The following is a paper I wrote for a class I had a couple years ago…I’m including it because it has references so you can see I’m not just making this stuff up 🙂
Effective Oral Language and Phonemic Awareness instruction
Oral language development and phonemic awareness are the first steps in ensuring young children will become successful readers, and therefore, successful learners. They indeed lay the foundation for lifelong literacy achievement.
Oral language development seems innate. According to Cilia Geneshi (1998, para. 1), “Almost all children learn the rules of their language through use, and over time, without formal instruction”. That being said, “teachers can help sustain natural language development by providing environments full of language development opportunities” (Genishi, 1998, para. 18). Geneshi goes on to suggest that treating children’s language and communication skills with respect, realizing and treating children as valid conversationalists – even if they are not yet old enough to talk – and encouraging interactions with other children and adults are all ways to actively ensure proper oral language development.
Oral language and its development in young children is intrinsically linked to phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is as its name implies, is the awareness that spoken language consists of a sequence of phonemes or sounds. It is not a written, but rather an auditory skill that assists young children actively listen to the sounds used in creating a word. Many teachers have been helping young children in their development of this phonemic awareness through word play, singing rhyming songs, and reading silly books, for example, Hop on Pop by Dr. Suess, as simply a fun activity for preschoolers, but Yopp and Yopp (2000, p. 132) state that “playful activities will be most effective in developing phonemic awareness if they are used with that goal in mind.”
Classrooms have a fantastic opportunity to assist their students in developing both oral language development and practicing phonemic awareness. Speaking to children correctly, reading books, providing activities for children to interact with each other, and inviting speakers and guests to the classroom for children to listen to and talk with, give children opportunities to hear the spoken word. These simple practices will naturally give young children the foundation needed to develop oral language’ main three components: phonological (knowing which sounds to make to say the intended word), semantic (knowing what word to use to communicate wants or needs), and syntactic (comprehending word order to make sense). These three skills are all necessary to later understanding language in print.
Oral language is unique in that not only does it not require formal training, but it does not require formal testing or correcting, either! Students simply need the opportunity to hear and speak their native tongue, and in time, will be able to self correct (Genishi, 1998).
Phonemic awareness is, however, best formally taught. Teachers need to be intentional about having students listen to short words and the sounds involved in that word – such as /c/ /a/ /t/. Furthermore, manipulating words or letters to make new words – for example, switching the /c/ in cat and replacing it with an /f/ or /b/ sound, asking students to change the first sound of their name to the letter of the week and figuring out what their name would be with a new beginning sound, singing songs that rhyme such as “Down by the Bay” or “The Ants go Marching”, as well as asking students what sound they hear at the beginning of the current day of the week are all effective ways to assist children in learning to actively listen for sounds that make of our words. Later, these sounds will be associated with letters that when strategically placed, will create words! It is a fascinating process – and one that truly begins with oral language development and phonemic awareness.
References:
Geneshi, Cilia. (1998). Young Children’s Oral Language Development. Reading Rockets.
Yopp, Hallie Kay & Yopp, Ruth Helen. (2000). Supporting Phonemic Awareness in the
Classroom. The Reading Teacher. V. 54, No. 2.