Welcome to this series on how to use shared reading
to build language and early literacy skills. In this presentation,
we will be discussing how you can build children's understanding
of speech sounds at home using shared storybook reading.
Phonological awareness is a child's awareness of the sounds in
their language or speech. When we produce speech, we are
linking segments of sounds together. Phonological awareness is our awareness
of these segments.
It is the ability to think about the sounds in
a word separate from the meaning of the word. For
example, when asked what rhymes with pig, a child has
to think about the sounds in the word pig rather
than the meaning of the word pig.
Before we begin, here are some terms you will need
to know. A syllable is a part of a word
and is a sequence of sounds. A syllable must have
at least one vowel.
Words may be one syllable in length like cat, mill,
and ten, or several syllables in length, like caterpillar,
Million,
and tennis.
Rhyming words are words that have the same sounds at
the end.
For example,
make and rake,
magic and tragic.
Rhyming words may have the same spelling, but they may
also have different spellings, such as see
and tree.
A phoneme is the smallest meaningful unit of sound in
speech. Phonemes include both vowels,
the 'e' in beat,
'a'
in bat,
'o' in boat
and consonants.
'k' in cat,
'm' in man,
and
'tch' in match.
Phonological awareness is one of the most important areas of
literacy development for young children because it has a causal
relationship with later reading skills. Children's awareness of different sound
units within spoken language leads to children understanding the alphabetic
principle, in which sounds are mapped onto letters. In turn,
an understanding of the alphabetic principle leads children to develop
their decoding and word reading skills.
You can help children build phonological awareness in almost any
setting. You simply need to draw children's attention to the
sounds that make up sentences, words, or syllables. You can
say and sing nursery rhymes. Rhyme is a feature of
most languages, so share and enjoy nursery rhymes at home
as well.
Playing 'I spy' is a great way to build phonological
awareness. Or playing sound games while walking to or from
different rooms at school- have children look to see if
they can see things that rhyme, things that start with
the same sound, or things that end with the same
sound.
You could say:
"Let's look for things we see that rhyme with bag".
Or,
"Let's look for things that start with the
/d/ sound".
Or,
"Let's look for things that end with a /p/
sound".
You can also build children's phonological knowledge whenever they're engaged
in shared reading of a storybook.
Shared reading is the interaction that occurs between an adult
and a child when reading or looking at a book.
Shared book reading is not intended to teach children to
read.
It is about building children spoken language and early literacy
skills to prepare them to engage with reading instruction.
Storybook reading provides wonderful opportunities for children to hear and
learn about sounds.
Here are some tips for shared reading. Repeated reading of
storybooks helps children to develop their language and literacy.
Try to read each new story book at least four
times over a few weeks. If a child has a
language difficulty or language disorder, manipulative books such as lift-the-flap
books, as well as books with less text and shorter
sentences may increase their engagement and enjoyment of shared reading
experiences.
And remember, you don't have to read the exact words
in the book.
Make the sentences shorter and use easier to understand language
if this helps the child to engage.
When building children's phonological knowledge through shared reading, talk about
rhyme. Choose a story book that has rhyming words. As
you read the book, draw their attention to words that
rhyme. You might say for example:
"Listen.
'pea' -
'be'.
Those words rhyme. 'Pea' and 'be' sound the same at
the end. Watch my mouth. See how my mouth does
the same thing at the end.
Can you think of some other words that rhyme with
'pea'?"
Or you might pause during reading and say:
"Clock-
sock.
Do those words right.
Does my mouth do the same thing at the end?"
Or you might say:
"Listen to these words.
Log -
juice.
Log and juice do not sound the same at the
end. See how my mouth is different? Log and juice
do not rhyme".
When you're reading a book to children, talk about syllables.
You could say:
"It can be fun to listen for the parts of
words.
Words can be broken into parts called syllables.
A syllable is made-up of sounds and must have at
least one vowel.
Today we're going to listen for syllables in words. Some
words have a lot of syllables, like the word delighted.
You might clap for each syllable in this word: de
- ligh – ted". Be sure to clap as you
say each syllable in the word.
Not before or after.
Some words have only one syllable, like the word hill.
So you would clap for the one syllable in the
word. And the word up.
Clap for the one syllable in the word. Choose some
words from your storybook and have fun clapping the syllables
in each word.
When reading a book to children, you can segment and
blend syllables in words.
You could segment (pull apart) and blend (put back together)
syllables in words.
Choose some words from your storybook. You could say: "I'm
going to say the syllables or parts of a word.
See if you can blend the syllables together and tell
me the whole word".
Say each word syllable by syllable. For example, you might
say:
Sun - day,
won - der - ful,
bill - a - bong.
After you say each word and your children have had
the opportunity to say what it is, model the correct
answer.
You might say:
"I said Sun - day
The word is
Sunday.
I put the parts of the word together".
Or you could say:
"Listen, I'm going to say some words from today's storybook.
See if you can tell me the first, middle, or
last syllable in the word".
So you might say for example:
"What's the first syllable in the word bathtub?
What's the middle syllable in the word tomato?"
Or,
"What's the last syllable in the word honey?"
When reading a book to children, talk about phonemes or
sounds at the beginning, middle and end of words.
You could say:
"Today we are going to listen to the first sound
in a word. Most words are made-up of many sounds.
See if you can hear the first sounds in these
words".
During reading, stop occasionally and ask children to identify words
beginning with the same first sound. As in: "Listen to
see if you can hear two words that start with
the /sh/ sound.
Rasto the shearer had a sheepdog called Brute.
What words started with the /sh/ sound? Can you think
of another word that starts with the /sh/ sound?"
Or you might pause during reading and say, for example:
"This is the letter b. It makes the sound /b/.
The word billabong starts with the /b/ sound.
Let's keep reading and listen for other words that start
with the
/b/ sound".
As you read, have children listen and look for words
that start with the sound you choose.
Talk about phonemes or sounds at the beginning, middle, and
end of words.
After reading your storybook you might say:
"Listen carefully. I'm going to say some words from our
book.
When I say the word, I want you to tell
me the last sound you hear- the sound at the
end of the word".
Or you could say:
"This time I want you to listen very carefully and
tell me what sound you hear in the middle of
these words".
Now we're going to segment (pull apart) and blend (put
back together) sounds in words.
So you could choose some words from the storybook you
have just shared with the children.
Say: "Today we're going to play a game with some
of the words from our story. You'll have to listen
carefully because I'm going to segment the words into sounds,
and you'll have to put them back together to tell
me the word".
Here are some examples.
For two sounds, you might say:
ou -
t,
out.
three sounds -
b -
ea - ch,
beach,
four sounds-
f - l
oa - t,
float.
When reading a book to children, we can also manipulate
sounds in words. After reading your story, you could say:
"Today we're going to use some of the words from
our book to do a sound swap. Let's say 'rat'.
Say it together, rat.
Now let's change the /r/ to a /k/.
What's our new word?"
Remember, it's important to say sounds and not letter names
for this activity.
Or you could say: "before we start reading, we're going
to play a game with some of the words we
will hear in our story. Listen, and I'll tell you
what to do".
An example is to place three cups in a row
in front of the child.
You might say the word 'cup', for example,
Then stretch the word into its individual sounds.
/c/ - /u/ - /p/.
As you say, each sound drop a counter into a
cup, working from your child's left to right.
After saying each of the sounds, have your child blend
the sounds to say the whole word.
Have fun and enjoy building phonological knowledge in your classroom
through shared book reading.