1. Significance of phonological awareness for the
learners with special needs
By
Farheen Naz Anis

2. Introduction
• The most common barrier to learning early word skills is the
inability to process language phonologically
(Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989).
• Moreover, developments in research and understanding have
revealed that this weakness in phonological processing most
often hinders early reading development for both students
with and without disabilities (Fletcher et al., 1994).
• No area of reading research has gained as much attention
over the past two decades as phonological awareness.

3. Phonology and phonological awareness
• Phone means sound
• Basic sound of a language is known as phoneme.
• Detail study of sound system of a language is known as phonology
• phonological awareness: Awareness of the larger parts of spoken
language as well as awareness of the smaller parts (e.g., words,
syllables, sounds)

4. Phonological Awareness
• Phonological awareness is the area of oral language that
relates to the ability to think about the sounds in a word
(the word’s phonological structure) rather than just the
meaning of the word.
• It is an understanding of the structure of spoken language that
it is made up of words, and words consist of syllables, rhymes,
and sounds.
• Fitzpatrick summarizes it best by saying that phonological
awareness is “the ability to listen inside a word”

5. Phonological Awareness
Phonological Awareness refers to an understanding of
the sound structure of language—that is, the language
is made up of words, syllables, rhymes, and sounds
(phonemes).
This knowledge occurs initially in oral language;
students do not have to know how to name letters or
their corresponding sounds in order to demonstrate
phonological awareness.

6. What is phonemic
awareness?
The ability to hear, identify,
and manipulate the individual
sounds – phonemes – in
spoken words
Phonemic knowledge includes how to:
 segment
 blend,
manipulate
individual sounds in words.
PHONEMIC ASWARENESS IS A SUBCATEGORY OF
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
Phoneme:
The smallest part of spoken
language that makes a difference
in the meaning of words

7. Phonemic Awareness
Onset is the sound(s) that
come(s) before a vowel in a
syllable. In the word “ship”,
the /ʃ/ is the onset. Rime is the vowel and
any sound that come
after it in a syllable. In
the word “ship”, /ip/ is
the rime.

8. Phonics
Phonics refers to an understanding of the sound
(phoneme) and letter (grapheme) relationships in a
language.
Phonological awareness is necessary in
order to use this phonics knowledge
effectively in reading and writing.

9. Phonological Awareness and Phonics
• Phonological awareness instruction helps children make the
connection between letters and sounds
• During reading and spelling activities, children begin to
combine their knowledge of phonological awareness and
phonics
Phonological
Awareness
Phonics

10. Phonics for reading
require the coordination of following neural networks:
Auditory & Visual processing
Phonemes recognition
Phoneme-Grapheme association
Word interpretation

11. Phonics and different learners
Linguistic Causes:
• Phonological deficits.
• Differences in auditory and
visual processing speeds.
• Structural differences in the
brain.
• Working memory deficits.
• Auditory memory deficits.
• Lesions in the word form area.
• Word-blindness
Non-linguistic Causes:
• Perception of sequential sounds.
• Sound-frequency
discrimination.
• Detection of target sounds in
noise.
• Visual magnocellular-deficit
hypothesis.
• Motor coordination and the
cerebellum.

12. Problems detecting
Critical observation of a child’s progress in learning
to speak, and eventually in learning to read, remains
our most effective tool for spotting potential problems.
language
speech vocabulary
Fluency

13. Dealing with a special need learners
One must consider the phonetics of each sound
when dealing with the special need kids

14. What is phonetics?
Phonetics is about the physical aspect of sounds, it studies the
production and the perception of sounds - called phones.
Articulatory Phonetics: "the study of the production of
speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tract by the
speaker".
Phonetic transcriptions are done using the square brackets, [ ]

15. What are the physical aspect of sound
• Frequency of sound
• Pitch /loudness of sound
• F1F2 transition of sound

16. How speech sounds are process?

17. How we process sound for native
language?

18. Consonants
• Phonetics standpoint- a consonant is a type of phoneme. (sound not
letter)
What makes a consonant sound?
Air flow is completely or partially stopped- sound is impeded.
Tongue, lips, teeth, back of throat.
Consonant sounds are classified by place and manner of articulation.
₪ Place: where in the mouth they are produced
₪ Manner: how they are produced

19. Consonants and vowel
language consonants vowels
Urdu 43 17
Arabic 28 6
English 44 12

20. Urdu, English and Arabic phonemic inventory
Bilabial
Labio-
dental
Dental
Alveolar
Post-
alveolar
Palatal
Velar
Uvular
Pharyngea
l
Glottal
Plosive
p b
pʰ, bʰ
t d
tʰ dʰ
ʈ ʈʰ
tˁ dˁ
k g
kʰ gʰ
q Ɂ
Nasal
m
mʰ
n
nʰ
ɳ
Trill
r,
rʰ
ɽ
ɽʰ
Fricative
f v Ɵ ð
ðˁ
s z
sˁ
ʃ ʒ
χ ʁ
ħ ʕ
h
Affricate
ʧ ʤ
ʧʰ ʤʰ
Glides
j
Liquid
w l
lʰ

21. Key to read common (Urdu, Arabic & English)
phonemic inventory
Language colour
Urdu only Green
Urdu & Arabic Red
Urdu & English Blue
Urdu, Arabic & English black

22. Mouth Formation

23. • Bilabial: lips together /p, b, bʰ,m, mʰ/
• Labio-dental: lips and teeth /f, v/
• Inter-dental: tongue between teeth /Ɵ, ð, ðˁ/
• Alveolar: tongue on ridge behind teeth /t, ʈ , s, z, sˁ/
• Palatal: tongue on roof of mouth /ʃ,ʒ,ʤ,ʧ/
• Velar: tongue raised against soft palate /k/
• Uvular: articulated with the back of the tongue against or near
the uvula /ʁ, q/
• Glottal: sound made by blowing air through glottis /h, ʔ/
• Pharyngeal: /ʕ, ħ/
Place of Articulation Terms

24. • Stop: flow of air is stopped completely for a time /p, b, k/
• Continuant: continuous sound /f, v, ħ/
• Nasal: sound travels through nasal cavity. /m, n/
• Fricative: air passes through a narrow space causing friction /Ɵ, ð/
• Affricatives: combination of stop and fricative /ʧ, ʤ/
• Liquid: floating sound /l/
• Glide: seems like two sounds moving together /j/
• Emphatics: additional manner produce with the back of tongue alongside
stop or fricative manner /tˁ, ðˁ/
• Aspiration: any manner with audible breathing sound /bʰ, lʰ/
Manner of Articulation

25. Farheen Anis -In press

26. Special Needs Indicators
• Little or no knowledge of the alphabet
• Inability to name letters when presented
• Inability to produce letter or letter like forms in writing
• Inability to recognize rhyming sounds
• Inability to recognize or identify specific letter sounds in words
• Inability to map spoken sounds onto letters
Reutzel and Cooter (1999)

27. Development of phonemic awareness

28. What We Know from Research
• Phonological awareness instruction improves children’s
understanding of how the words in spoken language are
represented in print.
• Phonemic awareness helps all children learn to read
• Reading is helpful to build vocabulary

29. What We Know from Research
• Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when
children are taught to use letters (graphemes) to represent
phonemes (phonics)
• Phonemic awareness also helps preschoolers, kindergartners,
and first graders learn to spell

30. Understanding the Prerequisites to Successful Phonics Instruction
“Phonemic awareness, or the ability to hear and “segment”
individual sounds in spoken words, must occur before children
can begin to understand how letters represent speech sounds.”
(Reutzel and Cooter, 1999)
It depends on installing that system in long term memory and
having it available to working memory when deciphering a
printed word.
Teaching Our Children to Read: The Role of Skills in a Comprehensive Reading Program-Crowin ,p. 96 William
Honig.

31. Research shows that phonemic awareness can be developed
through carefully planned instruction
(Ball & Blachman, 1991; Bradley & Bryant, 1985; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1989, 1991;
O'Connor, Jenkins, Leicester, & Slocum, 1993).
Instruction duration required for phonemic awareness development.
7 minutes in a day OR
20 hours in a years

32. General Principles Of Phonemic Awareness Instruction
• Provide explicit instruction.
• Model the skills.
• Begin with sounds only.
• Use manipulative.
• Teach simple to complex.
• Pronounce sounds correctly.
• Provide guided practice.
• Teach the “feel” of sounds in the mouth. (Felton & Lillie, 2001)

33. Progression of Phonemic Awareness
words
syllables
onset-rime division
phonemes
[blending, segmentation, matching, deletion

34. Important note:

35. Segment/Blend Phonemes
Syllable Segmentation
Rhyming
Sentence Segmentation
Phoneme Manipulation
Phoneme Identification
Onset And Rime
Levels Of Phonological Awareness:
Instructional Activities

36. Sentence Segmentation:
Using Blank Cards To Build Sentences
adapted from Wilson,B., 2002. Fundations
1. Words are represented
by blank cards.
2. Capitalization of first
letter in sentence is indicated
with a special card.
3. Final punctuation is
indicated with card.

37. Sentence Segmentation: Finger-Point Reading
• Read a simple book with the child while pointing to words.
• child points to words while rereading books.
STOP
‫الل‬ ‫سیب‬‫ھے‬ ‫نشان‬ ‫کا‬ ‫رکنے‬‫الل‬
‫ھے‬
Morris & Slavin, 2002
Example of a
simple, predictable
text

38. Sentences Segmentation:
Cut-Up Sentence
• Read a sentence.
• write sentence on sentence strip.
• child finger point reads sentence.
• cuts up sentence into words.
• child reassembles sentence with support.
• child rereads assembled sentence.
(Morris, 1999)
‫ھوں‬

39. Sentence Segmentation:
Possibly needed for older student functioning
cognitively like a much younger child.

40. Rhyming:
Odd-One-Out With Picture Cards
1. Name the pictures: “ ‫تتلی‬ ‫بلی‬‫آدمی‬ ”
2. Which one doesn’t sound like the others?
3. Name the rhyming words again: “‫آدمی‬ ‫تتلی‬ ‫بلی‬ ”

41. Using manipulatives
to teach phonological
awareness
Syllable segmentation

42. Phoneme Identification
 Name the pictures.
 Present a new card, name picture, and match by
beginning sound.
/‫/م‬

43. Tokens then Letters
‫م‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ک‬

44. Transition To Decoding
‫ا‬
‫م‬
a t
‫ک‬

45. Word Awareness
Function words are the words that connect the more
meaningful words such as nouns and verbs in sentences.
They are the words that enable the speaker to form
complete and correct sentences

46. REMEMBER
When asking students to isolate, segment, or blend sounds, it is
important to note the following:
 Consonant sounds are easier than vowel sounds.
Single-consonant sounds are easier than sound clusters or
blends (e.g., pin is easier than spin).
Certain consonant sounds (posteriors – acoustically louder) are easier
than others (anterior – acoustic signal dissolved in air).

47. Lets talk …….