Phonemic awareness is like a door that opens the speech flow in a child's development. This type of perception ensures the formation of the ability to understand speech by ear. He is also responsible for the gradual transformation of baby babble into meaningful words and sentences. The development of phonemic awareness in preschoolers depends on the characteristics of other cognitive processes. Thus, children with tenacious attention begin to recognize speech sounds faster. This process is accompanied by greater accuracy, which contributes to the development of phonemic hearing.
Phonemic hearing and phonemic awareness
Phonemic awareness refers to the process of recognizing speech sounds. This is the highest level of auditory perception, allowing you to differentiate phonemes (sound combinations in speech).
From a purely physiological point of view, the process aimed at speech perception produces analysis and synthesis of the sound structure of the word. Special devices record these sensory and mental operations that change each other at lightning speed. But during ordinary observation without any instruments, it seems that the understanding of speech is based not on an analysis of its phonemic composition, but on the basis of the general rhythmic and melodic structure of a word or phrase.
The process of recognizing audible sound combinations also underlies phonemic hearing. Therefore, scientists have long and closely paid attention to the question of whether the concepts of “phonemic perception” and “phonemic hearing” differ. In the end, the overwhelming majority agreed with the identity of these concepts.
Since there is no clear distinction between the two terms, we will also freely use them interchangeably. The decisive thing is that both phonemic hearing and perception are aimed at recognizing phonemes and highlighting the sound structure of words.
Article:
A frequent speech disorder in children is phonetic-phonemic underdevelopment - a violation of the processes of formation of the pronunciation system of the native language in children with various speech disorders due to defects in the perception and pronunciation of phonemes.
This category includes children with normal hearing and intelligence. This is a whole complex of phonetic-phonemic disorders, including violations:
- phonemic hearing;
— phonemic analysis;
- phonemic synthesis;
- phonemic perception;
- phonemic representations;
Phonetic-phonemic underdevelopment is the basis for the occurrence of dysgraphia and dyslexia - a persistent lag in the ability to write and read.
Phonemic hearing is a subtle, systematized hearing that has the ability to carry out operations of discrimination and recognition of phonemes that make up the sound shell of a word. Phonemic hearing helps to distinguish some speech sounds from others (zh-sh), (b-p), (z-s), to distinguish by ear syllables and words that differ only in one sound (sa-xia) (zhi-shi), due to which words are distinguished, recognized and understood, for example: house-som-crowbar-com-barrel-kidney-fishing rod-duck-rat-roof.
The development of phonemic hearing occurs very early and is ahead of the child’s expressive speech in its development, i.e. First, phonemic hearing is formed, and on its basis speaking itself is formed.
If phonemic hearing is impaired, the child perceives (remembers, repeats, writes) not what he was told, but what he heard - some exactly, and some very approximately. “Needle” turns into “mist,” “forest” into “leaf” or “fox,” “Misha’s car” into “mice on a car.” The child “does not hear” the endings of words or paired consonants. It is difficult for him to repeat chains of syllables, even with oppositional sounds (ta-pa-ka, ta-da), and it is difficult for him to choose pictures that differ by one sound in the names (bear-mouse, barrel-kidney).
Lack of phonemic awareness is especially pronounced when learning to write and read.
Phonemic analysis and synthesis are mental activities of analyzing or synthesizing the sound structure of a word.
Phonemic analysis is the ability to break down an audible word into its constituent sounds and clearly imagine its sound structure. Phonemic analysis refers to mental actions to analyze the sound structure of a word - decomposing it into a sequential series of sounds, counting their number, classification.
The most complex form of phonemic analysis is determining the sequence of sounds in a word, their quantity, and place in relation to other sounds (after which sound, before which sound). This form of sound analysis appears in children only in the process of special literacy training. Underdevelopment of language analysis and synthesis is manifested:
When writing, distortions in the structure of words and sentences. Particularly common in this case will be distortions of the sound-letter structure of the word. The most typical errors are: omissions of consonants when they are combined (dictation - “dikat”, school - “kola”); vowel omissions (dog – “sbaka”, house – “dma”); permutations of letters (path - “torpa”, window - “kono”); adding letters (taskali - “tasakali”); omissions, additions, rearrangement of syllables (room - “kota”, glass - “katan”).
When reading specific errors:
omissions of consonant sounds when converging (brand - “maka”, barrel - “sides”),
insertion of vowels between consonants when they come together (pasla - “pasala”, girl - “girl”),
permutations of sounds (duck - “tuka”, croup - “kurpa”)
omissions and insertions of sounds in the absence of a combination of consonants in a word (milk - “milk”, raspberries - “maalina”).
For proper mastery of the processes of writing and reading, the formation of phonemic analysis is very important.
Phonemic synthesis is the ability to combine individual sounds into a whole word with subsequent recognition of this word, mentally composed of sounds. Phonemic synthesis refers to mental actions to synthesize the sound structure of a word - the merging of individual sounds into syllables, and syllables into words.
A child who knows how to synthesize sounds into a word should be able to answer a question like: “What word will come from these sounds: k-o-sh-k-a?” (sounds are pronounced one at a time, with pauses between them).
Omissions and rearrangements of letters, the addition of extra letters when writing are often evidence of unformed phonemic synthesis. Only with free orientation in the sound composition of a word will a child be able to master writing at the proper level.
Phonemic perception is special mental actions involving the differentiation of phonemes and the establishment of the sound structure of a word.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to perceive the sound composition of a word. How many syllables are in a word? How many sounds does it have? What consonant sound comes at the end of a word? What is the vowel sound in the middle of a word? It is phonemic awareness that helps answer these questions.
Formed phonemic perception is the key to clear pronunciation of sounds, the correct syllabic structure of words and the basis for the ease of mastering the grammatical structure of the language, and therefore the successful development of writing and reading.
Children usually learn the basic sounds of language quite early. Due to the physiological characteristics of the structure of the articulatory apparatus, they cannot correctly reproduce all phonemes of their native language, but at the same time they are well aware of the subtlety of pronunciation. At this time, the child is already beginning to hear the sounds of the language in accordance with their phonetic characteristics. He recognizes mispronounced words and is able to differentiate between correct and incorrect pronunciation. At the age of 5-6 years, children should already have a high level of development of phonemic perception. They must correctly form subtle and differentiated sound images of words and individual sounds.
Children with good phonemic awareness speak clearly because they clearly perceive all the sounds of our speech. At the same time, in children with underdeveloped phonemic perception, not only sound pronunciation suffers, but also speech understanding, since they cannot separate phonemes that sound similar, and words with these phonemes sound the same to them, for example: sami-sleigh, kidney-barrel, fox (animal) - forests (plural of the word “forest”).
In general, a violation of phonemic perception leads to the fact that the child does not perceive speech sounds that are close in sound or similar in articulation. His vocabulary is not replenished with words that contain sounds that are difficult to distinguish. The child gradually begins to lag behind the age norm. For the same reason, the grammatical structure is not formed to the required extent. It is clear that with insufficient phonemic perception, many prepositions or unstressed endings of words remain “elusive” for the child.
Unformed phonemic perception, on the one hand, negatively affects the development of children's sound pronunciation, on the other hand, it slows down and complicates the formation of sound analysis skills, without which full reading and writing are impossible. The use of special techniques for the development of phonemic processes leads to the fact that children perceive and distinguish the endings of words, prefixes, common suffixes, highlight prepositions in a sentence, etc., which is so important when developing reading and writing skills.
The ability to hear each individual sound in a word, to clearly separate it from the next one, to know what sounds the word consists of, that is, the ability to analyze the sound composition of a word, is the most important prerequisite for proper literacy learning.
Phonemic representations are images of the sound shells of words preserved in the mind, which were formed on the basis of previous perceptions of these words.
To fully master reading and writing, it is not enough to be able to differentiate speech sounds only at the moment of their immediate auditory perception. It is necessary that the child retains a stable idea of each sound in his memory, that is, he can mentally imagine the sound of any sound. During independent reading and writing, he can correlate each sound with its corresponding letter only on the basis of such mental ideas about sounds - after all, at this time he does not have the ability to perceive these sounds by ear.
Underdevelopment of phonemic representations leads to difficulties in mastering the process of reading and writing, specific persistent errors in reading and writing, and, consequently, to failure in school, and a number of behavioral and psychological problems.
It is possible to form appropriate phonemic representations only with the help of special correction techniques.
Not only children with FPD experience underdevelopment of phonemic hearing and perception, but also children with ODD levels I-IV, with dysarthria, dyslalia, alalia, dysgraphia, dyslexia.
It should be noted that phonemic perception in the process of ontogenesis occurs at certain stages:
Complete lack of differentiation of speech sounds. No understanding of speech. The stage is defined as prephonemic;
It becomes possible to distinguish between acoustically distant phonemes, while acoustically close phonemes are not differentiated. A child hears sounds differently than an adult. Distorted pronunciation probably corresponds to misperception of speech. There is no difference between correct and incorrect pronunciation;
The child begins to hear sounds in accordance with their distinctive features. However, a distorted, incorrectly pronounced word is associated with the object. The coexistence of two types of linguistic background: the former, tongue-tied and the formative new one.
Expressive speech is almost normal, but phonemic differentiation is still unstable, which manifests itself in the perception of unfamiliar words.
The completion of the process of phonemic development, when both the perception and expressive speech of the child are correct. A sign of transition is the distinction between correct and incorrect pronunciation.
In my work with children, I use special exercises to develop phonemic hearing and phonemic perception.
In the work on the formation of these processes, the following stages can be distinguished:
Stage I – recognition of non-speech sounds;
Stage II - distinguishing the height, strength, timbre of the voice on the material of identical sounds, words, phrases;
Stage III – distinguishing words that are similar in their sound composition;
Stage IV – differentiation of syllables;
Stage V – differentiation of phonemes;
Stage VI – development of basic sound analysis skills.
Sample games and exercises that I use in my work:
For example, when working on recognizing non-speech sounds, I use the computer method “Development and correction of speech of children 4-8 years old (Akimenko V.M.)” to develop auditory attention, distinguish non-speech sounds (the game “What sounds?”), I also use various toys and objects for the game “Guess what sounds” (the game uses objects that can produce characteristic sounds: bell, drum, paper, pipe, keys, etc.)
Game “Which word is different?”
Of the four words clearly pronounced by an adult, the child must name the one that differs from the rest: ditch-ditch-cocoa-ditch, com-com-cat-com, duckling-duckling-duckling-kitten, booth-letter-booth-booth, screw-screw-bandage-screw, minute-coin-minute-minute buffet-bouquet-buffet-buffet, ticket-ballet-ballet-ballet, pipe-booth-booth-booth.
Exercise “Name the first sound in words” (A, O, I, U).
Stork, duck, needle, queue, vegetables, snail, morning, pharmacy, army, album, search, leave, play, groan, gasp, Africa, India, harvest, sparks, turkey, matinee, address, Aibolit, aquarium, antelope, washbasin, island.
Exercise “Name the last sound in words” (A, O, I, U, Y).
Head, game, wall, leg, hat, thread, bench, pen, watering can, window, coat, cinema, a long time ago, wing, move away, name it, carry, lights, streams, books, pies, poppies, shovels, bouquets, lemons, ribbons, candy, I’m going, I’ll call, I’ll hug, cockatoo, I’ll throw, I’ll shout, I’ll go, I’ll spin, I’ll come.
Exercise “Name all the sounds in order”
Buck, hall, var, your, howled, din, goal, hum, gift, smoke, house, shower, beetle, heat, lump, cat, whale, crowbar, varnish, onion, poppy, soap, small, moss, nose, our, steam, dust, floor, cancer, mouth, dug, rum, himself, juice, bitch, son, dream, soup, litter, current, so, knock, choir, jester, ball.
When automating sounds, I always include tasks to determine the position of a sound in a word (at the beginning, in the middle, at the end). Children especially love the game with the train (1 car - the sound "hid" at the beginning of the word, 2 car - in the middle of the word, 3 car - at the end of the word).
In many classes, my children and I come up with words with given sounds: at the beginning, in the middle, at the end of the word.
If the child accurately completes all tasks at all stages and masters the concepts of “sound, syllable, word,” then we move on to the most complex tasks, for example, drawing up word diagrams. The child learns to characterize sounds (vowels, consonants, hard and soft consonants, voiceless and voiced) and draw diagrams of words.
Thus, we see that phonemic processes are formed in the child gradually. Phonemic hearing is a basic element of speech activity and needs to be developed.
Bibliography:
Speech therapy: Textbook for students of defectology. fak. ped. universities / Ed. L.S. Volkova, S.N. Shakhovskaya. —— M.: Humanite. ed. VLADOS center, 1998. - 680 p.
Tkachenko T. A. Development of phonemic perception. Preschooler's album: A manual for speech therapists, educators and parents. M.: GNOM i D, 2005.
Tkachenko T. A. Speech therapy notebook. Development of phonemic awareness and sound analysis skills. – St. Petersburg: DETSTVO-PRESS, 2000. – 32 p.
Formation of phonemic awareness in preschoolers
Phonemic awareness is the basis of sensory speech. This means that the child establishes a connection between an object or action and the word that denotes it. As soon as the baby begins, at the verbal prompting of an adult, to choose the desired object or perform an action, this symbolizes the first stages of the formation of phonemic hearing.
If the child develops in a timely manner, phonemic hearing is already formed at 2 years of age. The baby correctly perceives all the sounds of his native language, although he pronounces few of them. But this is a different field of development - for pronunciation, the development of the articulatory apparatus is important, which occurs later, by the middle of preschool age.
The younger preschooler continues to clarify and train articulation and correct pronunciation. These trainings take place in natural conditions, day after day. At senior preschool age, phonemic development must be completely completed, and even before school, the child must master the clear pronunciation of all sounds.
Preschoolers intuitively perceive and try to use complex grammatical forms. It doesn't always work out for them. That’s why original words so often come out of children’s mouths: lepesin, pitichka, kameika, posopet (look)…
We recommend that you read:
- How to teach a child to pronounce the letter r.
- Speech therapy exercises for the sound l.
Signs of timely formation of phonemic hearing
As early as 3 years of age, a child clearly demonstrates the complex listening process, which includes paying attention to speech, focusing on the sound of a message, and understanding the content of what is being said.
Parents should be concerned if their child in the 4th year of life does not perceive their verbal appeals either the first or the second time. If this happens sometimes, then there is no reason to worry. But if every time a preschooler needs to repeat the same thing several times, perhaps he needs correction of phonemic awareness.
Notice how children pronounce a difficult word in their own way, and after you correct it and pronounce it expressively, they try to repeat it again. To the child's chagrin, one try rarely makes a difference. However, such situations indicate the development of phonemic awareness. The child hears the norm of pronunciation from adults, recognizes the inaccuracy of his own reproduction, and trains in extracting difficult sounds and pronouncing words that are treacherous for him.
With the development of phonemic hearing, a selective attitude to the sound of speech appears. Children begin to control the speech of others. And they really don’t like it when adults distort words, adapting to children’s speech.
Phonemic perception is the foundation on which the sound culture of speech is built. In turn, sound culture is an important element of speech readiness for learning at school and an indispensable condition for human development at any age.
What is phonetic hearing
Anyone who has visited a speech therapist at least once or performed speech therapy tasks with a child is familiar with this concept; specialists use it constantly. Most likely, you have already heard about its importance for speech development. What does it mean and why does it affect the way your baby speaks? Experts believe that phonemic hearing is a person’s ability to distinguish individual phonemes, i.e. sounds. This skill represents the skills:
- recognition;
- comparisons;
- repetition of the elements that make up words.
It is a unique and necessary feature that complements the normal ability to hear.
In young children, a speech therapist checks, first of all, normal hearing - the reaction to everyday noises (ringing, humming, whistling). If it is in order, then the ability to distinguish more subtle components of the surrounding world of sounds is gradually formed.
Next comes the ability not only to isolate the phonemes of a language, but also to reproduce them. This phenomenon can be compared to manually tuning a radio or walkie-talkie. In a sea of noise, speech hearing helps you catch words and gradually understand them by hearing them clearly. A similar process occurs in every child; he gradually “tunes in” to the speech of adults, catching it better and more accurately. (Of course, this process is much worse for hearing-impaired children.)
If this does not happen, then the child’s phonemic hearing and phonemic perception are impaired. They are the ones who influence how accurately your son or daughter is able to repeat a particular word. Sounds individually may sound perfect, but together they “don’t sound like friends.” For example, instead of “kolobok” you will hear “kobolek”, instead of “shop” - “zigizin”, instead of “tram” - “tranvay”, etc.
For a child, this state of affairs is the age norm, but if such features persist after two years, then you should seek help from a speech therapist and start classes as soon as possible.
A child with such problems not only finds it difficult to express his thoughts, but it is difficult for others to understand him. He lags significantly behind his peers; speech underdevelopment makes it difficult for him to communicate with them. At an older age, if measures are not taken to correct speech hearing impairments, the student will make many mistakes when writing and study worse.
The task of parents is to notice the presence of such characteristics in their child as early as possible and take the necessary measures.
Timely assistance from a specialist will help correct the situation. There are a huge number of games, tasks, exercises aimed at developing phonemic awareness in children, as well as training phonemic perception. These two concepts are often found in conjunction, so it’s worth taking a closer look at the second component of this pair.
