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- Good phonological awareness leads to better reading and spelling.
- Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate different sizes of sound units.
- A phoneme is the smallest speech sound that makes a difference in the meaning of a word.
- Phoneme awareness is the insight that every spoken word is composed of individual phonemes in a particular sequence.
- At least 25% of middle class first-graders, and larger numbers of diverse students, have difficulty grasping the concept of phonemic awareness without explicit, systematic instruction.
- By understanding that spoken words are made up of speech sounds, beginning readers can understand that letters represent these speech sounds.
- There are 24 consonant phonemes and 15 vowel phonemes in the English language.
- Practicing saying phonemes develops fluency in identifying and saying them.
- Learning the vowel phonemes takes practice.
- Consonants can be continuous sounds or stop-like sounds.
- Continuous sounds are easier to blend than stop-like sounds.
- Nasal sounds are produced when the nose vibrates as air is forced out of the nose rather than the mouth.
- Fricatives, or hisser sounds, force air through a small opening.
- Liquid sounds, such as the sounds of |l| and |r|, "flow" like a liquid.
- Affricates are scratching sounds, produced when air is forced between the teeth.
- Glide sounds require the tongue, lips, and teeth to glide into position to make the sounds.
- Consonants are either voiced (vocal folds vibrate) or unvoiced (vocal folds do not vibrate).
- Vowels are the "nucleus" of a syllable or word and are all continuous and voiced.
- Because vowel phonemes have few contrasting features to distinguish one from another, they are difficult for children.
- The vowel circle chart can be used to help readers with vowel phonemes.
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