A critical component of beginning reading and word recognition is your child’s ability to isolate, identify, and manipulate or apply sounds that he hears within words. When kindergartners and first graders listen for, identify, and manipulate large or small units of sounds within words, like the sounds of syllables or individual letters, it’s called phonological awareness. When they do this with only the smallest meaningful sounds, sounds that distinguish between words, like the /b/ sound in bat and the /c/ sound in cat, it’s called phonemic awareness.
Children who have difficulty with phonological awareness—isolating, identifying, and manipulating large and small sounds—usually have difficulty learning to read. That’s the bad news. The good news is that high quality, focused instruction can often eliminate or minimize the problem.
Examples
Even with the definitions above, many readers will probably find the terms phonological awareness and phonemic awareness too abstract to be meaningful. So here are modified examples based on the Test of Phonological Awareness Skills (TOPAS; co-authored by a friend of mine). In these example, the examiner is speaking.
- Rhyming: “Finish the sentence with a word that rhymes with hat: The dog chased the _____.”
- Blending or Incomplete Words: “I will say a word with a missing sound. What word am I saying? Bath___oom.”
- Sound Sequencing: “Let’s match blocks with sounds. Remember what we learned before; the blue block makes the /m/ sound and the red block the /a/ sound. When I say the word, make the blocks match the sounds you hear. Here’s the word: May.”
- Deletion of Small Sounds (phonemes): “Say the word horse. Now say it without the /h/ sound.”
Evaluation of Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness
If you think your child might have difficulty with phonological awareness or its toughest component, phonemic awareness, request his school to assess his abilities in both areas. The reasons are simple: difficulties in these areas will likely create reading disabilities; eliminating or minimizing them might prevent reading disabilities.
But is one test, even a superior one like the TOPAS, sufficient for making definitive evaluations? In a word, no. Much more information is needed. Here is what the TOPAS manual says:
Even tests that have the highest possible levels of reliability have enough error to recommend caution in their interpretation. For example, a test with almost perfect reliability [children whose abilities remain the same will always get the score] still contains 15% error…. The error associated with test results makes it imperative to interpret them with caution, especially when they are being used to make decisions about children. Diagnoses and hypotheses emanating from test results must be confirmed by other data. It is wise for examiners to remember the dictum that ‘tests don’t diagnose, people do’ and to make sure that they do not base their diagnoses exclusively on the results of a specific test. Test results are merely observations of a set of behaviors. They specify a performance level at a given time, in a particular situation, but they do not specify why a person performed in a particular manner. (p. 21)
Interpreting the results of a standardized test such as the TOPAS should be only the first step in a comprehensive evaluation of a student’s problems and should be followed by extensive clinical teaching, criterion-referenced testing, and informal assessment procedures. The findings of the total evaluation should be the basis for designing an appropriate instructional intervention. (p. 22)
All parents and evaluators should view all test scores with these cautions.
If a comprehensive evaluation finds that your child needs extra instruction in phonological awareness, the school should frequently and carefully monitor his progress. Only by analyzing monitoring information can it intelligently adjust his program to overcome continued difficulties or, if he made great progress, focus instruction on something more appropriate.
You can learn more about the TOPAS at www.proedinc.com. You can learn more about phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and monitoring in chapters 3, 6, and 7 of Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds.
Resources
Margolis, H., & Brannigan, G. G. (2009). Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds. Voorhees, NJ: Reading2008 & Beyond (www.reading2008.com).
Newcomer, P. L., & Barenbaum, E. (2003). Test of Phonological Awareness Skills. Austin, TX: ProEd.
HM © Reading2008 & Beyond
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