Phonemic Awareness Techniques

Techniques to Teach Phonics and Promote Phonemic Awareness In this essay the author wants you to understand what is phonics and phonemic awareness. Even though there may be many techniques, both of these have an importance in learning to read. Even when working with ELLs, special needs, and gifted students there are strategies that can help them be successful.
Phonemic awareness
Teaching phonemic awareness skills is when words are broken down into individual sounds (phonemes). The words are then joining the parts to form words or sound out the words. Phonemic awareness as "the awareness that phonemes exist as abstractable and manipulable components of spoken language" (p. 696). It is the ability to reflect on speech and experiment with it smallest components, phonemes.Yopp (1992)
Phonics
The relationships between these
sounds and symbols and how to use this information to decode words is phonics.
Three basic principles:
1) Reading for the child, whether it's a word, sentence, or story, must appeal to your child's interests.
2) Never pressure or force your child into reading, turning it into a negative "event" in their life. It should be a fun, enjoyable, and rewarding experience. This will take ample amounts of patience on the part of the parents, and some creativity.
3) Teaching your child to read must begin with the mastery of the phonemes - the individual sounds which makeup the words.
Basic process of teaching phonics and phonemic awareness to children: Includes teaching them the letters and letter sounds
Then you teach the child to combine (or blend) various letter sounds together to form words; which is then followed by reading sentences and simple stories.
In teaching ELL students, this method allows that student to have a background of sound that allows them to build words upon. As they go further in reading their word development will improve. However, when teaching special needs and the gifted student population the technique may vary depending on the level of need. Either way you will have success.
In conclusion, phonics and phonemic awareness are great options to use in teaching reading skills to students. As per the author it allows that students to use their language to memorize sound with letter and then words to picture, students relate word families and so on. To not use this method of teaching would be doing the students a disservice and may hinder their success in
reading.

Reference

" 5 Essential Components of Reading ." READING RESOURCES. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) , 2 Aug. 2002. Web. 24 Dec. 2011.
< http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/jblanton/read/Index.html>

Blevins, W. (1998). Phonics from A to Z: A practical guide. New York: Scholastic.

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.
Yopp, H. K. (1992). Developing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading Teacher, 45, 696-703.

http://www.vp.k12.mo.us/ec/information/documents/pdf/literacy-development.pdf

http://www.childrenlearningreading.com/teach-children-reading/index.html

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/lesson-plans-and-activities-teaching-phonics

http://ethemes.missouri.edu/themes/543

http://www.state.nj.us/education/ece/pd/lal/l4/guide.pdf

http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/rdla155/pdfs/rdla155_session2.pdf