Phonemic Awareness
The purpose of this video is to provide information on phonological awareness with focus on phonemic awareness and a lesson plan that educators can use in the adult ESL pre-literacy classroom. The English language has 26 letters with 44 sounds. The English letters do not match directly to the sounds, for example, the /ch/ sound. The /ch/ sound in the word chair is different than the /ch/ sound in the word machine, or Christmas. English does not have one sound one letter relationship like in Spanish or Indonesian. Therefore, it is important to teach phonological awareness when teaching English proficiency skills with focus on reading and writing to adult ESL students.
Phonemic awareness is one of the metacognitive skills in phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness is a counting and developing awareness of the smallest unit sound of language. It is the smaller and more defined phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness can be taught through isolation of sound, segmenting the sound, and blending sounds. To learn more about phonemic awareness and how to teach it to adult ESL learners, click on this link.