Teaching phonological awareness effectively, Hester Hoette

Teaching phonological awareness effectively

Hester Hoette walks us through the vital teaching steps towards literacy

Research shows that children who are not taught to read confidently by the age of 8-9 are likely to remain poor readers for the rest of their lives. For international students the challenge is even more complex. Many people try to categorise poor readers by their socio-economic status, parental support and, of course, their gender. However, the problem lies with the fact that how we learn to read and spell is a science. Early readers and students with English as a second language (ESL) have to follow the correct steps to learn to read and spell effectively. If I told you that this starts with phonemes and corresponding graphemes, followed by morphological awareness, you would understand why so many teachers aren’t taught the science of reading; many of their lecturers don’t know the science themselves either. As a result, millions of children are being set up to fail.

Here is my step by step advice to teachers to quickly and effectively teach young children to read, and international students to learn ESL.

Step 1 – preparatory phonological awareness

Phonological games, illustrating how words are made up of sounds, are ideal to start. Games involving rhyming,

Early readers and students with English as a second language (ESL) have to follow the correct steps to learn to read and spell effectively. If I told you that this starts with phonemes and corresponding graphemes, followed by morphological awareness, you would understand why so many teachers aren’t taught the science of reading; many of their lecturers don’t know the science themselves either. As a result, millions of children are being set up to fail.

alliteration, clapping words in syllables, and subtracting sounds from a heard word are good examples. In this way children become aware of the existence of a language decoding system.

Step 2 – Letter sound correspondence

Once they have learned the sound-symbol correspondence of ‘s’, ‘p’, ‘o’, and ‘t’ they can not only read and write the word ‘spot’, but can also start to read words such as ‘top’, ‘pot’ and ‘stop’, realising that a generic mechanism or ‘decoding system’ can be applied.

They should only be presented with transparent ‘regular’ one-syllable words such as hit, box, bed. From here they can slowly progress to two- and three-consonant clusters as in the words blend, frost and strip.

It is here that children with ESL start their learning; they are already aware of the existence of decoding and just need to learn the decoding system of the second language.

Step 3 – Similar sound instruction

It’s now time to introduce slowly the more complex ‘irregular’ sounds and letter blends. Initially these should be delivered in short vowel sound groups (eg deaf-said-thread), in long vowel sound groups (eg theme-thief-meet-read), and finally the ‘long-short’ vowel sound groups. The most effective way of teaching children to master this stage of development is through technology. The online Lexilogy learning platform, for instance, is proven to be quick and highly effective for late or reluctant learners and students with ESL, and removes the complex learning protocol from teachers.

In theory, this three step process should be enough. Sadly, however, the development of morphological knowledge, an awareness that words may contain smaller units (morphemes) of meaning, is also important. Few teachers know how to teach this, which is where an online learning platform can be helpful.

By providing a resource that delivers the right stage of learning in the correct order, in a fun and engaging way, technology can continue to make teachers’ and students’ lives easier. I hope this has helped!

Hester Hoette is a global specialist in reading and writing skills, and managing director of Lexilogy (lexilogy.com). Email: mail@lexilogy.com