apeevy_journal3

apeevy_journal3

Chapter 4

Review- What did I learn?

Chapter 4 discusses the importance of phonological knowledge in learning to read.  It further explores various theories supporting this idea.  Phonemic awareness is crucial to word recognition, according to the word recognition view of reading.  Phonemic awareness is the ability to use the sounds that make up sounds in oral language; however phonemic awareness fits under the much broader umbrella of phonological awareness- which is the ability to distinguish larger units, such as words. 

There are two views of phonemic awareness:  the word recognition view, and the sociopsycholinguistic view.  In the word recognition view, it is believed that the ability to perceive and manipulate sounds that make up words is the meaning of phonemic awareness.  But to sociopsycholinguistics; phonemic awareness is said to be subconscious, it is thought to be a natural part of oral language development.  There has been a great deal of research done to support both of these views.

Just as there are phonological factors that influence your view of reading and second language teaching; there are factors from linguistics that educators must consider when deciding which of these views they believe in.  The three linguistic factors that have influence are that phonemes occur in allophones; phonemes vary with dialect regions; and phonemes vary across languages.

There are about 39 phonemes or groups of sounds in the English language.  Phonemes are groups of sounds that are known as allophones.  The pronunciation of phonemes varies with the placement of the phoneme in a word:  initial placement, medial placement, or final placement.  A phoneme with many variants is /t/.  Depending on which word you are pronouncing, the /t/ is pronounced differently.  These differences involve physical differences. 

Any speaker of a language is said to speak dialect of that language.  Dialects are sometimes regional; sometimes social; and sometimes they are both. The sociopsycholinguistic view does not see dialects as a problem when learning to read.  However; if given a test of phonemic awareness, ELLs may have some difficulties due to differences in phonemes based on dialect.   Often, ELLs have developed the phonology of their L1- and that knowledge may influence how they hear and pronounce certain sounds in the English language (pen vs. pin, caught vs. cot)          

The last factor that should be remembered is that phonemes vary among languages.   There are like sounds in the English language that are formed from different letters.      Examples of this include:  den/ then, breed/ breathe, chair/ share, and t- shirt/ teacher.      A Spanish speaker does not usually have a problem with this as far as meaning is concerned; however when pronunciation or spelling is concerned, it is usually an issue.                                                           

Reflect- What did it mean to you?

I have, while teaching been able to hear the small parts of speech that make up words, and now I understand that they are allophones and play an important part in speech.

I was surprised to learn about all of the allophones of t- I had never really thought about them, although I do hear them!  I find it easier to understand how that can really affect a person’s speech if they have difficulty with the t sound in the English language, although when learning the English language, this chapter states that phonics should not always be the area of emphasis.  I really put the emphasis on a child writing whatever sounds they hear- even if the spelling is not correct. 

I try to constantly stress phonemic awareness, because I believe that that is extremely important for all in my class (I have 17 ESOL students).  We have writers workshop and guided reading, as well as integrating various phonemic activities through math, technology, social studies, and science. 

Refine- How will I use this information with my students?

Just as I emphasize to my students writing the sounds that they hear in a word, I realize that they may not get the correct spelling with this.  I do think the new spelling program that Gwinnett adopted last year will wind up being very beneficial to students (even though it has not been met with too many oohs and ahhs!)  because this spelling program exposes children to the spelling patterns, just as in the early years of school children are being exposed to the consonant sounds that they hear.

Through this class, I learned many new activities that I will use in my class, I will continue to play the “I have, who has?” game, and the “making words” game- although the Scrabble twist on that game is one that I currently do not use, I can’t wait to try it!  I also want to try the Headbanz game.

I also use PebbleGo readers with my ESOL students- they are texts that are very low level- and they are available through eClass.  They allow a student to sit at a computer while the text is read to them, highlighting the words as they are read, and offering meanings of any unknown words.  These readers are very easy to follow.