Phonological Awareness Essay

1190 Words3 Pages

As a future high school special education teacher I will not be working on phonemic and phonological awareness with early elementary readers. However, I will be working with students who are still learning these skills at the high school level. As an educator, I need to have a thorough understanding of phonological and phonemic awareness in order to implement creative ways to assist my students in learning and strengthening these skills within my classroom. In a perfect world I would not need to work on these strategies at the high school level, however, everyone learns at their own pace and I intent create a “linguistically rich environments in which written and spoken language are used to learn, communicate, to express ideas, to understand …show more content…

The first few years of elementary school are crucial for students to build these skills which contribute to stronger reading and writing. The article which I found difficult to gain information to implement in my classroom was “The Relationship Between Phonological Awareness and Reading: Implications for the Assessment of Phonological Awareness” written by Hogan, Catts, and Little. This article described a study based on how phonological assessment could predict the reading level of students in early school grades. The study administered assessments to kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade students on phonological awareness, letter identification, word reading, and phonetic decoding. The results of the study showed phonological awareness in kindergarten predicted word reading in second grade, the level of word reading in second grade then predicated the phonological awareness skills in fourth grade. Although this study was interesting and provided valuable information on phonological awareness, I cannot see myself using any of this information within my high school classroom. There is a huge gap between elementary school students and high school student’s development level. Once I have my own classroom and begin to educate student in these area I may find a connection or correlation, however, at this point in time I do …show more content…

Tankersley broke down the mechanics of phonemic awareness and discussed numerous relevant aspects of phonemic awareness which I can alter and implement within my classroom. For example, Tankersley discussed patterns in reading and teaching students that print carries meaning. I could implement this within my classroom by having books in my classroom library that have patterns or rhyme. I can also have books on tape and allow my students to listen to the book being read while following along with their finger in the book. This will allow students to learn that print carries meaning and assist in early reading. Tankersley also talked about reading at home and how students are influenced by their parents. Although this was directed towards students at the elementary level, this also applies to students at the high school level. If I have students who are working on reading, I will ask parents to engage with their students and read at home. I could also implement a library buddies program where I would pair my students with general education students and have them read together in the library once a week or more. The chapter also lists several letter identification and letter-sound identification skills which I can use within my classroom after making modifications. The activities presented were different from other activities I have read about and I believe they would be a great

Open Document