Assignment 2-Speech Sounds

Speech Sounds:

Although I was somewhat confident after taking the print awareness test, when I saw the questions about speech sounds, I got a little nervous. Surprisingly enough however, I scored a 7/10 correctly on the pretest and luckily scored perfectly on the post test. I answered the following questions incorrectly: “Speech sounds are also called: phonemes”. I answered “graphemes”. I realized only after seeing the results that this was not the most logical option to choose since the remainder of the test focused on phonemes. Additionally, looking at the word graphemes indicates that this word would have something to do with the way it appears. The second question that I answered incorrectly was: “The word ran has how many phonemes: 3”. I answered 1 since I thought that phonemes and syllables were synonymous. The third question answered incorrectly was: “How many phonemes do you hear in the word nope?: 3”. I answered one for the same reason listed above having to do with the syllables.

What I learned from this assessment is that there are many different aspects involved in speech sounds. As teachers it is important to be aware of the terms and how they play out in literacy.  I am eager to learn the technicalities of speech sounds and how to implement them when teaching my students. I am curious to know how to teach students who cannot hear how to read. I am sure this is a fascinating topic and am looking forward to learning more.  The games and activities that were listed in the literature seemed like very practical ways to teach children how to identify the sounds in words.