Pedagogy

Reading is an important skill every human being needs to learn. The ability to read influences how an individual may succeed in school and later on, in life.  When one has acquired reading comprehension, the door to opportunities becomes wider, whether it is for personal or professional success. Reading then becomes a vital component in the education of children. 
   
The objective of reading is to learn the meaning of a text. However, the reading process is not that simple. Even cognitive scientists admit that the reading is one of the most interesting and cognitively complex systems (Berko, 1993). The assumption here is that reading comprises various components whose integration becomes integral to easy reading.  Sir Edmond Huey issues what is perhaps the most quoted statement about reading, calling the reading system as the acme of psychologists achievement (1993).  The reading process, no doubt is not that simple.  Before the individual can learn to decipher the meaning, he or she must be able to decode the word units. There lie skills such as word recognition, analysis, and the ability to differentiate oral from written language (Yopp, 1992).  Upon learning the spoken language, children realize that words can be broken down into sounds as represented by letters. This is the beginning of phonemic awareness.

 The sounds represented by the letters of the alphabet are known as phonemes (Berko, 1993). It has been said that phonemic awareness is the ability to detach the sounds within the words (1993).  Another definition by Stanovich (1993) marks phonemic awareness as the ability to separate sound units even minute than the syllable. Threading on the same line, Cunningham (1990) sees phonemic awareness as the aptitude to scrutinize sounds, separate from the language. It is especially useful since phonemes are not isolated units of sounds.   In other words, having phonemic awareness allows the individual to decode the sounds that make up the word. This insight enables children to distinguish the relationship between letter and sounds and in doing so, become equip to recognize word forms and read.

There are five level of phonemic awareness. The first level pertains to the manifestation of children with regards to sound appreciation in oral language in the course of learning nursery rhymes (Adams, 1990). The second level, on the other hand, refers to ones ability to compare and contrast sounds. Simply put, the second level is represented by the childs aptitude to delineate the sounds of words that make them alike or not. The third level of awareness, as ascribed by Adams, is the ability of the child to split syllables (1990).  By this level, the child is able to merge and break up syllables, thereby making the child realize that words can be broken up into sounds as they correspond to phonemes.  By level four, the child is able to do phonemic segmentation (1990). The fifth level of awareness is when the child is not only able to perform phonemic segmentation but can also manipulate, adding or deleting phonemes to create new words.

It is deduced that children as young as three are able to possess phonemic awareness (Berko, 1993).  Various researches revealed that toddlers display this level of phonemic awareness as a result of reading instructions that stress on stress-sound symbols (Berko, 1993). Furthermore, it is found that children respond easily to rhymes (Goswami, 1993).  Rhymes enable children to focus on structure of sounds. This way, they are able to pick up that words have differences and similarities in terms of sound. In essence, rhymes pave the way for the acquisition of phonemic awareness. Rhymes enable the child to distinguish individual phonemes.

Phonemic awareness is not the same as phonics. As aforementioned, phonemic awareness refers to the ability to not only comprehend oral language but segment sounds from words as well. On the other hand, phonics has to do with the ability to understand the relationship between specific letter sounds and specific words. To elucidate, a child that has phonemic awareness can specify specific sounds of the word dog.  A child that has knowledge of phonics meanwhile is able to tell the letter of the first sound (and succeeding sounds) of a certain word, like the word dog for instance.

It is found that children who possess familiarity with rhymes become good readers eventually. In a research conducted by Bradley and Bryant, it is revealed that preschoolers can already anticipate on the word pronunciation using comparison of rhythmic patterns (Goswami, 1993).  This is indicative of the relationship of phonemic awareness and reading.  In another study, researchers found that a child who knows 37 rhymes is able to read up to 500 of the most common words that appeared in elementary school text books (1993). As it turned out, phonemic awareness props up the attainment of reading as well as spelling, which leads to further honing the childs phonological comprehension. Discussions on the relationship of phonemic awareness and reading have led to various researches, all pointing to a positive correlation- that there a strong tie between the growth and development of phonemic awareness to nursery rhymes, inevitably leading to early reading awareness and  ability. A child that has acquired phonetic awareness is able to familiarize himself with the sounds that each letter has, thus is able to identify the individual letters of the word.  Such comprehension may lead to the ability to know the letters of the alphabet, facilitating the transition to read. Tapping phonemic awareness, over time, develops beginning reading.

It is important for teachers and all those in the field of education, to grasp the importance of phonemic awareness as a predictor of successful reading achievement. Phonemic awareness facilitates for understanding of the alphabet, critical to successful beginning reading. If this is the case, then a child that does not have phonemic awareness may not be able to identify words, in short, is a slow reader.  The childs ability to understand alphabet mapping and decoding is able to connect letters in to sound into letters, letters into words.  If teachers become aware of this, then they can create readings instructions based on this knowledge- creating training programs that focus on the levels of phonemic awareness- rhyming, decoding, blending, segmentation, and manipulation. Programs that encourage student interaction with both print and oral language are ways to promote phonemic awareness.

In summary, there are various researches that point to a correlation between phonemic awareness and reading. The acquisition of phonemic awareness is predictive of reading ability. While it is clear that having phonemic awareness facilitates reading acquisition, further studies need to be conducted on how much and what exact forms of phonemic awareness one must possess in order to benefit from it.  But for now, it is enough to stress the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading.