A PHONEMIC AWARENESS AND PHONICS TEACHING PROGRAMME
FOR FOUNDATION PHASE
ACADEMIC ESSAY
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS IN POST GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN EDUCATION (FOUNDATION
PHASE) (PGCE FP)
FOR
ENGLISH HOME LANGUAGE DIDACTICS (ED4-ENG 2A)
AT
CORNERSTONE INSTITUTE
BY
…
1 OCTOBER 2020
, 1. INTRODUCTION
In the opinion of Calfee, Lindamood & Lindamood (1973) “Children’s ability to attend to, and manipulate
phonemes strongly correlate with their reading success through to the end of their schooling”. Phonological
and phonemic awareness lay the foundation for reading success and the holistic development of the young
child. If learners are not able to develop these skills in the Foundation Phase they may experience reading
difficulties that could interrupt other areas of learning. Teachers need to have a sound understanding of the
key components or skills that make up this awareness to guide learners to achieve academic success and
become well-adapted individuals who can communicate with meaning. The following essay explores a
phonemic awareness and phonics programme which is aligned with the Curriculum and Assessment Policy
Statement (CAPS) and the importance of these competencies in the development of language and literacy.
2. THE IMPORTANCE OF PHONEMIC AWARENESS AND PHONICS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF
LANGUAGE SKILLS
According to Joubert et al. (2015: 244), Phonemic Awareness is the ability to recognise that words and
letters (phoneme) have particular sounds (grapheme) and form an intricate relationship that lay the
foundation for reading, spelling, and writing success that is crucial for the holistic development of language
and literacy skills in young learners. Phonemic Awareness falls under the category of Phonological
Awareness and is the most complex skill as illustrated in the image below. It is an important building block
that involves the ability for individuals to blend sounds into words using the smallest units of sound
(phonemes), breaking up words into their specific sounds, and phoneme manipulation (Reading Rockets,
2020). These combine to form a special set of skills that are needed to become successful learners and
readers. When learners start school, they are equipped with different levels of phonemic awareness and
not all of these skills will be developed evenly.
It is therefore crucial that learners are taught these skills as early as possible in Grade R or Grade 1
depending on when they start schooling (Joubert et al. 2015: 244). Joubert et al. (2015: 256) highlight that
“reading and spelling require much more than a knowledge of sounds” and requires a ‘code system’
(phonetics) that is used to learn about phonics and how to use them for decoding the letter-sound
relationships necessary for reading and writing. Phonics is defined as the relationship between the sounds
that make up words and the ‘symbols’ that represent them in written form which refers to the alphabet (DBE,
2011: 15). According to CAPS (2011) schools can choose their phonic programmes and use the CAPS
document as a general guide to develop these programmes. The phonic programmes aim to develop
various skills to equip learners for academic success including phonemic awareness skills. In the following
section, the phonemic awareness skills are briefly outlined.
3.1 PHONEME ISOLATION:
- Refers to the ability to hear and isolate individual sounds (phonemes) in words that are spoken (Really
Great Reading, 2019). It involves an awareness of the sequence of sounds that make up words. It is
important for young learners to engage in activities that focuses on isolating beginning sounds as they
are the easiest to identify.
3.2 PHONEME BLENDING:
- Refers to the ability to combine sounds by listening to isolated phonemes and putting them together to
form words and involves memory (Really Great Reading, 2019). Learners need to draw on their memory
of letter-sound relationships in order to blend sounds to form and read words.
3.3 PHONEME SEGMENTATION:
- Refers to the ability to break up spoken words into sounds (phonemes) and involves stretching the
phonemes into separate sounds and blending them back together (Really Great Reading, 2019).
Activities involving clapping or counters are great for breaking up words into sounds.
3.4 PHONEME MANIPULATION:
- Refers to a group of advanced skills including phoneme deletion, addition, and substitution and involves
the working memory in that individuals keep the phonemes present long enough to add, delete, isolate
and finally blend sounds back together in order to formulate a completely new word (Really Great
Reading, 2019).
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, 4. PHONEMIC AWARENESS AND PHONICS TEACHING PROGRAMME:
Phonemic Awareness skills are integrated into the Phonics programme and develop through all study areas
in the Foundation Phase. Learners develop at different paces therefore an overview of the language skills
to be learnt and taught through Grade R – 3 has been outlined with corresponding activities below. The
language skills outcomes are highlighted in each table for the different grades and followed by corresponding
activities that aim to develop phonemic awareness and phonics skills. The CAPS document specifies the
maximum time for Phonics as 15 minutes every day for 5 days a week for Grades 1-3 (DBE, 2011: 9-10).
Phonics is integrated into the Grade R daily programme and developed through informal activities that focus
on play-based learning to equip learners with the competencies to succeed in formal schooling once they
move to grade 1 (DBE, 2011: 20).
An important component of this programme is using the ‘Sebezaphone’ which helps young learners master
phonics, encourages reading for enjoyment as learners do not need to feel shy about reading as they
whisper to themselves and allows learners to self-correct therefore tracking their own progress
(Sebezaphone, 2011).
The whole class can read together without disturbing each other and everyone is engaged. The
‘Sebezaphone’ can be utilised in any Foundation Phase grade and can be used for almost all activities
involving reading, sounding out of letters or words and spelling, whether in shared, group or independent
activities. It is a simple and effective tool that amplifies the voice and assists learners in differentiating
phonemic sounds, linking sounds to letters and words. Learners become the authors of their own learning
process and become motivated to engage with all sorts of text and print as they are eager to learn.
‘Sebezaphone’ – Watch to find out more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ1zRrKdQ3U
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