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Phonemic Awareness Instruction for ELL Students

Tags

ELA: ^Other All Ages Strategy

Skills

Auditory Processing Verbal Memory Processing Speed

Phonemic Awareness Instruction for ELL Students

All ELL students

How To Apply It!

  1. For English Language Learners, explicit teaching of English phonemes can be valuable regardless of age.
  2. Explicit phonemic awareness instruction teaches the approximately 41 sound units, or phonemes in English, which is essential for reading fluency and helps spelling.
  3. Every language has its own distinct phonemes. ELL students might mis-perceive some English phonemes because learners will naturally categorize phonemes in their first language which might conflict with English.
  4. Common misperception in Spanish are students using /ch/ rather than /sh/. In Japanese or Chinese, students might confuse /l/ and /r/.
  5. Teachers can be aware of students whose minds might naturally refer to their native language and offer more deliberate instruction in the specific phonemes which differ.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

Phonemic awareness is a core foundational skills for reading fluency and instruction in all languages, as explained by the (National Reading Panel 2000). In ELLs these skills have been acquired and mastered in a language whose phonemes differ from English. If students have developed automaticity in phonemic awareness in their native language, they might need deliberate instruction for re-training their mind to identify those phonemes in English.