English Phonetics Diary (5)

Phonics vs. Phonemic Awareness vs. Phonological Awareness: What's the Difference? - YouTube
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLTQZ9taZBo

This week I’ve decided to watch a video focusing on phonological awareness. For that reason, I’ve chosen a material from Susan Jones. Before that, I watched a short video explaining the distinction between phonics, phonemic awareness and phonological awareness. It was done by the literacy specialist from a youtube channel called Learning at the Primary Pond. 

I’ve noted down the main idea behind each of these concepts:

  • phonemic awareness - awareness of the individual sounds, e.g. identifying sounds, manipulating phonemes
  • phonological awareness - all ways of working with sounds, e.g. rhyming, identifying separate words in sentences, syllable blending, phonological awareness includes phonemic awareness
  • phonics - connection between letters/letter combinations and the sounds, e.g. knowing what sounds the letter may represent
Going into the second video, I was more conscious of what it was going to be about. Knowing what it means, I was able to focus on a more practical approach - activities for phonological awareness. What’s been presented by Susan Jones includes:
  1. Identifying words in a spoken sentence - Students are supposed to divide the sentence into words. Each word is marked by using manipulatives (e.g. counters, play doh). while repeating the sentence, children touch or move each object
  2. Practicing alliteration - Alliteration (repetition of the same sound) allows students to identify and produce more phonemes. Examples of activities to practice alliteration include: giving the word starting with the first sound of the child's name - they identify the phoneme at the beginning of the name, and then come up with the word starting with this sound; and naming words (e.g. foods) starting with given letter
  3. Practicing blending onset (the part before the vowel) and rime (the vowel and the other letters) - using hand gestures, connecting cubes, cards with onsets and rimes
The thing that caught my attention was the importance of speaking at a normal pace, without slowing down and making the task too easy. While sometimes it’s definitely useful and gives pupils courage and self-confidence, it hinders practicing the skill. I admire the work of Susan Jones, who not only explains every concept very understandably, but also gives an idea of possible difficulties while conducting given activities.

Overally, I once again enjoyed those videos. I gained knowledge, as well as more interest in phonemic and phonological awareness. I feel like those activities are usually quite short, which allows us to incorporate them into the lesson. At the same time, a whole topic may be built around them, with a focus on one of its aspects.

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