Helping Your Child Become a Reader

Included in the booklet (PDF file):

• Becoming a Reader

  • Talking and Listening
  • Reading Together
  • Learning about Print and Books
  • Early Efforts to Write
  • Reading in Another Language
  
  

• Activities

  • Baby Talk
  • Books and Babies
  • Chatting with Children
  • As Simple as ABC
  • What Happens Next?
  • A Home for My Books
  • A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words
  • Rhyme with Me: It's Fun, You'll See!
  • Match My Sounds
  • Take a Bow!
  • Family Stories
  • Write On!

• Other Ways to Help

  • Visiting the Library
  • Learning with Computers
  • Taking Charge of TV

• If You Think There's a Problem

• A Reading Checklist

• Typical Language Accomplishments for Children, Birth to Age 6

• Resources for Families and Caregivers

• Resources for Children

• Simple Strategies for Creating Strong Readers

• No Child Left Behind

The Importance of Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is extremely important for children in regards to their expected reading ability (Honig et al. 2002). The English language is comprised of various organizational components including sentences and words. If a child understands the concepts of spoken sentences and words he or she will be more likely to understand the concepts in a written format. Without phonological awareness, a child cannot develop phonemic awareness. The recognition that there are individual sounds in oral language helps children decode and encode unknown words.

If a child does not have phonemic awareness skills, it is difficult for that child to comprehend phonics instruction. Phonemic awareness is the bridge to understanding principles taught in phonics lessons. Many children create this bridge naturally; other children need to be explicitly taught phonetic patterns (Snider 1995). If a child is asked to spell cat and he or she does not know that there are three separate phonemes in the word, he or she will not be able to phonetically spell the word. Without phonemic awareness a child must use visual memory to recognize and spell words. No patterns are learned or recognized, making reading a laborious task for children.

Differences Between Phonics and Phonological Awareness

Phonics and phonological awareness have similar features. Both involve an awareness of sounds in speech, except phonological awareness does not involve print. Phonics differs from phonological awareness because it involves letters, graphemes, and individual sounds, phonemes. Phonics is the study of the relationship between these two aspects of language (Honig, Diamond, & Gulohn 2002).

Phonics instruction teaches children to become aware of the common patterns in grapheme and phoneme relationships. Using this knowledge, children are able to decode and encode unknown words independently. They do not need to visually remember the entire word, logographically. Skills taught include matching individual letters, letter combinations such as digraphs and diphthongs with their frequently corresponding sounds. The instruction involves synthesizing (blending) and analyzing (segmenting) words and word families (Honig et al. 2002).

Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that covers sound awareness in a variety of speech patterns (Honig et al. 2002). Phonological awareness occurs when a child recognizes that speech sounds can be broken into parts, which include words, syllables, and phonemes. Sentences are made of individual words, words are made up of syllables, syllables are made of onset and rimes, and onset and rimes are made of phonemes. If a child is not aware of phonology, successful instruction of phonics cannot occur.

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