State of the Art: Reading - November 1993
                3. Phonemic awareness, a precursor to competency in 
identifying words, is one of the best predictors of later success in 
reading.
Children's awareness of the phonemic structure of spoken words is an 
extremely strong predictor of their success in learning to read. Because 
useful knowledge of spelling-sound correspondences depends on such 
phonemic awareness, children who fail to acquire it are severely 
handicapped in their ability to master print.
                                            (Adams 1990, p. 412)
Phonemic awareness--discerning that spoken language is composed of 
phonemes--is an important predictor of success in learning to read (Juel 
1988). It involves a child's ability to hear the sounds in a word and to 
distinguish between words based on the different sounds. Phonemic
awareness helps children learn the letter-sound correspondences needed 
to read and spell words. Studies (Ball and Blachman 1991; Lundberg et 
al. 1988) have shown that phonemic awareness training improves 
children's ability to read and spell. Unless word identification is 
effortless and automatic, the reader cannot devote attention to 
constructing meaning while reading.
Phonics--instruction in the relationship between letters and sounds--can 
help children attain automatic, visual recognition of spelling patterns 
within words for word recognition. Efficient recognition of spelling 
patterns, in turn, depends on accurate and automatic recognition of
individual letters. Studies of young children show that the most 
important precursor to success in learning to read is rapid recognition 
of the letters of the alphabet. Studies also show that the efficient use 
of sound patterns in speech depends on the awareness of phonemes in 
spoken language. This awareness relates strongly to success in beginning 
reading. Many children develop these prerequisites without formal 
instruction. This is likely due both to the frequency and quality
of early experiences these children have with oral language and to the 
amount of exposure they have to print before entering school.
Effective beginning reading instruction is that which contains a balance 
of activities designed to improve word recognition, including phonics 
instruction and reading meaningful text. Writing and spelling activities 
are also part of effective reading instruction because they affect 
overall reading ability in a positive way. Encouraging children to make 
invented spellings (to spell words as they sound) helps develop phonemic 
awareness as well as increase knowledge of spelling patterns (Clarke 
1988). Effective teachers interweave these activities within their 
instruction and, above all, ensure that phonics teaching is not done 
apart from connected, informative, engaging text.
--- GEcho 1.11+
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