Phonological Awareness

I recently read Successful Phonological Awareness Instruction With Preschool Children: Lessons From the Classroom (2008). While reading this article, it made me think about the amount of teachers who are proficient successful phonological awareness instruction. I currently teach a kindergarten-first grade split in Baltimore City, but my prior position was in a private preschool and prekindergarten program in Columbia, MD. About 1/10 of the preschool teachers were certified to teach young children, and few teachers had obtained college degrees. These teachers were not ever instructed on how to successfully teach phonological awareness. The preschool that I worked at was one of the most costly programs in a very wealthy city. These parents were paying huge amounts of money per year for their child to be very poorly educated. When educated teachers did begin teaching at the school, they would only be able to stay for a very short period of time due to the very low salary that they were paid. Teachers were often very willing to further their education, but they were not able to afford the cost. If directors of private preschools were more aware of the concepts of phonological awareness and how to teach them, they would realize that investing in teacher training in that area would be very beneficial to the education of their students. 

Although kindergarten teachers are usually well educated, I have also noticed that kindergarten teachers are not fully trained in phonological awareness. Teachers who receive a degree in elementary education, are often certified to teach kindergarten-fifth grade. It seems that 2-4 years of undergraduate classes cannot fully cover phonological awareness along with all of the other teaching concepts. In my experience, principals are generally unaware of the importance of phonological awareness, and they tend to believe that kindergarten is for learning the ABCs and then writing and reading. Recently, the principal at my school attended a conference where the importance of phonological awareness was explained to her. She then decided to buy phonological awareness books for the teachers, and I think that this was very helpful. How many teachers actually have a firm grasp of phonological awareness from the beginning? My first year teaching, I taught rhyming first, and as some students picked it up quickly, about a third of my students could not pick up this skill for many months. I was confused about why they weren't able to learn such a fundamental skill, until I realized that other concepts were actually much easier for them to grasp. I think that teachers should be probably trained in phonological awareness, and that training should continue throughout their career to insure that children are building a strong foundation in reading. 

Beth M. Phillips, Jeanine Clancy-Mechetti, Christopher J. Lonigan. Successful phonological awareness instruction with preschool children: lessons from the classroom. Sage Publications, INC, 2008.