In order to do well at all levels of school, a child must learn to read. However, reading is not easy for many. In order to develop fluency and comprehension, children must start with the basic building blocks of reading. One early skill that needs to develop is phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to distinguish sounds and the general structure of words.
Deficits in Phonemic Awareness – Sign of Reading Disability
There are many warning signs that parents and teachers can look out for in children with developing reading disabilities. For example, a young child may not be able to distinguish the different sounds in two words like “hut” and “hit”. She may also have difficulty with early language skills and development. It may also be very difficult for a child with an early reading disability to be able to attribute letters with their corresponding sounds.
Young children with reading disabilities may also transpose the letters “b” and “d”, as well as “p”, “q”, and “g”. They may also have difficulty naming letters and numbers, and when they are required to do so, they will do it at a very slow pace.
Teachers and caregivers often report that a child who is just starting to read may recognize the first letter of a word, but proceed to say a completely different word that starts with the same letter, like “strong” instead of “strange”. The student with a lack of phonemic awareness would not be aware that the word he is saying bears no relationship to, and doesn’t sound anything like the written word.
Early Strategies for Reading Skill Development
When young children are having trouble with phonemic awareness, identifying and/or saying sounds, the following accommodations and steps may be helpful in the classroom.
Use letter tiles or blocks to help children distinguish the sounds in small words. This technique is sometimes called sound segmentation. By being able to physically move the letter objects, a child will use other sensory skills to help with the development of words and eventually reading skills. Taking it a step further, a teacher can then demonstrate that by removing a letter or adding one, the word can become a brand new word.
Rhyming is an extremely effective method of teaching phonemic awareness. Children will be entertained by creative rhyming in stories, and this will also help them to see that some words that are spelled similarly will have many of the same sounds. Students will also enjoy creating their own rhyming sentences and stories. Memorization of popular rhymes may also be helpful.
Once a child with a reading disability learns how to manipulate letters and make words and rhymes, the next step is to blend sounds to make words. First, show the student how to sound out each letter, and then help him blend the sounds together. So, “b” and “at” will become “bat”. The educational children’s show, The Electric Company, demonstrates blending in an entertaining way and may be worth showing to the class.
There are many ways to help a young student with a reading disability in the regular classroom. Children who fall behind in reading will greatly suffer in all academic areas of school. Therefore, teachers need to provide some of these very important accommodations for young children with reading disabilities so that they can achieve phonemic awareness and become confident readers.
Sources:
Carter, Nari, Prater, Mary Anne, Dyches, Tina T., Making Accomodations and Adaptations for Students with Mild to Moderate Disabilities. OH: Pearson Education Inc., 2009.
Cooley, Miles L., Ph. D., Teaching Kids with Mental Helath & Learning Disorders in the Regular Classroom. MN: Free Spirit Publishing Inc., 2007.
Karen Plumley - Karen Plumley is a writer specializing in parenting and education. She works for Parenting NH and the Hippo, NH's most widely read ...
