Notes from Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom
Shift 2: Recommitting to Phonemic Awareness Instruction
Misunderstanding 2: Phonemic awareness and phonics are the same thing
Phonemic awareness involves only spoken sounds, without letters attached.
Once you begin attaching letters to those sounds, phonemic awareness begins to overlap with phonics work.
Phonological Awareness vs. Phonemic Awareness vs. Phonics
Phonological Awareness: The umbrella term for any work helping students learn to notice/manipulate sounds in speech.
- -Work on the word
- -Work on syllables
- -Work on the Phonemic level
Phonemic Awareness: Subcategory of Phonological Awareness. Helps students learn to:
- -Articulate
- -Notice the individual speech sounds in words
- -Manipulate the individual speech sounds in words
Phonics: Helping students learn the relationships between the sounds in our spoken language and the symbols that represent them.
- -Identifying letter names
- -Identifying letter sounds
- -Using decoding to unlock written words
- -Using encoding to translate spoken words into written words
<Read Part 4: Why Phonological Awareness Does NOT Occur Naturally
Read Part 6: What is The Alphabetic Principle?>
