Phonics vs. Phonemic Awareness
In Arlington, we use Heggerty Phonemic Awareness and Fundations Phonics to build a solid foundation of skills for our students. We know that literacy skills and the ability to read does not happen with out the dovetail of phonics. phonemic awareness, vocabulary, writing, and strong comprehension. We understand that a house cannot be built without this solid foundation of phonics and this allows vocabulary and writing to become the "walls" to support the "roof" of comprehension.
Phonics and phonemic awareness help our students to be able have a strong sense of decoding or "sounding out" words. Once they become familiar and confident with reading words that are able to be "sounded out" students then begin to develop their reading skills further. As books become more complex, students are no longer able to rely solely on their decoding and sight word knowledge and this is how our Units of Study Reading and Writing curriculum support our mission of creating life-long readers who know how to think critically and of course who LOVE to read!
Phonics Phonemic Awareness
The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language — and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.
Learning that there are predictable relationships between sounds and letters allows children to apply these relationships to both familiar and unfamiliar words, and to begin to read with fluency.
Children are taught, for example, that the letter n represents the sound /n/, and that it is the first letter in words such as nose, nice and new. When children understand sound–letter correspondence, they are able to sound out and read (decode) new words.
Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made of individual sounds called phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound we hear in a word. Rather than working with larger units of spoken language, we ask students to listen for the individual sounds or phonemes in a spoken word. When we ask students to blend or segment words into the smallest unit of sound they hear, we are working at the phonemic awareness level. For example, the four sounds /p//l//a//n/ can be blended to make the whole word plan.
Fundations Alphabet Chart.pdfWhat Fundations looks like in the classroom:
"Fundations" provides children of varying learning abilities with a foundation for reading and spelling. In Arlington, our K - 2 students participate in "Fundations" lessons daily that include these activities!
Letter formation using sky writing, dry erase boards, notebooks, and finger tracing.
Fluency drills for sounds, real words, nonsense words, trick words, phrases and stories allow students to connect the word with its meaning, and develop automaticity, phrasing, and expression.
Alphabet sequencing with sound cards or Magnetic Building Board with alphabetic overlay and phoneme tiles.
Blending and segmenting sounds with the Wilson finger tapping technique.
Teachers model with “Echo” the owl puppet directing students to repeat sounds, words, and sentences.
Sound drill with Echo the Owl and Large or Standard Sound Cards.
Echo/Find Letters and Words using the Magnetic Letter and Building Boards and phoneme tiles.
Dictation for sounds, words, and sentences using the dry erase board and composition books.
Trick words (high-frequency non-phonetic words) using sky writing, gel boards, composition books, flashcards, and notebooks.
Word of the Day activity reviews word structure and develops vocabulary using sound cards, index cards, and Vocabulary section of the notebook.
Word Talk, Word Play and Make it Fun are variable lesson activities using the manipulatives to reinforce unit concepts or review previously taught concepts.
Fundations Home Support Pack - Level 1.pdfLevel_3_Help_Develop_Oral_Expression_and_Vocabulary.pdf
It is essential for students to understand that words are made up of individual sounds, and they can blend, segment, and manipulate those sounds. If students can do this work through the air, we can transfer these skills to print, so they can read and spell more words.Phonemic awareness and phonics do work together when students learn to read and spell. Words are made up of sounds (phonemic awareness) and letters represent these sounds in print (phonics). Without the ability to hear sounds in words, phonemic awareness and phonics cannot engage in this reciprocal relationship
