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Contents

Developing Phonemic Awareness and Learning Reading ................................... 4

How to Teach Phonics and Reading ................................................................... 8

How to Teach Your Baby to Read ..................................................................... 11

How to Teach Phonemic Awareness While Reading Bedtime Stories .............. 15

What Is Phonemic Awareness .......................................................................... 18



Developing Phonemic Awareness and Learning Reading

As more research brings to light the advantages of phonics and

phonemic awareness instructions have over whole language teaching

methods, more parents are becoming aware of teaching using

phonics and phonemic awareness skills. Many parents today are

concerned about the method that is being used to teach their

children how to read, and rightfully so. The whole language method

is more of a method of "word memorization", where the child is

taught to look at printed words as whole configurations, much like

looking at Chinese characters.

Teaching phonemic awareness skills involves the breakdown of

words into individual sounds (phonemes), and then joining the parts

to form, or sound out the words. By contrast, whole language

learning stresses the flow and meaning of the text, where "sounding

out" words is not used, the words are decoded through its larger

context, and word memorization plays a key role. What would you

rather do, memorize hundreds or even thousands of words based on

shapes, or learn a systematic way of reading?

English is not meant to be memorized as shapes and sight objects. It

becomes very difficult to learn to read by memorizing and

recognizing shapes. Phonics and teaching phonemic awareness skills

requires you to memorize the letters and the sounds they represent,



and with this method,children as young as two years old can learn to

read successfully, and comprehend what they are reading. Try

teaching a young child with the whole language learning method, see

how successful he or she will be at memorizing shapes. Teaching by

using phonics will routinely produce successful readers.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that phonics is clearly a

superior method of teaching children how to read. In the USA, over

30 million adults (14%) are considered functionally illiterate, and are

unable to perform simple everyday literacy activities. [1] This

however, should not be surprising since over one third of all children

cannot even achieve basic reading competency by the time they are

in grade four. This is a finding from the National Assessment of

Educational Progress (NAEP). Are these children failing at literacy

because they are dumb? I I hardly think so, but perhaps it is a result

of the poor reading instructions they receive.

It has been proven time and again, that teaching phonemic

awareness skill produces superior reading and spelling abilities than

whole language teaching methods. Thousands of studies have

confirmed this, and the National Reading Panel has also made a clear

statement about this.

While most teachers will probably say that they teach using some

phonics, the truth is that many teachers are not knowledgeable in



the basic concepts of the English language. No, I'm not making a

random statement. In a recent study, the researchers stated: "many

in-service teachers are not knowledgeable in the basic concepts of

the English language". Their study found that even though the

teachers may be well versed in children's literature, but they do not

know how to address the basic building blocks of language and

reading. In their survey of instructors conducted, the researchers

found that the teachers performed poorly on the concepts relating

to morphemes and phonemes. In another second study, over 80% of

the interviewed instructors agreed that phonics is a desirable

method to use for beginning reading instructions. [2]

Some argue that a child will acquire a knowledge of phonics on his or

her own after learning to read using whole language methods. While

this may be true for some children, it is hardly the case for the other

children with reading difficulties. When a child is taught to read using

a whole word approach, they develop a habit of looking at all the

words by their whole configurations, and this prevents the child from

seeing the phonetic structure of the words. Real readers who learned

to read by learning phonemic awareness skills do not need clues or

cues to help them recognize shapes - they develop an automatic

ability to decode the letters and words.



Ultimately, it is up to the parents to decide the path for which to

teach their children to read. They can either simply leave it up to the

education system, and hope that their child does not end up being

one of the 38% grade four students which do not develop even basic

reading achievement, or they can take the initiative and make the

decision to help their children develop phonemic awareness skills

early on before even starting kindergarten. Research on phonemic

awareness has shown time after time that phonemic awareness skills

predicted reading and spelling success of children in school.

Don't leave your children's reading success up to chance.

Click here to learn about a simple, step-by-step teaching method that

will catapult your child's reading abilities - a learning process so

simple, that even two year olds can learn to read

Notes:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy

2. J Learn Disabil. 2009 Sep-Oct;42(5):392-402. Epub 2009 Jun 19.

Why elementary teachers might be inadequately prepared to teach reading.

Joshi RM, Binks E, Hougen M, Dahlgren ME, Ocker-Dean E, Smith DL.

Texas A&M University, USA.






How to Teach Phonics and Reading

Teaching children to read by teaching phonics activities is a lot like

doing math, where you have to know what the numbers are, how to

count, and you need to learn to add and subtract before learning to

multiply and divide. Teaching phonics to children is no different

where you follow a step by step approach by first teaching the child

the alphabet letters and phonics sounds, and then teaching them the

combination of different letters to create different words, and using

words to form sentences. It is a very logical and sequential buildup of

phonics knowledge and reading ability.

Before a child can learn to read, he or she must first learn the

alphabet letters, and know the sounds represented by the letters. It's

usually easier to teach some consonants and short vowels first

before moving on to more complicated things such as consonant

digraphs (2 consonants formed to produce one sound, such as "ch"

or "ph") and long vowels. As you can see, teaching children to read

by the phonics method helps them develop phonemic awareness,

and it is also a very logical and straight forward approach.

Start off by teaching your child the phonics sounds. You can choose

to teach your child in alphabetic order going from A to Z, or you can

teach several commonly used consonant sounds and vowels, and go

from there. For example, you may start teaching your child /a/, /c/,



and /t/ (slashes denote sound of the letters). Once your child has

learn to quickly recognize these letters and properly sound out their

sounds, you can then teach them to blend /c/, /a/, /t/ to make the

words "cat", or "tac", or "at".

As you introduce more letters and phonics sounds in your lesson

plans, you can generate more words, and slowly introduce short,

simple sentences to your reading lessons. Depending on the age of

your child, I would suggest keeping the phonics lessons relatively

short - around 5 to 10 minutes. Sometimes, just 3 to 5 minutes for a

short lesson is plenty, and you can easily teach these short phonics

lessons 2 or 3 times each day for a total of 10 to 15 minutes. Young

children tend to be forgetful, so repetition is very important.

You don't want to make the lessons too long and boring, that the

child begins to feel like doing a "chore" when learning to read. So

keep it short, fun, and interesting. By keeping the phonics lessons

short, you also avoid overwhelming the child with too much

information, and always remember to make sure your child has

mastered one lesson before moving on to new material. Confusion

and uncertainty will only make their learning effort difficult and

frustrating - so review often, move on to new material only after

they've mastered the current lessons.



So when can you start teaching phonics sounds and lessons to

children? Not everyone will agree with me on this, but I believe that

if your child can speak, then your child can learn to read. Of course,

every child is different and unique, and some children will be more

receptive to learning reading than others. One thing for certain, is

that the earlier a child learns to read, the better.

We have taught our 2 year old daughter to read through teaching

phonics sounds and lessons, and helping her develop phonemic

awareness. If you watched the video above, that is our daughter

reading randomly created sentences. We simply started teaching

phonics sounds to her by spending 5 to 10 minutes each day, spread

between 2 to 3 separate lessons, and slowly introduced new letters

and reading material.

If you would like to learn more about the simple, effective, step-by-

step method of teaching phonics and phonemic awareness, please

click below.

>> Teach your child to read today using our step-by-step, proven

method for teaching young children to read





How to Teach Your Baby to Read

Teaching your baby to read is becoming more and more high priority

for parents now as it becomes clear that learning to read at a young

age offers numerous advantages for the child once he or she begins

school. Studies have consistently found that teaching a baby to read

and helping children develop phonemic awareness well before

entering school can significantly improve their development in

reading and spelling. However, when it comes to teaching babies to

read, there are two main teaching methods.

These two main methods of teaching a baby or child to read are the

whole language method, and the phonics and phonemic awareness

method (the phonetic approach), which should be the preferred

teaching method in helping children learn to read. Some prefer the

whole language method, while others use the phonics approach, and

there are also educator that use a mix of different approaches. With

the Look-say approach of whole language learning, a child begins

with memorizing sight words, and then taught various strategies of

figuring out the text from various clues.

The whole language method produces inaccurate and poor readers

compared to students of the phonetic approach. Using the whole

word approach, English is being taught as an ideographic language

such as Chinese. One of the biggest arguments from whole-language



advocates is that teaching a baby to read using phonics breaks up the

words into letters and syllables, which have no actual meaning, yet

they fail to acknowledge the fact that once the child is able to

decode the word, they are able to actually READ that entire word,

pronounce it, and understand its meaning. So in practicality, it's a

very weak argument. English is an alphabetic system, and unlike

Chinese, it is not an ideograph like Chinese characters, and should

not be taught using an ideographic approach.

I always say that if your baby can speak, then you can begin to teach

your baby to read. I won't mention any names here, but I think most

parents are probably aware of one very popular "reading" program,

which is a whole word approach. Using this method, your baby

simply learns to memorize the words without actually reading the

words. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that teaching your

baby to read using the whole word approach is an effective method.

In fact, there are large numbers of studies which have consistently

stated that teaching children to reading using phonemic awareness is

a highly effective method.

Teaching phonemic awareness to children significantly improves their

reading more than instruction that lacks any attention to phonemic

awareness. - statement made by the National Reading Panel [1]



I do think that the debate on the effectiveness of teaching a baby to

read using either the whole language or phonics method is settled by

the statements made by the National Reading Panel. They reviewed

over 1,960 different studies to make their conclusions.

In fact, while my wife was pregnant with our first child, I began doing

extensive research on the subject on how to teach my baby to read -

after birth, of course. Like most parents I also came across the

popular whole word teaching approach being heavily marketed.

Seeing the infomercials got me quite excited actually, seeing the

babies on TV "reading". But after trying it out, it occurred to me that

the our baby wasn't actually "reading", but actually "memorizing",

and I thought to myself, how are my children supposed to read

newer, and more complicated words as they grow older without an

appropriate method of decoding those words? This is where my long

and extensive research into phonics and phonemic awareness began.

After many hours of research and learning as much as I could, I felt

comfortable enough with our simple phonemic awareness teaching

method, that my wife and I began giving brief 3 to 5 minute lessons

to our daughter, aged 2 years and 8 months. Within just a few short

weeks, her reading ability (and I mean actual reading ability, not

memorization) was astounding, even for me as the parent who gave

the reading instructions. Friends and family alike, were simply



flabbergasted at what our daughter was capable of reading at just 2

years and 11 months. Please watch the video above, composed of

clips of her reading randomly created sentences for reading fun.

I simply can't imagine this kind of progress possible with the whole

word approach - just think of the tens and hundreds of words a

young child would have to memorize!

Our son is fast approaching the age where he will soon be able to

speak, and we will be using the same simple step-by-step method to

teach him to read. If you'd like to learn more about our simple,

effective, step-by-step program, please signup for our newsletter

below. We also send out new articles, updates, tips, and guides on

teaching a baby to read.

Click here to learn how to easily and quickly teach your child to read.

Notes:

1. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National

Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific

research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-

4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.





How to Teach Phonemic Awareness While Reading

Bedtime Stories

Helping young children develop phonemic awareness early on is one

of the keys for children to develop exceptional reading and writing

skills once they begin attending schools. Did you know that studies

have indicated that phonemic awareness is the single best predictor

of reading success for young children once they begin school? In fact,

studies have found that phonemic awareness is far better than IQ at

predicting the reading and spelling abilities of young children.

Most people know about phonics, and what it is; however, far fewer

people know what phonemic awareness is. In short, phonemic

awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and work with the

phonemes. For example, /d/, /o/, and /g/, are the individual sounds

of the word "dog". Please note, the letters enclosed in the slashes

denotes the sound of the letter, and not the name of the letter.

Phonemes are the smallest units of individual sounds that form a

word.

Phonemic awareness is not something you're born with, and it is an

ability that's gained through repeated exposure to listening,

speaking, and reading. As parents, there are many different

strategies you can use to help your children develop phonemic



awareness such as playing simple word segmentation or oral

blending games.

Like most parents, we (my wife and I) read bedtime stories before

we put our children to sleep, and one of the best strategies that we

like to use to teach phonemic awareness to our children, is to mix in

word segmenting and oral blending when we read bedtime stories

for our kids. This is an exceptional method, because it doesn't take

any extra time or effort, since reading bedtime stories is something

you already do. So, here's how to go about it.

Let's say that you're reading a nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill":

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after.

Instead of reading each word straight through the rhyme, you can

randomly mix in oral blending on various words in the rhyme. Please

note: instead of using slashes "/" to denote phonemes, we'll simply

use hyphens to make it easier to read. So, let's assume that your

child is very young, perhaps 2, 3, or 4 years old, and you want to start

helping them develop some phonemic awareness. You can read Jack

and Jill like so:



J-ack and J-ill went up the h-ill

To fetch a p-ail of water.

J-ack fell down and broke his crown

And J-ill came tumbling after.

As you can see, when you read the rhyme, you simply make an effort

to separate several of the first letters sounds from the words, such as

/J/ from "ack", and /J/ from "ill". As your child begins to grasp the

concept of individual sounds making up words, you can slowly

increase the difficulty by breaking down each word further. For

example:

Jack

J-ack

J-a-ck

Repeated exposure of this type of word segmenting and oral

blending will slowly help your child develop a sense and an

understanding that each word is made up of individual sounds - in

other words, you are teaching phonemic awareness to your children

during bedtime stories without them even knowing that they are

being taught to!

>> Teach your child to read today using a step-by-step, proven

method for teaching young children to read





Notes:

1. Cognition. 1991 Sep;40(3):219-49. The relationship of phonemic awareness to reading acquisition:

more consequence than precondition but still important. Wimmer H, Landerl K, Linortner R,

Hummer P. University of Salzburg, Austria.

What Is Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness is defined as the ability to identify, hear, and

work with the smallest units of sound known as phonemes. It is NOT

the same as phonological awareness, instead, it is a sub-category of

phonological awareness. For example, phonemic awareness is

narrow, and deals only with phonemes and manipulating the

individual sounds of words - such as /c/, /a/, and /t/ are the

individual sounds that make up to form the word "cat". Phonological

awareness on the other hand, includes the phonemic awareness

ability, and it also includes the ability to hear, identify, and

manipulate larger units of sound such as rimes and onsets.

Phonemic awareness can be taught very early on, and will play a

critical role in helping children learn to read and spell. While it's not

set in stone on when a child can learn to read, however, I do believe

that a child that can speak is a child that can learn to read. Children



as young as two years old can learn to read by developing phonemic

awareness, and they can learn to read fluently. Please see a video of

a 2 year old (2yr11months) reading below.

Below are several of the most common phonemic awareness skills

that are often practiced with students and young children:

Phonemic identity - being able to recognize common sounds in

different words such as /p/ is the common sound for "pat", "pick",

and "play".

Phonemic isolation - being able to recognize the individual sounds of

words such as /c/ is the beginning sound of "cat" and /t/ is the

ending sound of "cat".

Phoneme substitution - being able to change one word to another by

substituting one phoneme. For example changing the /t/ in "cat" to

/p/ now makes "cap".

Word Segmenting - the parent says the word "lap", and the child says

the individual sounds: /l/, /a/, and /p/.

Oral blending - the parent says the individual sounds such as /r/, /e/,

and /d/, and the child forms the word from the sounds to say "red".

Studies have found that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of

reading success in young children. Research has also found that

children with a high level of phonemic awareness progress with high

reading and spelling achievements; however, some children with low



phonemic awareness experience difficulties in learning to read and

spell. Therefore, it is important for parents to help their young

children develop good phonemic awareness. [1]

Being able to oral blend and segment words helps children to read

and spell. According to the National Reading Panel, oral blending

helps children develop reading skills where printed letters are turned

into sounds which combine to form words. Additionally, word

segmenting helps children breakdown words into their individual

sounds (phonemes), and helps children learn to spell unfamiliar

words.

As a young child begins to develop and master phonemic awareness

skills, they will discover an entirely new world in print and reading.

You will open up their world to a whole new dimension of fun and

silliness. They will be able to read books that they enjoy, develop a

better understanding of the world around them through printed

materials, and have a whole lot of fun by making up new nonsense

words through phonemic substitutions.

For example, we taught our daughter to read at a young age - when

she was a little over 2 and a half years old. Before she turned three,

she would run around the house saying all types of silly words using

phonemic substitution. One of her favorite was substituting the

letter sound /d/ in "daddy" with the letter sound /n/. So, she would



run around me in circles and repeatedly say "nanny, nanny, come do

this" or "nanny, nanny, come play with me" etc... Of course, she only

did this when she wanted to be silly and to make me laugh, at other

times, she would of course properly refer to me as "daddy", and not

"nanny". She is well aware of the differences between these words

and is fully capable of using phonemic substitution to change any of

the letters in the words to make other words.

Click here to learn how to easily and quickly teach

your child to read.

Notes:

1. Cognition. 1991 Sep;40(3):219-49. The relationship of phonemic awareness to reading acquisition:

more consequence than precondition but still important. Wimmer H, Landerl K, Linortner R,

Hummer P. University of Salzburg, Austria.


