Presentation (Transcript)

	Learning About Phonemes

		The level of a student's phonological awareness is a strong predictor of his or her future reading achievement (Juel, 1991; Scarborough, 1989; Stanovich, 1986, Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994). Good phonological awareness leads to better reading and spelling. Struggling readers, from kindergarten to adulthood, consistently have been found to have poor phonological awareness that can be strengthened through intensive, systematic instruction. Teachers who are explicit in helping struggling readers attend to the unique characteristics of individual phonemes have been able to not only significantly increase these students' phonological awareness but have also been able to reduce the number of students who end up with severe reading disabilities (e.g., Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997; Truch, 1994).

		The purpose of this lesson is to begin to develop your knowledge about phonemes. Learning about phonemes will help you be able to provide the type of intensive, explicit instruction which struggling readers require. This knowledge will help you develop appropriate instructional sequences and choose suitable examples for teaching decoding and spelling as well as help you interpret and respond to students' errors (Moats, 1995b).

		At the end of this lesson you should be able to do three things. You should be able to describe the unique characteristics of each of the 39 phonemes. You should be able to enunciate each phoneme clearly. And, you should be working toward a high rate of accuracy in identifying the specific phonemes in spoken words. To achieve this last goal, you may need to repeat portions of this lesson.

		There are four parts to this lesson. First, we will review some important and potentially confusing terms, and then you will take a pre-test to find out how much you already know about phonemes. This will also help you monitor your progress in learning about phonemes. Second, you will listen to and practice saying and classifying each of the 24 consonant phonemes. Third, you will do the same with the 15 vowel phonemes. Finally, we will review the content of this lesson, and you will take a posttest so you can see how much you have learned in this lesson.

		Let's begin by reviewing what phonological awareness means. Phonological awareness is a broad term that refers to one's sensitivity to, or explicit awareness of, the phonological structure of words in one's language as distinct from the words' meanings. In other words, "phonological awareness involves the ability to notice, think about, or manipulate the individual sounds in words" (Torgesen, 1997, p. 5). Having good phonological awareness includes understanding that words can be broken up into smaller parts. For instance, the word 'snowman' has two syllables and can be broken into two smaller words, 'snow' and 'man'. Good phonological awareness is also being able to detect the similarities and differences among words and to manipulate the sounds. For example, individuals with good phonological awareness can think of the word 'man' as meaning an adult male human being, and they can also think of the word 'man' as a word with three sounds, and that rhymes with 'fan', or starts with the same sound as the word 'mouse'. Being able to think about the sounds in words rather than just the meaning of words is critical in learning how printed words are spelled and read.

		Just as a note of explanation, because we are talking about speech sounds as well as written words and letters in this lesson, we need to be able to distinguish them from each other in the printed form. Any time you see a letter or a word enclosed by single quotation marks like the letter 's' and the word 'sun', we are referring to the letter or the word as it is spelled. Speech sounds on the other hand will be enclosed by two back slashes like the sound or phoneme \|m\|.

		Phonemes, as mentioned in the last lesson, "are the smallest speech sounds that make a difference in the meaning of a word" (Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, 1998). Let's take two phonemes, \|p\| and \|b\|. Neither phoneme means anything by itself, but to change the \|p\| to \|b\| in the word 'pear' changes the word to 'bear'. So a phoneme is the smallest speech sound that when used in combination with other speech sounds changes the meaning of a word. Phonemes differ from language to language. In the English language, different linguists identify between 39 and 45 different phonemes. You will be learning about 39 different phonemes in this lesson.

		The focus of this lesson is on one of the most important elements of phonological awareness which is phonemic awareness. If a phoneme is the smallest speech sound, then phonemic awareness is the insight that every spoken word is composed of individual phonemes in a specific sequence (Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, 1998). In the word 'sun', the three phonemes in sequence are \|s\| \|u\| \|n\|. By understanding that spoken words are made up of these speech sounds, beginning readers can begin to develop the understanding that the letters of the alphabet represent the individual speech sounds in words. That is, \|s\| is represented by the letter 's', \|u\| is represented by the letter 'u', and \|n\| is represented by the letter 'n'. By first being aware of phonemes and then learning how they relate to letters, struggling readers can more easily make the connections between the words they hear and the words they see on a page. This knowledge is absolutely essential for students to be able to begin sounding out and reading words. We know that at least 25% of middle class first-graders and even larger numbers of diverse students have difficulty grasping these concepts without explicit, systematic instruction (See Adams, 1990, for a review).

		O.K., are you ready to test yourself on your own phonemic awareness? Let's begin. How many phonemes are in the word 'cat', and what are they?

		If you said there are three phonemes, you are right. The three phonemes are \|k\| \|a\| \|t\|.

		Let's try another one. How many phonemes do you hear in the word 'king', and what are they?

		This can be tricky. Some people think there are two phonemes; others think there are three or four. There are actually three phonemes in the word 'king', \|k\| \|i\| and \|ng\|. The last sound in the word 'king' is the distinct phoneme \|ng\|, not a combination of the sounds of \|n\| and \|g\|.

		Here's one more. How many phonemes are there in the word 'box', and what are they? Did you say three? Most fluent readers would say there are three phonemes because there are three letters. Beginning readers with good phonemic awareness and those folks who study phonetics would say there are four phonemes in the word 'box'.

		The correct answer is four. The four phonemes in the word 'box' are \|b\|, \|o\|, \|k\|, \|s\|. The letter 'x' makes two sounds, \|k\| and \|s\|. It is quite possible that when you were first beginning to learn to read, you would have given the correct answer.

		As a teacher, knowing that the word 'box' has four phonemes would help you understand why a beginning student might spell the word 'box' as 'b' 'o' 'k' 's'. You would realize that although the spelling would be incorrect for standard spelling, it would be correct as a phonetic spelling. The student would be writing the sounds he heard. For a beginning speller, that spelling would be developmentally appropriate (Moats, 1995a). This level of phonemic awareness is very important for beginning readers and spellers, and it shows that they are making the association between the sounds they hear in words and the letters they see on the page.

		If you didn't do very well at identifying the phonemes in the words 'king' and 'box', you are in good company. Most fluent readers of English have difficulty identifying the phonemes in the words they hear. As students become more fluent in reading, their phonemic awareness continues to increase until about the eighth grade when readers come to rely more on spelling patterns to recognize words (Scarborough, Ehri, Olson, & Fowler, 1998). Unless adults re-learn how to recognize phonemes, they generally are not very good at it. Louisa Moats (1995b), a leading reading educator, conducted a study to examine the phonemic knowledge of a variety of educators including general educators, special educators, speech language pathologists, reading teachers, and graduate students. Even though this group of 89 educators had an average of five years of teaching experience, they didn't do very well on the phonemic awareness tasks. Overall they had a great deal of difficulty in simply identifying the number of phonemes in the words 'ox', 'straight', 'king', 'precious', and 'thank'. Traditionally, learning about phonemes has not been a part of teacher education programs. More recently however, as the reading community is recognizing how important it is for teachers to have this knowledge, lessons such as this one are being incorporated into more teacher education programs. Several states now require new teachers to pass competency tests which include sections on phonemic awareness. Until recently, only linguists and speech-language pathologists studied phonemes at this level. But, in order for teachers to be able to explicitly and systematically teach about sound-symbol relationships, they themselves must have a clear understanding of how phonemes map on to the words that beginning readers and spellers will encounter (Moats, 1995b).

		Now that you have completed your pretest, and understand the importance of knowing about phonemes, the next two parts of this lesson focus on the characteristics of the individual consonant and vowel phonemes.

		While different linguists may identify and classify the phonemes in the English language somewhat differently, the consonant and vowel phonemes are generally addressed separately. Although there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, there isn't a one-to-one match between one phoneme and one letter. You will be learning a total of 39 phonemes, 24 consonant phonemes and 15 vowel phonemes.

		There are several reasons for having you actually practice saying each of the phonemes. The first reason is that, as a teacher, you need to learn how the mouth, tongue and lips work together to produce each phoneme so you can help your students distinguish between similar phonemes. Although it may seem strange to be talking out loud in response to a computer, please take advantage of this opportunity. Only by actually saying or whispering the phonemes, will you be able to feel, hear, and understand the unique characteristics of each of these. Another reason for practicing the phonemes is that it will help you be better able to accurately identify and correctly pronounce each of the phonemes so you can model them for your students. Finally, this practice can help you develop the fluency in being able to say each phoneme without hesitation, which is necessary for teaching beginning reading and spelling. If you need to review parts of the practice session, please do so. The better you are at identifying and saying these phonemes, the easier it will be for you to use this knowledge in your teaching. As you listen to me saying these sounds, pay close attention to my enunciation. It is important not to distort the sounds. Keep in mind, however, that it is not possible to say some phonemes without some hint of a vowel sound. An easy mistake is to add a drawn out vowel sound to a consonant phoneme. For example, instead of saying the correct sound for the letter 'd' as \|d\|, a teacher might unintentionally mislead students by saying the sound is \|duh\|. So, the sound of the letter 'b' is \|b\|, not \|buh\|; the sound of the letter 'p' is \|p\|, not \|puh\|. As we go through this lesson, listen carefully to the pronunciations of the sounds and practice them as we go along. The more you practice, the better you will be able to teach this.

		Ready? Let's begin by looking at the consonants. The consonant phonemes are grouped in several different ways. One useful way to think about the consonants is in terms of whether they are continuous or stop-like sounds. Continuous sounds are sounds that you can continue to say in the same way until you run out of breath. For instance, \|m\| is a continuous sound because you can say it until you run out of breath. Say the \|m\| sound until you run out of breath. You can do that with each of the continuous sounds. When talking to students about these sounds, some teachers refer to them as the 'sounds that go'. Repeat after me as I say each of the continuous sounds that are listed from left to right on your screen. As you say the sounds, pay attention to how your mouth, teeth, lips and tongue do different things to say each sound. Ready? \|m\|, \|n\|, \|ng\|, \|f\|, \|th\| as in thumb, \|s\|, \|sh\|, \|h\|, \|v\|, \|TH\| as in this, \|z\|, \|zh\| as in measure, \|l\| and finally \|r\|. Good.

		In contrast to the continuous sounds are the stop-like sounds. The stop-like sounds occur when the lips or tongue block air from going out of the mouth, and then, when the position of the lips or tongue is changed, there is a sudden release of air called a plosion. The \|t\| phoneme is a stop sound. To help you understand this better, really slow down and think about how you make the sound \|t\|. Start with your mouth in the position to say the \|t\| sound and pay attention to how, before you say the sound, you stop your breath until the air pressure builds up in your mouth. Feel it? Now put your hand right in front of your mouth and release your tongue to say the sound \|t\|. Did you feel a little explosion of air? The stop sounds are very brief sounds. Let's practice the stop sounds. Ready? \|p\| \|t\| \|ch\| \|k\| \|b\| \|d\| \|j\| \|g\|

		Looking at the bottom row of the chart, the two sounds \|w\| and \|y\| are sometimes classified as stop-like sounds because you can not continue to say them in the same way until you run out of breath. Let's try these two stop-like sounds: \|w\| \|y\|.

		Blending is taking individual phonemes and saying them at a fast enough rate, without pausing between the sounds, so that the sounds make a word. If a student was asked to blend the three phonemes \|m\|, \|a\|, \|n\|, the child might say the sounds several times at faster and faster rates until he or she says a real word. \|mmmmmmmm\|aaaaaaaaa\|nnnnnnn\| \|mmm\|aaaa\|nnnnn\| \|man\|. With a continuous sound at the beginning of the word this task is relatively simple. But, having a stop sound at the beginning of the word makes it harder for beginning readers because you can not sustain a stop sound. With the stop sound of \|k\| at the beginning of the word, trying to blend the three sounds \|k\| \|a\| \|n\| would sound like this: \|k\| \|aaaaaa\|nnnnnn\| , \|k\| \|aaaa\|nnnn\|, \|k\| \|an\| , \|k\| an\|. As you could hear, the stop sound at the beginning of this word made blending these sounds much harder than blending the sounds in the first example that had a continuous sound at the beginning of the word. Once students know how to blend, it would then be appropriate to introduce stop sounds at the ending and then the beginning of words. In the next lesson and the next module, you will learn more about choosing appropriate words for practice in reading.

		Besides categorizing sounds as stop or go sounds, other categories can be used to refer to the way sounds are produced. For example, three of the consonant phonemes are considered to be nasals or nose sounds. When you make these sounds, your nose vibrates because the air is being forced out of the nose instead of the mouth. These sounds are \|m\|, \|n\|, and the 'n' 'g' sound \|ng\| as in ring. Hold your nose closed and try to say each of the sounds. Say \|m\|, now say \|n\|, now say \|ng\|. Did you feel the air being forced into your nose? Try each sound again but this time place your fingers on the bridge of your nose to feel the vibrations when you say these sounds. Say \|m\|, say \|n\|, say \|ng\|.

		Many beginning spellers have difficulty hearing the nasal sounds when they say words and will often leave them out in words they are spelling. The sentence below shows how a phonetic speller who has difficulty feeling the nasal sounds simply leaves those sounds out of the words. The sentence is supposed to say, "He went to the store and got a soda." As you can see, this student left out the \|n\| sound in the word 'went' and the \|n\| sound in the word 'and'. The errors he made are typical for students who are not aware of the nasal sounds. The teacher in this case helped the student start paying attention to how it feels to say a nose sound. The student put his fingers on the bridge of his nose and compared how it felt to say the words 'wet' and 'went' as well as the words 'ad' and 'and'. By learning to pay more attention to the sounds in words and how they are produced, this student was able to increase his spelling accuracy.

		There are also nine sounds that are called fricatives. We will call these hissers because that is a word that students understand. The hissers force air through a very small opening between the top teeth and the tongue or lip, or the roof of the mouth and tongue. These 'hissing' sounds are \|f\|, \|th\| as in thumb, \|s\|, \|sh\|, \|v\|, \|TH\| as in this, \|z\|, and \|zh\| as in measure. Most of the fricatives are late developing speech sounds for children and there are two different times that they will tend to get these sounds mixed up. The first time is when they are just learning to speak and the second time is when they are beginning to learn to read and spell. Knowing this can help you look for indications of this confusion.

		Some linguists also consider the \|h\| to be a fricative, but because of the way the \|h\| sound is produced, it is difficult to classify. When preparing to say the \|h\| sound, the mouth instead prepares to say the vowel that follows the \|h\| sound. For example, say the words 'he' and 'hat' while paying attention to the differences in the position of your mouth when you say them, 'he', 'hat'. Now say 'house'. Can you feel the constriction at the back of the mouth as well as how your lips and tongue prepare to say the vowel sounds? All of these sounds are called fricatives or hissers.

		The consonant phonemes \|l\| and \|r\| are called liquids. When you say the liquid sounds you can almost imagine liquid being poured from a pitcher into a glass because the sounds just flow like a liquid. Say these two liquids. Say \|l\|, now say \|r\|. For those of you who will be working with young children, it is important that you know that developmentally it is normal for some children to have difficulty saying \|r\| and \|l\| until they reach the age of seven or eight.

		The two sounds of \|ch\| and \|j\| are classified as scratcher sounds when working with your students. Say \|ch\|, say \|j\|.

		The glide sounds require the tongue, lips and teeth to glide into position to make the sounds. The glides are the 'y' sound which is \|y\|, and the 'w' sound which is \|w\|. Try each one and feel your mouth "gliding" when you say it. Say \|y\| as in yes, and say \|w\| as in win. Although these sounds are not officially considered stop sounds, because you can't sustain them unless you add a vowel sound to them, they have been placed next to the stop sounds on your chart. This is to remind you that when you're teaching the blending of sounds and letters, it would be better to wait to use these sounds until students are proficient with blending continuous sounds in the initial and final positions in words.

		Another way that phonemes are described is by their voicing. Voicing refers to whether sounds are whispered or spoken. Consonants are either voiced or voiceless. When consonants are voiced, the vocal folds vibrate together to make the sound. Put your hand on your throat and see if you can feel your larynx vibrating when you make the sound \|v\|. Try it, \|v\|. Did you feel the vibrations? That means that the vocal folds are vibrating together to make the sound voiced. Most of the consonants and all of the vowels are voiced. There are, however, nine voiceless consonants. The voiceless consonants are whispered. In making these sounds, the vocal folds are separated and there is no vibration, so the sounds come out quiet or voiceless. Check your throat to see if it vibrates when you say the sound \|f\|. Try it. There should have been no vibrations and therefore the sound was voiceless or quiet. Now, what can be very confusing to beginning readers and spellers is that there are pairs of consonant phonemes that are produced in exactly the same way but differ only in their voicing. Each of the stop sounds, the affricates or scratchers and all but one of the fricatives or hisser sounds have a partner sound. The only voiceless consonant without a partner is the \|h\| sound. Say \|f\|; now say its partner \|v\|. Did you notice that you said them in exactly the same way except that the \|v\| was voiced and the \|f\| was voiceless?

		Looking at your chart, the unvoiced sounds are in regular type. We'll be practicing the voiced and unvoiced pairs so that you can notice how each partner is pronounced in exactly the same way with the only difference being in the voicing. We'll start with the hisser sounds and then drop down to the scratcher sounds. Starting on the left, the voiced pairs are: \|f\| \|v\|, \|th\| (as in 'thumb') and \|TH\| (as in 'this'), \|s\|, \|z\|, and \|sh\| and \|zh\| (as in 'measure'). Going down to the scratcher sounds, that pair is \|ch\| and \|j\|. Good.

		Although the stop sounds also come in pairs, because these sounds are so short, it can be difficult to feel or hear the difference in the voicing. But, because these pairs are so similar in how they are pronounced, let's practice these pairs so you can notice the similarities. Ready? \|p\| \|b\|. Feel how they are pronounced in the same way? Now try \|t\| \|d\| and \|k\| \|g\|. As you work with beginning readers and writers, you will probably notice that some students will write one letter of the pair when they actually mean to write the partner letter. The differences between the pairs are subtle, so it's understandable that students may confuse \|p\| and \|b\| or \|f\| and \|v\|. By drawing your students' attention to the voicing of the pairs, they will be better able to discriminate between them.

		Let's do a quick review. Take a look at the consonant phoneme chart on your screen. The sounds that are voiced are in bold type and the sounds that are voiceless are in regular type. The column on the left side of the chart lists the different manners in which phonemes are produced and classified. Looking across each row to the right are the sounds that fit into each category. Let's review. With the nasal or nose sounds, you can feel the bridge of your nose vibrating when you say them. These phonemes are \|m\|, \|n\|, and \|ng\|. The fricatives or hisser sounds come in voiced and voiceless pairs. These pairs are \|f\| \|v\|, \|th\| ('thumb') \|TH\| ('this'), \|s\| \|z\|, \|sh\| \|zh\|, and the lonely unpaired \|h\|. The liquids are \|l\| and \|r\|. All of the previous sounds are continuous sounds or sounds that go. You can say these sounds until you run out of breath. The next consonant phonemes, the stops, scratchers and glides can not be sustained. The stop sounds come in voiced and voiceless pairs. These are \|p\| \|b\|, \|t\| \|d\|, and \|k\| \|g\|. Scratcher partners are \|ch\| and \|j\|. Finally, the glide sounds require your mouth to move to say the sounds and are generally followed by a vowel. These phonemes are \|w\| and \|y\|.

		The last way that consonants are classified is by the place in the mouth where they are produced. By helping students recognize where a particular phoneme is produced, students can often distinguish between two potentially confusing phonemes such as \|n\| and \|ng\| and then choose the correct spelling. Let's begin. Look at the column labeled "Lips'; these sounds are made using both lips. Reading from the top of the column to the bottom, these sounds include \|m\|, \|p\|, \|b\|, and \|w\|. These are very visible sounds because the movement of the lips is easy to see. The next column shows the sounds that are made by forcing the air between the lips and teeth. These sounds are the consonant pair of \|f\| and \|v\|. The next column shows the two sounds that are produced with the tongue between the teeth. These phonemes are the pair \|th\| ('thumb') and \|TH\| ('this').

		The next set of sounds is made with the tongue behind the teeth and includes \|n\|, \|s\|, \|z\| \|l\| \|t\| and \|d\|. The sounds made at the roof of the mouth are \|sh\|, \|zh\| (as in 'measure'), \|r\|, \|ch\|, \|j\| and \|y\|. The sounds made at the back of the mouth are \|ng\|, \|h\|, \|k\|, and \|g\|. By now, you should have a good basic understanding of how you can be explicit and systematic in helping your students pay attention to the unique characteristics of each of the consonant phonemes.

		So far in this lesson we have reviewed the meanings of the terms phonological awareness, phoneme, and phonemic awareness. You also took a short pre-test and learned about why it is important for you to understand the unique characteristics of the different phonemes. You then learned about the different ways that the consonant phonemes are described and classified. Next you will be learning how the vowel phonemes are described and classified.

		To make the role of the vowels clear, it helps to first talk about the purpose of vowels. Vowels are the nucleus of syllables and words. While most of us learned that there are five vowels, a, e, i, o, and u, this doesn't give beginning readers a true picture of how vowels work in words. Consider the widely used terms, 'long vowels' and 'short vowels'. Even though we learned these terms and we've taught these terms they may not be the best way of describing the vowel phonemes. Children can have a hard time grasping the concept of long and short vowels because, unlike many of the consonants phonemes, all of the vowel phonemes can be held until a person runs out of breath. To add to the confusion, there are actually 15 vowel phonemes.

		As you look at the chart on your screen, you can see that most of the vowel phonemes are organized into the shape of the letter 'u'; this is called the vowel circle map that can be used with young as well as more mature readers. This particular chart is an adaptation of the different vowel charts that were developed by two reading experts, Pat Lindamood and Louisa Moats. One of the challenges with teaching about vowel phonemes is that, unlike the consonant phonemes, the vowel phonemes have fewer contrasting features to help distinguish one from the other. With the vowel phonemes that are listed on the vowel circle, it's the combination of slight movements of the tongue and the relatively minor changes of the shapes of the lips from one vowel to the next that differentiates these phonemes. The little faces on the chart show that as the phonemes are pronounced in order, the mouth changes shape from a wide smile to a rounded pucker shape. As we go through these sounds, you will begin to understand why it is sometimes so difficult to distinguish one vowel sound from another. Starting at the left side of the chart, the vowel phonemes are \|E\|, \|i\|, \|A\|, \|e\|, \|a\|, \|o\|, \|aw\|, \|O\|, \|oo\| as in book, and \|OO\| as in school.

		To help you learn to say these vowel phonemes, and to show you a way to help your students learn them in order, we will use a few different methods. First, to help you learn to say the phonemes accurately, I'll say each mnemonic device and the phoneme chart.

		Repeat after me as I say each vowel phoneme on the vowel circle. Ready? \|E\|, \|i\|, \|A\|, \|e\|, \|a\|, \|o\|, \|aw\|, \|O\|, \|oo\| (book), \|OO\| (school). Good. This time as we say them, notice how your mouth changes from one phoneme to the next. One more time: \|E\|, \|i\|, \|A\|, \|e\|, \|a\|, \|o\|, \|aw\|, \|O\|, \|oo\| (book), \|OO\| (school). Good, now look at the bottom left hand side of your screen. These three sounds are considered to be vowel diphthongs. When you say a diphthong, the sound changes in the middle. Repeat these phonemes after I say them and pay attention to how you begin with one sound and end with another. Ready? \|oi\|, \|I\|, \|ow\|. Good, one more time, \|oi\|, \|I\|, \|ow\|. Great. Now, looking at the center of the vowel circle there are two additional vowel phonemes. These two phonemes are \|u\| and \|er\|.

		The \|er\| phoneme is heard in a high percentage of words. It's found in words like 'her', 'bird', and 'fur'. You will often see spelling errors where the letters 'er' are substituted for the 'ur' or the 'ir'. To correct that error, students need to attend to the spelling pattern in the word rather than just the phonemic spelling.

		Now that you are familiar with all 15 of the vowel phonemes, I'm going to introduce the silly sentences that can help you remember the sounds and order of the phonemes. Look at the chart below as I say the silly sentences. "EEK, it ate every apple on the lawn. The goat looks doomed." Except for the two 'the's' in the sentences, each of the initial vowel sounds in the words corresponds to one of the vowel phonemes on the vowel circle. Let's read the sentences together. Ready? "EEK, it ate every apple on the lawn. The goat looks doomed."

		O.K., let's add the other vowel phonemes. Looking at the \|er\| and the \|u\| phonemes, the words are, "Her fun!" and moving down to the vowel diphthongs, the silly sentence is, "Boy, I'm grounded!"

		Let's put a visual with those silly sentences so you have several ways to access your memory about the order of these phonemes. Look at the picture of the farmhouse, the goat, and the angry looking farmer. Eek, it ate every apple on the lawn. The goat looks doomed. Now, do you see the farmer's wife laughing? Her fun....

		Let's look at the next picture. There is the little boy who was supposed to make sure the goat stayed in the pen. He's saying, "Eek, it ate every apple on the lawn. The goat looks doomed. Her fun! Boy, I'm grounded!" It doesn't matter how silly the sentences are if they are effective in helping you remember the vowel phonemes.

		Read the sentences and then look away to see if you can say them by memory. How did you do? Did the picture help? You will be able to print out both vowel circles so you can use whichever one is easier for you.

		Let's look at the original vowel phoneme chart again. As a review, let's practice saying all of the vowel phonemes one more time. We'll start at the left of the vowel circle and move to the right; then we'll go up to the center of the circle and finally down to the vowel diphthongs. Ready? \|E\|, \|i\|, \|A\|, \|e\|, \|a\| \|o\|, \|aw\|, \|O\|, \|oo\| (book), \|oo\| (school), \|er\| \|u\|, \|oi\|, \|I\|, \|ow\|.

		Now that you are almost done with this basic lesson on phonemes, we'll do a quick review and a posttest.

		As you learned in the introductory module, part of good instruction includes helping students assess their own gains in knowledge. To do the review, we'll look at the original goals of this lesson. The first goal was for you to be able to describe the unique characteristics of each of the 39 phonemes. At this point you should be able to explain the differences between phonemes classified as continuous, stop, nasal, liquids, glides, hissers, and scratchers. You should also be able to explain the difference between voiced and unvoiced sounds as well as where the different sounds are produced in the mouth. You should be able to say the sounds for the 10 vowel phonemes on the vowel circle, the phonemes in the middle of the circle and the three vowel diphthongs. If you can do this, you should be able to explicitly teach about and help your students feel the differences between the phonemes. Being able to do this can help struggling readers of all ages become better readers and spellers. Specific examples of how to incorporate this knowledge into your instruction will be given in later lessons in this module and the module on advanced word reading. The second goal was for you to learn to enunciate each phoneme clearly. Hopefully you took the practice opportunities. As you are working with students, keep in mind that because we have quite a few different dialects in the English language, not all students will pronounce the phonemes in the same way. This is especially true for the vowel phonemes. It is important however that you as a teacher try to pronounce them as clearly and accurately as possible and try to have your students practice them in this way also. The last goal was for you to be able to more accurately identify the specific phonemes in spoken words. In order for you to test yourself, we have developed an activity in which you are shown written words and then you indicate the number of phonemes you believe are in the word. The correct answers are given as well. At the beginning of this lesson, you may have wondered if there was very much to learn about phonemes. Hopefully you have learned that there is. One of the advantages of going through a lesson like this on the computer is that you can repeat it any time that you find you have a need for more practice. After having gone through this lesson, Learning About Phonemes, you will now have the background knowledge that is necessary to be able to effectively apply the instructional interventions that are presented in the following lessons on teaching students beginning reading and spelling skills. If you are interested in studying phonemes and phonology in more depth, you may want to take a course in the speech-language or linguistics departments at a local college or receive some training in a reading program that places great emphasis on phonemic knowledge.

Gildroy, P. G. & Francis, S. (1999). Learning about phonemes (Module 1, Lesson 2). In B.K. Lenz & P.G. Gildroy (Eds) Beginning word reading [Online]. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, Center for Research on Learning. Available: Onlineacademy.org

Meyen, E. L. The Online Academy: Linking teacher education to advances in research. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. (Contract No. H029K973002; 1997 -- 2000, U. S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs).

Beginning Word Reading