Skills we learn....

 

Phonological Awareness is a broad skill that includes recognizing and manipulating larger parts of spoken language, such as words, syllables, onsets and rimes, and individual sounds (phonemes). It encompasses skills like rhyming, alliteration, and segmenting words into syllables. 

 

Phonemic Awareness is the subset of phonological wareness that focuses specifically on the ability to identify, manipulate , and work with individual phonemes (the smallest units of sound) in spoken words. For example, being able to isolate the /k/ sound in cat or blend the sounds /d/  /o/  /g/ into "dog". Phonemic Awareness is purely auditory and involves recognizing and manipulating sounds.

 

Phonics connects those sounds to written letters and teaches rules for spelling and pronunciation. For example, phonics instruction might teach that the letter "b" represents the /b/ sound or that "ea" in "bead" makes the long e sound. It is essential for developing strong reading skills, as it enables learners to sound out unfamiliar words and build a foundation for fluent reading and spelling. 

 

Segmenting sounds is a phonemic awareness skill that involves breaking a word into its individual phonemes (sounds). This helps with spelling, reading and pronunciation. Examples are cat = /c/  /short a/  /t/ . We teach sound segmenting through clapping, tapping, manipulating letter/sounds and stretching words. It is an important part of literacy skills because it helps children understand how words are made up of sounds, which is crucial for spelling and reading development. 

 

Decoding is the ability to apply knowledge of letter-sound relationships (phonics) to read written words. It involves breaking down a word into its individual sounds (phonemes) and blending them together to pronounce the word correctly. This is done through recognizing letters and their sounds. We teach sounds through hand movements and songs that help students remember consonants and vowels. Blending sounds is putting sounds togethers like /k/ /short a/ /t/= "cat"   Reading words smoothly as a whole helps build fluency and therefor will help with comprehension. Decoding is a key component to early reading instruction and is closely linked to phonics skills.

 

Encoding in reading refers to the process of using knowledge of letter/sound relationships to spell words. It is the opposite of decoding. It involves hearing and identifying sounds, matching sounds to letter correspondence, phonetic spelling and then constructing the word. Encoding is a crucial skill for writing and reinforces decoding, helping readers recognize words more quickly and accuratly.

 

By building these skills students will feel confident to read new words independently, builds fluency and helps support spelling and writing.