Teaching Struggling Readers Around the World

Module 3: Building Phonological Skills

Table of Contents

Module 3 Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 2
Module 3: What is Phonological Awareness? .............................................................................................. 3
Video Transcripts ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Module 3: What are Stress and Tone? ......................................................................................................... 7
Module 3: Quiz – Phonological Awareness, Stress, and Tone ............................................................... 10
Module 3: Helping Children Develop Phonological Awareness ................................................................. 11
Module 3: How Do You Test Phonological Awareness, Stress, and Tone? ................................................ 16
Module 3: Quiz – Teaching and Testing Phonological Processing Skills ................................................. 19
Module 3: Discussion – Phonological Awareness in the Classroom ........................................................... 20
Module 3: b4 u txt – Is Texting Good for Children? ................................................................................... 21
Module 3 Self-Assessment ......................................................................................................................... 23
Module 3 Summary .................................................................................................................................... 24

© 2019 by World Learning and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Teaching Struggling Readers Around the
World MOOC Module 3 Packet. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except
where noted. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/



Module 3 Overview

Building Phonological Skills

Welcome to Week 3! Last week we looked at different types of writing systems and talked about
different techniques for learning visual symbols and words in different scripts.

This week we will focus on the "phonology" component of the model of word reading presented in
Module 1. Specifically, we will emphasize the importance of phonological processing skills. We will start
with an introduction to phonological awareness, stress, and tone. We will then review ways to teach and
test these skills. Then we will consider how texting abbreviations are related to children's phonological
processing skills.

You will participate in various activities in this module. The activities are listed below, followed by
approximate times for each activity. However, timing will vary depending on your experience and
interest in the topic.

Week 3

1. Read a text and watch a video that introduces different levels of phonological awareness. (35
minutes)
2. Read a text that describes stress and tone as other types of phonological processing skills. (30
minutes)
3. Take a follow-on quiz that tests your understanding of phonological awareness, stress, and tone.
(20 minutes)
4. Read a text that introduces useful techniques of teaching phonological sensitivity. (35 minutes)
5. Read a text or watch a video about ways to test phonological awareness, stress, and tone. (30
minutes)
6. Take a follow-up quiz that tests your understanding of ways to teach and test phonological
processing skills. (35 minutes)
7. Discuss ways to teach and measure phonological awareness with your classmates. (35 minutes)
8. Read a text that describes the relationship between phonological awareness and texting. (30
minutes)

Module 3: What is Phonological Awareness?

In this module, we will focus on phonology or phonological processing skills that are important for
learning to read. As we learned in Module 2, children need to connect print and sound information to
read words. But how do children become better at phonological processing? You can read the text
below, or you can watch this video (4:26), which contains the same text.

<<Video available online. Script below.>>

There are two types of phonological processing skills. One is the ability to pay attention to smaller
speech sounds that make up words. This is called phonological awareness. Another is the ability to pay
attention to the sounds that change how a whole word sounds by adding stress or tone. We will give
you many examples of these skills in this module. In this section, we focus on phonological awareness.

Levels of phonological awareness

There are different levels of phonological awareness: syllable, onset-rime, and phoneme. Children find it
easiest to focus on syllables. Syllables are easier than phonemes. Another way of saying this is that
bigger sounds (syllables) are easier for children to process than smaller sounds (phonemes).

Between syllables and phonemes, there is also the level of onset-rime. Onsets are the initial sound of
the word. This could be a consonant (like d in ‘doll’) or a consonant cluster (where two or three
consonants appear together, like dr in ‘drip’). In short words like ‘doll’ and ‘drip,’rime is composed of the
sounds that follow the onset. See Figure 1 to see how words are segmented into onset-rime units.

Figure 1.

Phonological awareness is an important component of learning to read across scripts. Children who
experience reading difficulties often have difficulties in phonological awareness as well. But there are
differences in phonological awareness that could be seen in children around the world. For example,
Italian-speaking children can be quicker to develop phoneme-level awareness than English-speaking

children. This is because letter-sound relationships in their language are easier to learn than in English.
Phonological awareness in English can be especially difficult because there are many consonant clusters.
It is hard to hear the individual sounds in such clusters. Other languages, such as Chinese or Bemba,
have few or no consonant clusters.

The experience of Korean-speaking children is also a bit different. In Korean, words are divided into the
body and coda. Body includes the beginning of the word until the vowel sound. The coda is the part of
the word after the vowel. In Korean, it is easier to divide ‘cat’ into ‘ca’ (body) and ‘t’ (coda) than into ‘c’
(onset) and ‘at’ (rime), as is more typical in English. This could be because Korean children hear more
words that have the same body than the same rime. Because Korean children are used to dividing words
by body and coda, they will find it harder to do activities that ask them to delete just the first sound or
the onset of a word. Hebrew-speaking children might also prefer dividing words by body and coda
rather than by onset and rime.

WATCH: Prof. Jeung-Ryeul Cho talks about the role of body-coda awareness in learning to read in
Korean Hangul. (Approximately 1 minute)

<<Video available online. Transcript provided in the following pages.>>

Next, we will look at stress and tone as other types of phonological processing skills. Then we will look at
how phonological processing skills can be taught and assessed in children.

References
(This content is licensed under CC BY 4.0 or CC0 and is free for public use.)

Gillon, G. (n.d.). Phonological awareness resources. University of Canterbury. Retrieved

from https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/education/research/phonological-awareness-resources/

Institute of Education Sciences. (2007, February 8). Phonological awareness training. Retrieved from
https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/InterventionReports/WWC_Phonological_Awareness_121406.pdf

National Reading Panel. (April, 2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching Children to read:
An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for
reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Retrieved
fromhttp://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-awareness-instruction

Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. (n.d.). Speech sounds: Assessment tip. Reading
Rockets. Retrieved fromhttp://www.readingrockets.org/article/speech-sounds-assessment-tip

(This content is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted in any way, or distributed after the end of this course. It is not Public Domain or Creative
Commons-licensed, and therefore not for public use.)

McBride, C. (2016). The development of sound, phonological sensitivity, and language for reading and
writing. In Children’s Literacy Development (2nd ed., pp. 22-45). Hove: Routledge.

Moats, L. C. (2010). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers (2nd Ed.). Baltimore: Brookes.

Classroom Activity

Adams, M. J., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I., & Beeler, T. (n.d.). Phonemic activities for the preschool or
elementary classroom. Reading Rockets. Retrieved from
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-activities-preschool-or-elementary-classroom

Edelen-Smith, P. J. (1997). How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme awareness activities for collaborative
classrooms. Intervention in School and Clinic, 33(2), 103-111. Retrieved
from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-now-brown-cow-phoneme-awareness-activities

Goodreads Inc. (n.d.). List of popular phonological awareness books. Retrieved

from https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/phonological-awareness

Mhurchú, M. N. (n.d.). Phonological awareness training through the primary school: Developing
phonological awareness in the infant classes. Primary Curriculum Support Programme. Retrieved
from http://www.pdst.ie/sites/default/files/Phonological%20Awareness%20Infants.pdf

Moats, L., & Tolman, C. (2009). Excerpted from language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling
(LETRS): The speech sounds of English: phonetics, phonology, and phoneme awareness (Module 2).
Boston: Sopris West. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/development-phonological-
skills

Murray, B. (2009). Making Friends with Phonemes. The Reading Genie. Auburn University. Retrieved
from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/making-friends-phonemes

Partin, J. (n.d.). 5 Quick, easy, and fun phonemic awareness activities. Early Childhood Teacher.
Retrieved from https://www.earlychildhoodteacher.org/blog/5-quick-easy-and-fun-phonemic-
awareness-activities/

Reading Rockets. (2004). Speech sounds: Suggested activities. Retrieved

from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/speech-sounds-suggested-activities

Reading Rockets. (n.d.). Syllable games. Retrieved

from http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/syllable_games

Reading Rockets. (2011). Top 10 resources on phonological and phonemic awareness. Retrieved
from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/top-10-resources-phonological-and-phonemic-awareness

Smith, B. (2016, February 1). Phonological awareness activities. Scholastic. Retrieved

from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/brian-smith/phonological-awareness-activities/

To cite this page:

World Learning. (2019). What is Phonological Awareness? In “Teaching Struggling Readers Around the
World” [MOOC].

Video Transcripts

Prof. Jeung-Ryeul Cho

One thing particular in Korean literacy development might be that coda-phoneme awareness is
important in early Hangul reading among young Korean children. This is related to the fact that Korean
people tend to divide syllables into a consonant + vowel 'body' part and 'coda' part rather than onset-
rime subsyllabic units. For example, Korean people tend to divide a syllable, ‘cat'. It's not a syllable...
word. ‘cat’ into ‘ca’ plus ‘t’, rather than ‘c’ plus ‘at’; whereas Americans or people in other countries
tend to separate ‘cat’ into ‘c’ and ‘at’, onset and rime. And Korean children develop coda awareness
earlier than onset awareness as well. On the other hand, the letter-name and letter-sound knowledge
have moderate relations with early Hangul reading and writing.

Module 3: What are Stress and Tone?

Phonological processing can also refer to an awareness of speech sounds across a word or phrase. This
can refer to the stress placed on syllables in a word (lexical stress) or the pitch level of a syllable in a
word (lexical tone). Languages like Italian, Spanish, Greek, and English have stress. Languages such as
Cantonese and Mandarin have tone. Some languages like Bemba and Thai have both.

Lexical stress
Different languages have different types of stress. In Finnish, words are almost always stressed on the
first syllable. In Polish, stress is usually on the second-to-the-last syllable. In Greek, diacritics are used to
show where the stress is located in a word. In Italian, diacritics are not normally used in writing. Even
varieties of English can have differences in stress. For example, British English speakers say ‘A-dult’ but
American English speakers say ‘a-DULT’.

Stress matters for meaning. Words can look the same but have a different pronunciation and meaning
because of stress. See Figure 1 for some examples in Filipino and in English.

Figure 1.

Stress can sometimes differentiate between a noun and a verb (e.g. a PRO-test versus to pro-TEST; a
PER-mit versus to per-MIT). Indeed, in English, words that are two syllables are usually stressed on the
first syllable when they are nouns or adjectives (like "paper" or "pretty"), and on the second syllable
when they are verbs (like "forbid" and "untie"). Stress also matters because stressed syllables are usually
spelled better.

Lexical tone
Lexical tone is part of languages in many places such as East and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and
some indigenous communities in Africa. At least 40% of the world’s languages use tones to convey

meaning. Children who have difficulties in discriminating one tone from another have more trouble
reading. Tones are crucial for distinguishing the pronunciations and meanings of words. We know a lot
about the importance of tone for reading especially in Chinese languages. Check the links in the box
below for more information.

Children who have difficulties in detecting either stress or tone have more trouble reading because they
are less able to match the word or syllable to its written form.

Web resources about lexical stress and lexical tone:

What are some rules of stress in English? Read more

here: http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress-rules.htm.

What do tones in Mandarin Chinese sound like? This page has sound clips that you could listen to:
https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17

Read an article on The World’s Most Musical Languages (The Atlantic) to learn about languages that
have lexical tone: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/tonal-languages-
linguistics-mandarin/415701/

Access a map that shows where tonal languages are spoken around the world (The World Atlas of
Language Structures Online):
http://wals.info/feature/13A?s=20&z3=3000&z2=2999&z1=2998&tg_format=map&v1=cfff&v2=cf6f&
v3=cd00#2/19.3/153.1

References
(This content is licensed under CC BY 4.0 or CC0 and is free for public use.)

Checklin, M. (2012). What in the world do we know about word stress? A review of what it is and how to
teach it. TESOL in context special edition S, 3, 379-397. Retrieved
from http://www.tesol.org.au/files/files/267_martin_checklin.pdf

Koenig, L. (n.d.). Suggestions for teaching lexical stress patterns in English. Retrieved
from https://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster2/basics/koenig.html

Kopecky, A. (2010, April 22). Phonology: Syllable stress. ESL FOCUS The Worldwide Guide. Retrieved from
http://www.eslfocus.com/articles/phonology_syllable_stress-491.html

Pisoni, D. B., & Remez, R. E. (Eds.). (2005). The handbook of speech perception (p. 708). Oxford:
Blackwell. Retrieved from https://repository.ubn.ru.nl//bitstream/handle/2066/56545/56545.pdf

Tsai, R. (2011). Teaching and learning the tones of Mandarin Chinese. Scottish Languages Review, 24, 43-
50. Retrieved from https://www.scilt.org.uk/Portals/24/Library/slr/issues/24/24_5_Tsai.pdf

(This content is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted in any way, or distributed after the end of this course. It is not Public Domain or Creative
Commons-licensed, and therefore not for public use.)

Singh, L., & Fu, C. S. (2016). A new view of language development: The acquisition of lexical tone. Child
Development, 87(3), 834-854.


To cite this page:

World Learning. (2019). What are Stress and Tone? In “Teaching Struggling Readers Around the World”
[MOOC].

Module 3: Quiz – Phonological Awareness, Stress, and Tone

Answer these 5 questions about the texts "What is Phonological Awareness?" and "What are Stress and
Tone?" When you are done, be sure to read the feedback that you receive. You must receive at least
70% to move on in the module (for this quiz, this means you must score at least 4/5). However, you can
take the quiz as many times as you like, and you will keep your highest score.

<<This diagnostic can only be completed online.>>

10



Module 3: Helping Children Develop Phonological Awareness

Much of word reading involves mapping print to speech sounds. We do this at the phoneme, onset-
rime, syllable, or other (e.g., coda) levels. How we do this depends on what language and script we are
learning to read. When children have difficulty with reading, one important way to help them is to
reinforce their speech sound sensitivity. Do they notice the sounds? Can they tell that one sound is
different from another? If you can make up games that focus on speech sounds in your language, this
will help your students. Struggling readers need a lot of games and exercises to help them focus on
sounds.

Focusing on sounds in the environment

A really easy way to start to think about sounds is to focus on sounds in the environment. For example,
you can talk about the sounds that animals make. Do you know the song called "Old MacDonald Had a
Farm"? This is a good teaching song. It teaches a variety of animal sounds, and it is fun to sing.

"Old MacDonald had a farm"; Example: duck

Old MacDonald had a farm, EE-I-EE-I-O.

And on that farm he had a duck, EE-I-EE-I-O.

With a quack quack here and a quack quack there

Here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack quack

Old MacDonald had a farm, EE-I-EE-I-O.

In every language, animal sounds are different. It is fun for children to talk about them and to make the
sounds. It is also useful for them to see how these sounds are written or spelled.

Seeing and writing sounds can help to strengthen the development of basic phonological sensitivity
skills. Another fun activity for children is to recognize and to write onomatopoeias. Onomatopoeia is a
word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias
include animal sounds, machine noises, and human sounds. Figure 1 lists some of these for English.

Action Sound

Baby crying Wah-wah

Bite Chomp, munch

Kiss smooch

Laughter Hahah

Scream Ow, ouch, agh

11



Sneeze Achoo!

Snoring Zzz

Yawning Yawn

Throat swallowing Gulp

Figure 1. Common occurrences of onomatopoeias – human sounds

Here are some suggestions for activities that you could do in the classroom. Can you think of ways to
make these activities work in your language?

Classroom activities

“Little Detectives”
Demonstrate to children how daily life materials, e.g. comics, advertisement, package, headlines,
poems, etc., use onomatopoeia. In short, discuss how onomatopoeias are applied in different
situations. Of course, the internet is also a great resource for onomatopoeias.

Encourage children to keep track of onomatopoeias in their own environment. Compare sounds in
your native language and English (or other languages). Consider how to write them using your writing
system too.

Same or different?
A direct way to emphasize speech sounds is to ask children to compare them. For example, you can
ask whether each pair of words begins with the same sound or a different sound. Remember, you are
asking them to think about the sounds, not the appearance of the words.

Do these pairs of words start with the same sound or a different one?

Bed and bug (same)

Fin and fast (same)

Goat and jam (different)

Sip and son (same)

Game and giant (different—remember to focus on the sound, not the letter)

Simple and cereal (same—remember again to focus on the sound, not the letter)

You can make up your own exercise like this for your students in your language.

12



Poetry
Poems that rhyme are very helpful to children’s sense of speech sounds. Rhyming poems make
language and speech sounds easy to predict. Consider this silly poem:

John is glad today.

It is the end of May.

He can go out and play.

He has a holiday!

In this simple poem, each line ends with the rime of “ay.” This makes the poem easy to read.
Beginning and struggling readers can use this to predict the sentence. The poem also sensitizes
children to the “ay” sound.

Alliteration
Apart from whole-word sensitivity, children should be trained to recognize the onsets, or first sounds,
of words. This sensitivity is usually helpful for word reading, especially in languages such as English
which divide words into phonemes. A good way to focus on onsets of words is to use alliteration.

Alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words
and/or phrases. It has historically developed through poetry. Alliteration is commonly used in modern
music, as well as advertisements, business names, comic or cartoon characters, and common
expressions. Some common expressions that make use of alliteration are “right as rain,” “busy as a
bee,” “jump for joy,” “labor of love,” and “good as gold.” From Disney, we have “Donald Duck,” “Peter
Pan,” and “Mickey Mouse” as examples of alliteration. It can be fun to have children make up names
or products that make use of alliteration. Here is one activity:

Recently, Mr. Rabbit opened a supermarket in the center of the city. He would like to attract as many
customers as possible. Would you help to name his products, using alliteration, so that they will leave
strong impressions on the customers?

Compare children’s responses and vote on the most creative or best ones.

Alliteration is also fun and challenging in the form of “tongue twisters.” These are phrases that make
use of alliteration. When the alliteration is too much, they are difficult to say. One example is “Peter
Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

To make the activity more challenging (and fun!), you can also ask children to read and create their
own tongue twisters with alliterations.

e.g. A: An ape ate Ace’s acorn.

B: Baby Bobby's bed bounced better by bedtime before Billy bounced.

C: Cory collected cola cans counting continuously.

Check the internet for many classic alliteration poems as well, including “Betty Botter” and “Silly
Sally.”

13



References
(This content is licensed under CC BY 4.0 or CC0 and is free for public use.)

Gillon, G. (n.d.). Phonological awareness resources. University of Canterbury. Retrieved

from https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/education/research/phonological-awareness-resources/

Institute of Education Sciences. (2007, February 8). Phonological awareness training. Retrieved from
https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/InterventionReports/WWC_Phonological_Awareness_121406.pdf

National Reading Panel. (April, 2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching Children to read:
An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for
reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Retrieved from
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-awareness-instruction

Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. (n.d.). Speech sounds: Assessment tip. Reading
Rockets. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/speech-sounds-assessment-tip

(This content is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted in any way, or distributed after the end of this course. It is not Public Domain or Creative
Commons-licensed, and therefore not for public use.)

McBride, C. (2016). The development of sound, phonological sensitivity, and language for reading and
writing. In Children’s Literacy Development (2nd ed., pp. 22-45). Hove: Routledge.

Moats, L. C. (2010). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers (2nd Ed.). Baltimore: Brookes.

Classroom Activity

Adams, M. J., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I., & Beeler, T. (n.d.). Phonemic activities for the preschool or
elementary classroom. Reading Rockets. Retrieved from
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-activities-preschool-or-elementary-classroom

Edelen-Smith, P. J. (1997). How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme awareness activities for collaborative
classrooms. Intervention in School and Clinic, 33(2), 103-111. Retrieved
from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-now-brown-cow-phoneme-awareness-activities

Goodreads Inc. (n.d.). List of popular phonological awareness books. Retrieved

from https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/phonological-awareness

Mhurchú, M. N. (n.d.). Phonological awareness training through the primary school: Developing
phonological awareness in the infant classes. Primary Curriculum Support Programme. Retrieved
from http://www.pdst.ie/sites/default/files/Phonological%20Awareness%20Infants.pdf

Moats, L., & Tolman, C. (2009). Excerpted from language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling
(LETRS): The speech sounds of English: phonetics, phonology, and phoneme awareness (Module 2).
Boston: Sopris West. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/development-phonological-
skills

Murray, B. (2009). Making Friends with Phonemes. The Reading Genie. Auburn University. Retrieved
from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/making-friends-phonemes

14



Partin, J. (n.d.). 5 Quick, easy, and fun phonemic awareness activities. Early Childhood Teacher.
Retrieved from https://www.earlychildhoodteacher.org/blog/5-quick-easy-and-fun-phonemic-
awareness-activities/

Reading Rockets. (2004). Speech sounds: Suggested activities. Retrieved

from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/speech-sounds-suggested-activities

Reading Rockets. (n.d.). Syllable games. Retrieved

from http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/syllable_games

Reading Rockets. (2011). Top 10 resources on phonological and phonemic awareness. Retrieved
from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/top-10-resources-phonological-and-phonemic-awareness

Smith, B. (2016, February 1). Phonological awareness activities. Scholastic. Retrieved

from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/brian-smith/phonological-awareness-activities/

To cite this page:

World Learning. (2019). Helping Children Develop Phonological Awareness. In “Teaching Struggling
Readers Around the World” [MOOC].

15



Module 3: How Do You Test Phonological Awareness, Stress,

and Tone?

For this reading, you can read the text below, or you can watch this animated video (3:58) of the same
text.

<<Video available online for viewing. Script below.>>

Tests of phonological awareness

We know that children develop phonological awareness from bigger to smaller speech sounds. We also
know that phonological awareness is important for reading. Difficulties in phonological awareness could
also mean difficulties in reading. Therefore, it’s important to know how we can test this skill. Children as
young as 3 or 4 years old could answer simple phonological awareness questions. There are many types
of tests. Some are easier or harder than others.

When testing for phonological awareness, tests where children have to focus on syllables are usually
easier than focusing on the onset-rime level. Focusing on the onset-rime level is easier than focusing on
phonemes. This also depends on the language/s that children speak and read.

Figure 1 shows examples of phonological awareness tests where children are given answers to choose
from. In the two examples, children need to focus on the rimes in words.

Figure 1.

WATCH: In this example from Iran, a teacher administers a phonological awareness test to a child in
Persian. Pay close attention to the final sounds of the words given. To get a correct answer, the child
must say the word that did not match the others (odd one out). The child got the first question right, but
not the other two! (Approximately 30 seconds) <<Video available online. Transcript below.>>

Iran PA
taze (‫ ) ﺗﺎز ه‬
daman (‫ ) د اﻣﻦ‬

16



name (‫ ) ﻧ ﺎﻣ ﻪ‬
lane (‫ ) ﻻﻧﻪ‬
[child answers correctly] daman (‫ ) د اﻣﻦ‬
khale (‫ )ﺧ ﺎﻟﻪ‬
danesh (‫ﺶ‬ ‫ ) د اﻧ‬
sazesh (‫ ) ﺳﺎزش‬
malesh (‫ﺶ‬ ‫ ) ﻣ ﺎﻟ‬
[child answers incorrectly] danesh (‫ﺶ‬‫ ) د اﻧ‬
khak (‫ )ﺧﺎک‬
lak (‫ ) ﻻک‬
sal (‫ )ﺳﺎ ل‬
chak (‫ )ﭼﺎک‬
[child answers incorrectly] khak (‫ )ﺧﺎک‬

Figures 2 and 3 show examples of tests where children need to give their own answer. In these
examples, children need to pay attention to syllables and phonemes.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

17



To understand how these tests work, it is important to experience them yourself. Let’s test your
phonological awareness!

Try it yourself! Syllable and phoneme deletion task

This is an example of a deletion task to test phonological awareness. You could try it at different levels
(syllable and phoneme). These levels are important for English. Syllable awareness is easy. Deleting the
first sound from a word is easier than deleting the last sound from a word. Deleting a sound from a
cluster of sounds (e.g., school without the first sound, which is /s/ is pronounced as cool) is VERY
DIFFICULT. Try some of these. But do not worry if you do not get them right. If you are not teaching in
English, think about what sound-related games are important in your language.

Complete each deletion task and then listen to the clip to see if your answer was correct.

<<This diagnostic is only available online.>>

How many correct answers did you get? If you want to try, here are some more challenging questions.
They involve deleting phonemes from consonant clusters in English. Can you get the correct answers for
these questions?

<<This diagnostic is only available online.>>

Tests of lexical stress and tone

Here are a couple of suggestions for teaching or testing stress and tone sensitivity in your language.

For both, give children two choices and ask which one is correct (e.g., ‘SOfa’ or ‘soFA’; ‘RElax’ or ‘reLAX’).

For lexical stress only, ask children to clap louder on the stressed syllable. For example,

‘baNAna’, ‘umBRElla’, ‘BASketball’, ‘TUnafish’, ‘deLETE’:

Clap louder on the syllable written in capital letters.

For lexical tone only, ask children who have learned the number of each tone (in tonal languages) to say
what number it is. In Mandarin, children know that the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 indicate different tones.

These are also easy to do in print by underlining the stressed syllable or writing the number above or
below each tone.

To cite this page:

World Learning. (2019). How Do You Test Phonological Awareness, Stress, and Tone? In “Teaching
Struggling Readers Around the World” [MOOC].

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Module 3: Quiz – Teaching and Testing Phonological

Processing Skills

Answer these 6 questions about the texts "Helping Children Develop Phonological Awareness" and "How
Do You Test Phonological Awareness, Stress, and Tone?" When you are done, be sure to read the
feedback that you receive. You must receive at least 70% to move on in the module (for this quiz, this
means you must score at least 5/6). However, you can take the quiz as many times as you like, and you
will keep your highest score.






<<This diagnostic can only be completed online.>>

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Module 3: Discussion – Phonological Awareness in the

Classroom

This week, we learned about phonological awareness and some ways to measure and teach this to
children. Now it's time for you to share your insights about how you could apply this information to the
classroom or with the children you teach!

To participate in the discussion, try to answer these questions:

• How can you teach or measure phonological awareness in your language? Is it appropriate to
teach or test in the syllable, onset-rime, body-coda, or phoneme levels? Why or why not?
• What classroom activities are you already doing to teach or measure phonological awareness?
Any tips to make it fun, interesting, and effective? If not, what do you plan to do now that you've
learned about the importance of phonological awareness in reading and writing?

<<This task can only be completed online.>>

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Module 3: b4 u txt – Is Texting Good for Children?

Phonological awareness and text messaging

Many parents and teachers wonder about the effects of texting on children. When we text, we often
want to communicate information quickly. We write in a way that is fast and sometimes not correct.
Here are some texting abbreviation examples in English (with the correct wordings in parentheses):

R U O K? (Are you okay?)

Gr8 job (Great job)

B4 u go (Before you go)

I luv U (I love you)

Sometimes adults worry that texting this way may cause children to spell more poorly. What do the
experts say? Researchers in this area find that children who use more texting abbreviations tend to be
better with language and spelling. Actually, being good with texting abbreviations seems to be a good
thing. It shows that the child is flexible with language and writing.

So feel free to ask children to play with texting abbreviations for fun once in awhile. It will not hurt their
reading or writing. Making up texts like these also requires that children have good phonological
sensitivity. They must be able to hear how sounds make up language.

References
(This content is licensed under CC BY 4.0 or CC0 and is free for public use.)

Gillon, G. (n.d.). Phonological awareness resources. University of Canterbury. Retrieved

from https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/education/research/phonological-awareness-resources/

Institute of Education Sciences. (2007, February 8). Phonological awareness training. Retrieved from
https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/InterventionReports/WWC_Phonological_Awareness_121406.pdf

National Reading Panel. (April, 2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching Children to read:
An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for
reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Retrieved from
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-awareness-instruction

Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. (n.d.). Speech sounds: Assessment tip. Reading
Rockets. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/speech-sounds-assessment-tip

(This content is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted in any way, or distributed after the end of this course. It is not Public Domain or Creative
Commons-licensed, and therefore not for public use.)

McBride, C. (2016). The development of sound, phonological sensitivity, and language for reading and
writing. In Children’s Literacy Development (2nd ed., pp. 22-45). Hove: Routledge.

Moats, L. C. (2010). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers (2nd Ed.). Baltimore: Brookes.

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To cite this page:

World Learning. (2019). b4 u txt - Is Texting Good for Children? In “Teaching Struggling Readers Around
the World” [MOOC].

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Module 3 Self-Assessment

Now look back on Module 3 and assess your activity in the MOOC. Just like the other self-assessments in
this course, you should answer all questions honestly. There are no right or wrong answers; you get full
credit for the activity as long as you complete the survey.

<<This diagnostic can only be completed online.>>

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Module 3 Summary

In this module, we explored phonological processing skills in greater depth and highlighted their
importance in reading and writing. Phonological awareness is the ability to pay attention to, and play
with, the speech sounds of a language. There are different levels of phonological awareness: syllable,
onset-rime, phoneme, and even body-coda. Phonological processing can also refer to the awareness
of speech sounds across a word. This could be the stress placed on syllables in a word (lexical stress) or
the pitch level of a syllable in a word (lexical tone).

Developing phonological processing skills helps children become better at word recognition. We
introduced useful techniques to develop basic phonological sensitivity, including onomatopoeia, poetry,
and alliteration. Ways to test phonological awareness were also demonstrated, such as syllable deletion
and phoneme deletion. We then considered the use of texting abbreviations as a fun way to
demonstrate children's phonological processing skills.

In Module 4, we will focus on meaning. We will look at the Simple View of Reading to emphasize the
importance of oral language in gaining skills to process meaning. We will then look at ways to develop
children's vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness, which are also important for children's
reading and writing skills.

The module had two quizzes. One was designed to check your conceptual understanding of phonological
processing skills. The second focused on different applications of the teaching techniques and
phonological awareness tests in the classroom. It is important to understand the basic concepts. It is
also important to apply this knowledge for teaching and testing too.

The module also gave an opportunity to discuss ways to teach and/or test children's phonological
processing skills as teachers. Make sure to participate in the discussions actively. Seeing many different
examples of activities and applications to different languages and contexts could help you come up with
ideas for your own classroom too.

Before you finish Module 3, take a minute to review the terms introduced in this module. Do you
recognize them all? If you need to see their definitions, you can go to the MOOC glossary.

Alliteration Lexical stress
Phonological awareness
Body Lexical tone
Rime
Coda Onomatopoeia
Texting abbreviation
Consonant cluster Onset

<<This is the end of Module 3.>>

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