Blending and Sounding

Grapheme-phoneme requires a great deal of sound mimicking from the students, visual and material presentation, as well as word utilization. The teacher should first understand that the alphabet is known to be units which have its own unique sound. Thus, the teacher should clearly establish that there are certain instances wherein sounds in a word constitute more than a single alphabet. Also, students should clearly identify that speech is composed of a variety of sounds.

There are different areas that students need to fully practice to enable themselves to comprehend the concept of graphemes-phonemes and enhance their reading skills. These are (1) awareness of the relationship between sounds and words, (2) understanding the connection of a letter to a sound, (3) utilizing the relationship between letters and phonemes to identify printed words then read and spell them, and (4) understand what is read (Good III, Simmons & Smith, 1998).

To do this, the teacher should first tell the students that they will be studying a new sound. The teacher should then demonstrate how the new sound is enunciated. The enunciation of the sound to be taught should then be mimicked by the students to establish that the students become fully familiar of the sound. This should be done repeatedly until all the students follow through with the sound enunciation and pronunciation.

After the sound has been mimicked and has become familiar by the students, the teacher should then show a visual of the letters comprising the sound. This would make the students identify the sound as a grapheme-phoneme for this specific sound does not consist of a single alphabet but a group of it. To fully make the students understand that there are more than one letter that constitutes this certain sound, the teacher should have some of the students assist in holding separate visuals to make the students aware that the symbols are more than just one.

After establishing to the students the information that there is more than just one alphabet that makes up the sound taught, the teacher could further make the students understand on their own that the alphabets being presented are separate by having them enunciate the sound of each letter individually. However, the teacher should have the students know that despite of the individual sounds these separate letters make; it still creates a new sound when combined. Since the students are familiarized with the letter composition of the sound, the teacher should then make the students understand that these sounds are used in words.

To do this, the teacher should make use of words that comprises these grapheme-phonemes. He/she could utilize different materials that would help the students identify a word that contains this sound. And ultimately, the students should then become familiar with the word, enunciate it correctly, and understand the word completely. References Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Good III, R. H. Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) with CBM.

Early Childhood Research Institute on Measuring Growth and Development. Eugene, OR. The National Strategies, Department for Children, Schools and Families (Producer) Phase 3: Teaching grapheme–phoneme correspondence and practising oral blending. Retrieved from <http://nationalstrategies. standards. dcsf. gov. uk/node/85419> February 17, 2009. Wren, S. Phoneme Awareness. Developing Research-Based Resources for the Balanced Reading Teacher. Retrieved from http://www. balancedreading. com/phonemeawareness. html February 17, 2008