Oral Language Development and Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds within a word. It has been suggested that a child's phonemic awareness by the end of first grade is a good predictor of their early reading success. Here are a few assessments to help identify the level of phonemic awareness in fifth graders.

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency Test (subtest of DIBELS)
This test measures how many individual sounds in a dictated word a child can segment correctly in 1 minute. Each accurate sound is given credit, and the teacher can then compare the results to students of the same age. Analysis of the results of this test can help you identify areas of instruction for whole class, small group, and individuals. This is also a useful assessment to use for progress monitoring or for screening a student.

Informal Observations and Records
Systematic record keeping and observations are one of the most important tools teachers can use to track student progress. There are many different types of checklists available to help you keep track of your data, or you can create your own based on specific standards and expectations in your classroom. One useful rating scale is the TROLL rating scale which can be accessed here: http://www.ciera.org/library/reports/inquiry-3/3-016/3-016.html

Instructional Approaches to Teaching Oral Language Development and Phonemic Awareness
Immersion and demonstration are two of the most important things a teacher can do to promote language development. Teachers should model reading for students daily as well as give students ample opportunity to practice reading in the classroom. For older students the practice of stretching out words is also helpful. Then they can hear the sounds that chunks or parts of a word make.