| I was fascinated to discover information on how | | | | distinguish the small segments of sounds - |
| the importance of phonemic awareness was | | | | "phonemic awareness". Their difficulty has nothing |
| discovered. After World War II the U.S. | | | | to do with an ability to recognize the individual |
| Government looked for ways to ease the | | | | letters but what word they form when strung |
| transition back into life for disabled veterans, | | | | together. Well over a third of all beginning readers |
| including those who returned home blinded in | | | | have difficulty identifying, discriminating, and |
| battle. A young psychologist, Alvin Liberman, was | | | | isolating sounds. |
| tasked with creating a reading machine for the | | | | Phonemes are the sounds that make up spoken |
| blind. The idea was to create a machine that could | | | | words not the individual letters. For example, the |
| vocalize print as a finger ran over Braille letters. | | | | word 'on' is made up of two phonemes: /o/ and |
| Although the machine worked it proved too slow | | | | n/. We hear them as a single word because we |
| at articulating the individual sounds to resemble | | | | blend the individual phonemes into a unit as we |
| speech. Listeners found it impossible to join the | | | | pronounce the word. Clusters of letters that |
| machine's sounds together to make any sense | | | | represent single sounds (th, sh, oo, ough, or ck) |
| out of them. However, Liberman's team of | | | | are also important for children to be aware of. |
| scientists had stumbled upon a new | | | | The word 'though' is not decodable just by the |
| understanding of the reading process. | | | | individual letter sounds, there needs to be an |
| They had unintentionally identified the complicated | | | | understanding of the phonetic sound too. |
| relationship between the language that we read | | | | Phonemes are not the sounds that letters make |
| [letters] and the language that we speak | | | | but the sounds of speech that can be |
| [sounds] and discovered one of the primary | | | | represented by letters. |
| reasons it can be hard to learn how to read. Just | | | | Effective reading instruction needs to include |
| as the blind listeners could not make sense out of | | | | teaching of phonemic awareness and phonics. |
| the sounds coming from the reading machine, | | | | Helping your child to recognize the sounds the |
| struggling readers have a hard time blending | | | | letters make and how they combine is as |
| together the different sounds that make up a | | | | important as understanding the letters |
| word. | | | | themselves. |
| Many young learners find it incredibly difficult to | | | | |