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State of the Art: Reading - November 1993

image omitted 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 severly 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.
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[Effective reading instruction can develop engaged readers who are knowledgeable, strategic, motivated, and socially interactive.] [Table of Contents] [Modeling is an important form of classroom support for literacy learning.]