My previous article discussed the different techniques that are now being used in helping children learn to read. I began with a brief overview of how things have changed over the past few years. I then ended my article with a couple of reading terms that many children encounter in today’s primary reading classes.
In this article I will continue to define more terms in order to help you work with your child more efficiently and knowledgably.
Phonics: Phonics is the understanding that there is a relationship between phonemes and graphemes. That is there is a relationship between the sounds we speak and the words we write. There are many phonics programs that teachers can purchase and use to help teach children this concept.
Phonemic Awareness: Phonemic awareness is the ability for one to be able to depict and distinguish the different phonemes (sounds) in the spoken language.
Phonological Awareness: Phonological awareness is a wider span of learning than phonemic awareness. In addition to learning and discovering phonemes, phonological awareness also includes working with rhyming words, syllables, and words.
Syllable: A syllable is a piece of a word. The piece contains a vowel or a vowel sound. For example the word dinosaur would be broken into the following syllables: din- o- saur. Newspaper would be news- pa- per.
Onset and Rime: Onsets and rimes are pieces of the spoken language that are larger than the phonemes discussed earlier but smaller than syllables. The onset is at the beginning. It is the initial consonant sound. A rime is the part that has the vowel and everything that comes after it. The onset of dog would be d. The onset of chicken would be ch. The onset of swim would be sw. The rime of dog is og. The rime of chicken is icken. The rime of swim is im.