Phonics vs. Phonemic Awareness vs. Phonological Awareness: What's the Difference?

Summary

In this educational video, literacy specialist Alison distinguishes between phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness, crucial literacy concepts for K2 students. She explains that phonemic awareness involves recognizing individual sounds in words, phonological awareness encompasses phonemic awareness plus other sound-related skills like rhyming and syllable blending, while phonics links letters and letter combinations to sounds. Alison offers a free phonics scope and sequence for kindergarten through second grade to aid educators.

Takeaways

• 📚 Phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness are distinct literacy concepts.
• 🔊 Phonemic awareness is the understanding of individual sounds in words, or phonemes.
• 👂 Developing phonemic awareness skills allows children to identify and manipulate the initial and final sounds in words.
• 🎶 Phonological awareness is a broader category that encompasses phonemic awareness as well as other sound-related skills.
• 📖 Phonological awareness includes rhyming, identifying words within sentences, and syllable blending or segmenting.
• 🐘 Examples of phonological awareness activities include breaking words into syllables and identifying the onset and rhyme in words.
• 🔤 Phonics is the study of how letters and letter combinations correspond to sounds.
• 👀 Phonics involves understanding that certain letters or groups of letters represent specific sounds.
• 📈 As children advance, they learn to connect letters to sounds, which aids in their reading skills.
• 🔗 A free phonics scope and sequence is available for educators to guide teaching in kindergarten through second grade.

Q & A

What is the main focus of Alison's video?

Alison's video focuses on explaining the differences between phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness, and provides example activities for each.

What is a phoneme?

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language, such as 'mm', 'SS', or 'ch'.

What is phonemic awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate individual sounds in words, like identifying the first sound in 'sun' as 's' or changing 'c' to 'mm' in 'cat' to make 'mat'.

How does phonemic awareness relate to phonological awareness?

Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness, which involves working with sounds and word parts without using letters or words.

What are some other phonological awareness skills besides phonemic awareness?

Other phonological awareness skills include rhyming, identifying individual words in sentences, syllable blending or segmenting, and understanding onset and rhyme.

What is phonics?

Phonics is the study of how letters and letter combinations correspond to sounds, such as knowing that 'M' represents the sound 'mm' or 'C H' represents 'ch'.

How does phonics differ from phonemic and phonological awareness?

Phonics involves the connection between letters and sounds, whereas phonemic and phonological awareness focus on sounds in words without reference to letters or written text.

What is an example of a phonemic awareness activity mentioned in the video?

An example of a phonemic awareness activity is taking the word 'cat' and switching out the 'c' for 'mm' to make 'mat'.

What is an example of a phonological awareness activity that involves rhyme?

An example of a phonological awareness activity involving rhyme is recognizing that 'cat' and 'hat' rhyme.

What is an example of a phonological awareness activity that involves syllables?

An example of a phonological awareness activity involving syllables is breaking the word 'elephant' into 'el-e-phant' or blending 'ze-bra' into 'zebra'.

What resource does Alison offer for those interested in teaching phonics?

Alison offers a free complete phonic scope and sequence for teaching skills in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, which can be found in the link provided in the video description.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Literacy Concepts

Alison, a literacy specialist from Learning At the Primary Pond, introduces the video's focus on explaining the differences between phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness. She encourages viewers to subscribe and engage with the content by commenting if they find the terms confusing. The video promises to provide example activities for teaching these literacy skills in K-2 education.

🔤 Understanding Phonemic Awareness

Alison defines a phoneme as the smallest unit of sound in a language, such as 'mm' or 'SS'. She explains that phonemic awareness is the recognition of individual sounds within words, like identifying the 's' in 'sun' or the 'sh' in 'brush'. As children develop, they learn to manipulate phonemes, such as changing 'c' to 'mm' in 'cat' to make 'mat'. This skill is a subset of phonological awareness.

🎶 Phonological Awareness Beyond Phonemes

Phonological awareness encompasses more than just phonemes; it includes working with various sound and word parts. This includes rhyming, identifying words in sentences, syllable blending and segmenting, and understanding onset and rhyme. These skills help children to break words into smaller parts and recognize patterns in language.

🔠 The Role of Phonics in Literacy

Phonics is distinguished from phonemic and phonological awareness by its focus on the relationship between letters and sounds. It involves understanding that certain letters or combinations represent specific sounds, such as 'M' for 'mm' or 'CH' for 'ch'. This knowledge is crucial as children learn to read, as it links the visual representation of language with its auditory components.

📈 Resources for Teaching Phonics

Alison offers a free phonic scope and sequence guide for teachers, which outlines the skills to be taught and when to teach them in kindergarten through second grade. She encourages viewers to take advantage of this resource to enhance their literacy teaching. The video concludes with a reminder to like, subscribe, and look forward to future videos.

Keywords

💡Phonics

Phonics is the method of teaching reading and writing based on the relationship between written symbols (letters) and the sounds they represent. In the video, phonics is distinguished from phonemic and phonological awareness by emphasizing the connection between letters and sounds. For example, understanding that 'C' can represent the sound 'k' or 's' in different contexts is a phonics skill.

💡Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness refers to the ability to recognize and manipulate the different sounds in spoken words. It is a broader concept that encompasses phonemic awareness and includes other sound-related skills such as rhyming and syllable blending. The video explains that phonological awareness is about working with sounds in words without necessarily involving letters or words.

💡Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the specific skill of recognizing and manipulating individual sounds, or phonemes, within words. The video defines it as awareness of the smallest sound units in language. Activities that develop phonemic awareness, such as identifying the first sound in 'sun' as 's', are crucial for early literacy development.

💡Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can change the meaning of a word. The video uses 'mm', 'SS', and 'ch' as examples of phonemes. Understanding phonemes is fundamental to developing both phonemic and phonological awareness.

💡Literacy

Literacy, in the context of the video, refers to the ability to read, write, and understand written language. The video's focus on phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness underscores their importance in developing literacy skills, especially among young learners.

💡Rhyming

Rhyming is a phonological awareness skill where children recognize that words ending with similar sounds can be grouped together (e.g., 'cat' and 'hat'). The video mentions rhyming as one of the activities that falls under phonological awareness.

💡Syllable Blending

Syllable blending is the process of combining individual syllables to form a complete word. The video gives the example of blending 'el-e-phant' into 'elephant', which is a skill that helps children understand the structure of words.

💡Syllable Segmenting

Syllable segmenting is the reverse of blending; it involves breaking a word into its constituent syllables. The video uses 'ze-bra' as an example, where children would segment it into 'zebra', demonstrating their understanding of word structure.

💡Onset and Rhyme

Onset and rhyme refer to the initial consonant sound(s) (onset) and the remaining vowel and consonant sounds (rhyme) in a word. The video explains that being able to break a word like 'sheep' into 'sh' (onset) and 'eep' (rhyme) is part of phonological awareness.

💡Subscribe

In the context of the video, 'subscribe' is a call to action for viewers to follow the channel for updates on new content. It is a common term in digital media, indicating the desire to receive notifications about future videos or posts.

💡Scope and Sequence

A scope and sequence is a document that outlines the content and order of educational material to be taught. The video mentions a free phonics scope and sequence for kindergarten through second grade, which would guide teachers on what phonics skills to teach and when.

Highlights

Alison introduces herself as a literacy specialist.

She will explain the differences between phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness.

Encourages viewers to subscribe and turn on notifications for new literacy videos.

The terms phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness are similar but different.

A phoneme is defined as the smallest sound unit in a language.

Phonemic awareness is the awareness of individual sounds in words.

Examples of phonemic awareness skills include identifying the first sound in a word.

Advanced phonemic awareness involves manipulating phonemes in words.

Phonological awareness is a broader category that includes phonemic awareness.

Phonological awareness includes rhyming, identifying words in sentences, and syllable blending.

Phonological awareness also involves onset and rhyme skills.

Phonics is distinguished from phonological awareness by involving the connection between letters and sounds.

Phonics involves understanding how letters represent sounds.

Phonics is learned as children learn to read and includes understanding letter combinations.

A free phonics scope and sequence resource is offered for teaching reading skills.

The video concludes with a call to like, subscribe, and look forward to the next video.

Transcripts

- Hey, I'm Alison from Learning At the Primary Pond.

I'm a literacy specialist.

And in this video,

I'm going to explain the differences between phonics,

phonological awareness and phonemic awareness,

and explain some example activities for all three.

If you haven't subscribed to my channel yet,

make sure to hit the subscribe button

and the bell to be notified

every time I post a new video

about teaching literacy in K2.

So first of all, the terms, phonics, phonological awareness,

phonemic awareness, very similar, right?

If you think it's a little, a little confusing,

leave me a comment and say "confusing" exclamation point.

So yes, very similar.

However,

they do mean different things and it is important to

understand the differences.

And I think a great place to begin is by understanding the

term phoneme.

Okay.

A phoneme is one sound.

So it could be the phoneme "mm" or "SS" or "ch".

It's like the smallest sound unit in English or a language.

Okay. So phonemic awareness is simply awareness of phonemes,

awareness of the individual sounds in words.

And so phonemic awareness skills are things like identifying

that the first sound in the word sun is "s"

or hearing that the last sound in the word brush is "sh"

as kids progress in their phonemic awareness skills,

they'll eventually be able to do things like manipulate

phonemes. So for example,

take the word cat and switch out the "c" for "mm"

to make mat.

So that's a more advanced phonemic awareness skill.

Now phonemic awareness is a one sub skill that falls into

the larger category of phonological awareness.

So phonological awareness includes all kinds of ways of

working with sounds and word parts.

And we're just working with sounds here.

We're not working with any letters, words, phonics.

Nope, not yet.

So phonological awareness includes phonemic awareness,

which is what we just talked about.

It includes things like rhyming,

cat, hat.

They rhyme.

It includes things like identifying individual words in

sentences. So if you say the dog ran with me,

can kids identify "the dog ran with me" as separate words.

That's part of phonological awareness as well.

Phonological awareness also includes things like syllable

blending or segmenting.

So, el-e-phant.

Can they break a word into syllables like that?

Or if you say ze-bra, can they say zebra?

Those are examples of phonological awareness skills

onset and rhyme too.

So can they take the word sheep and break it up into the

"sh" the onset and "eep" the rhyme? Okay.

So phonological awareness includes phonemic awareness and

many, many other skills as well.

So now last but not least, we have phonics.

So far all we've been talking about

are things that can be done in

the dark or with our eyes closed.

We're only working with the sounds when it comes to phonemic

awareness and phonological awareness.

Now phonics is a little different.

Phonics is the study of

how letters and letter combinations connect to sound.

So at a very basic level,

it's knowing that the letter M can represent the sound "mm"

or a little more advanced knowing that

the letter S can represent "SS" or "zz"

Knowing that an I can represent the sound a, the long,

a as in rain or

knowing that C H can represent the sound "ch"

Okay.

Those are all examples of phonics skills or phonics

understandings that kids learn as they learn to read.

Alright.

So I hope this was helpful in understanding the differences

between phonemic awareness,

phonics and phonological awareness.

If you would like a complete phonic scope and sequence that

actually shows you what skills to teach and when in

kindergarten, first grade and second grade,

look for the link below.

I have one for you.

That's absolutely free.

So grab that now.

Hope this was helpful.

Again,

hit the like button, subscribe

and I'll see you in the next video.