All Together We Can

By Samuel Charles Sennott

Using engaging phoneme level activities that work towards increasing authentic literacy performance was the message of the great group from New Zealand, led by Gail Gillon. No matter which way you’ve heard it, you have certainly heard about the importance of phonological awareness to early literacy success. This domain has great significance to us as teachers and the question is, how do we incorporate, or better incorporate phonological awareness into our early learning curriculum?

At ASHA, I attended these these three sessions: 1. Speech Sound Disorders in Children: Adapting Phonological Awareness Intervention for Differing Populations

Partial Handout

2. Survey of the Literacy Environment of Children With Down Syndrome
3. Speech Sound Disorders in Children: Phonological Awareness Treatment Effects for Preschool Children With Speech-Language Impairment

They provided a terrific resource in the form of a An Integrated phonological awareness programme for preschool children with speech disorder Gillon and McNeill (2007) Dowload it here:
http://www.education.canterbury.ac.nz/people/gillon/resources.shtml

I have seen Gail Gillon cited frequently and had heard that her work was a good place to start bulking up the phonemic awareness component of the early childhood based program we are building at Nova. During these sessions, I was hearing about a number of terrific research projects, all with positive outcomes for individuals with varying disabilities and all with seamingly great design. I found myself won over. Also, I was considering how I will, one, take this into my teaching practice and, two, learn more about this subject.

After an initial review of the Integrated Phonological Awareness Program they provided, I feel confident that I am doing much of what is advocated. After years of pulling from Starfall, Literactive, homemade ICS activities, and various songboards, I now realize the importance of putting it all into a framework. I like the idea of having this program guide as a way to help me structure the work in this domain. Much thanks to Gail Gillon for posting it! : ) So, how do I learn more about the subject? One source is from the same person and the 2007 text, Phonological Awareness From Research to Practice by Gail T. Gillon. I think I will buy it from the Guilford Press in paperback for $26
or Amazon for the same .

Additionally, I am set to obain a number of resources from Marilyn Jager Adams, including:
Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum
By Marilyn Jager Adams

Also, here is a web article of interest: Phonemic Awareness in Young Children By: Marilyn J. Adams, Barbara Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, and Terri Beeler (1998)

Most importantly, from the three sessions I attended, I really appreciate the focusing statement to remember that the goal of increasing phonological awareness is to improve literacy outcomes and that is how they should be measured. Overall, as is the theme in these reflections on ASHA, I am working both from what I learned and from what I am already integrating and know. I look forward to some interesting discussions and research about this topic over the next few weeks and months. Please post any resources or related questions about phonological awareness in the comments section of this post.

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