up of separate sounds. Phonemic awareness helps in both verbal communication and spelling. Finger play can be about any subject that is of interest to children. It would be futile to engage children in finger play that is not about subjects they are interested in. Potential subjects for finger play include animals, cars, food and trains. The sillier, the better; children enjoy sillier finger plays more and will want to repeat them over and over again making it easier for them to learn. It is important that one displays enthusiasm and excitement when engaging in finger play with children, especially if the finger play is a new one.

I would then write all the rhyming words on the board or on a chart. On the next day, I would engage the children in activities like creating lambs and wool balls. Later in the day I would recite the rhyming words that we had identified on the previous day with the children, then ask them to read the words out loud without me. From the words that we identify, I’d ask the children to help me create families of other rhyming words. For instance, from the word snow, we can create a family of words like grow, blow, tow, know, low, and row. This is because music makes the association of sound with symbols significantly easier and faster for children.

In her book, The Genius of Natural Childhood, Blythe argues that songs are a special type of speech and that they carry melodies and inflections of a mother tongue that prepare the child’s ear and brain for language (Blythe, 2015). Further, she writes, songs develop both sides of the brain thus making speech development even faster. Songs teach children about tone and rhythm thus teaching them how language is constructed. Through song, children are assisted with the acquisition of language. To help children learn a new song, I would start with playing sounding games with the children where I let them make all kinds of sounds to get them into the spirit of music. Secondly, I would make sure to start with the whole song as opposed to singing the song in bits.