Friday, October 1, 2010

Free Phonemic Awareness Activities

I read an article the other day published by the International Dyslexia Association about spelling. In the article, the idea is stated that poor spellers often have underlying weaknesses in language issues, including the ability to recognize and segment individual sounds and syllables. I read another article recently about the strong influence of oral development on reading readiness, meaning that the more oral language someone has, the better prepared they are for reading.

Both spelling and reading require a solid foundation of phonemic awareness before reading and spelling instruction can take place. Phonemic awareness includes such language elements as phoneme (sound) identification, syllable identification, rhyme, and identifying words within sentences.

I conducted an ESL training recently for volunteers who work with refugees, and much of their time is spent on developing early literacy skills with their pre-literate and low-literate students. I thought it would be helpful to post the following information about phonemic awareness-building activities for these volunteers, and any others who are seeking free resources for phonemic awareness-building activities. This information was adapted from the Decoding Strategies for Literacy Development teacher's manual published by Reading Horizons, and is posted here with permission. See the page to the right entitled, "Free Phonemic Awareness Activities".

2 comments:

  1. Hello, Heidi! As someone who works with struggling students in those areas, I'm always looking for additional resources I can use. I clicked on the link just above, but it stated that the page didn't exist. Perhaps you can check for a broken link? I'll drop by your site again later to see if I can link to it. Thanks for posting!BTW, I enjoy your site! I've worked with many ESL learners, and I always pick up something helpful and thoughtful from your posts! Thanks!

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  2. Hi, Janet!

    Thanks for your post. The page was "under construction" for a few minutes, but it's back up and working again!

    I'm glad you find this blog useful! Feel free to pass it along to anyone else who may be interested. :)

    Heidi

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