Given the demographics of our country, which is becoming increasingly pluralistic and has burgeoning numbers of citizens who are from other language backgrounds, the likelihood that you will be teaching at least one, if not more, children who are from a non-native English speaking background (even though they may not be officially classified as ELL students), is at least 75 percent.
Therefore, as a conscientious educator, it is important that you understand the special factors involved in supporting their literacy development, including fostering progress in native language literacy as a perquisite for second language (English) reading progress.
Although there are hundreds of phonemes that can be and are produced by the human vocal system, and babies are typically born with the ability to hear and produce all of them, by about a year of age a child’s phoneme production has become somewhat restricted to the phonemes characteristic of the language(s) the child hears on a daily basis. Since languages differ in the specific set of phonemes they use, not all English phonemes are present in other languages. If a phoneme is not used in the child’s native language, the child learns to ignore it aurally, and does not learn to produce it. Sometimes the phonemes learned in one language actively interfere with learning the phonemes of another.
This means that students from other language groups may never have learned to distinguish some English phonemes that, to a native English speaker, would be obvious and clear. For example, in some languages (e.g., Japanese) there is no distinct phoneme for the sound /r/, so the sounds of /l/ and /r/, which involve similar positioning of tongue and mouth, are easily confused. They have also not learned to produce those phonemes, and they have not learned the system of rules for combining phonemes that are obvious to a native English speaker.
These rules are often unstated and unconscious (e.g., in English, you can put the sound /s/ before the sound /l/, but you cannot put the sound /m/ before /l/; you can put the sound /t/ before /r/, but not the sound /t/ before /l/. Most people would not be able to verbalize the rule; they just wouldn’t do it).
When teaching phonological and phonemic awareness to ELL students, therefore, it is necessary to begin at the very early stages of phonemic awareness and determine which phonemes are going to be the most difficult for the student.
It is recommended that all teachers of reading—particularly those who are working with ELL students—use meaningful, student-centered, and culture customized activities. These activities may include: language games, word walls, and poems. Some of these activities might also, if possible, be initiated in the child’s first language and then reiterated in English.
Considerations for Struggling Readers
Modern research on the manner in which the brain learns to read an alphabetic language such as English points to deficits in phonological and phonemic awareness as key sources of interference for students who struggle to learn to read. Willis (2008), in her review of neuro-imaging and magneto encephalography research, describes three areas of the brain that must function well together in order for the child to learn to decode written symbols and understand their meaning. Readers with weaknesses or with disabilities that
produce deficits in any of these areas may struggle to learn critical phonological and phonemic awareness skills. Such readers will need a great deal of support and practice at the phonological awareness level before and while moving on to phonics and other decoding skills. These students may need not only more practice with phonological awareness tasks, but also different kinds of practice.
They may need more emphasis on kinesthetic feedback in producing distinct sounds and more multimedia and hands on activities.
Points to Ponder:
- Phonological awareness is auditory
- It does not involve print
- It must start before children have learned letter-sound correlations
- It is the basis for the successful teaching of phonics and spelling
- It can and must be taught and nurtured
