Phoneme Substitution
Phoneme substitution, the highest skill in our hierarchy, involves deleting and adding sounds. For instance, changing the short /i/ in "pin" to a long /i/ creates "pine."
This process involves several automatic steps: segmenting the word, isolating a phoneme, deleting it, adding a new one, and blending the sounds. Each step relies on the foundational layers of the phonemic awareness pyramid, so weaknesses in any of these skills can hinder a student's ability to substitute phonemes effectively. Phoneme substitution is a critical breakthrough skill that enables children to read new words independently.
Example of Phoneme Substitution
Consider the words "cat" and "bat." If a student knows how to read "cat," they can use that knowledge to decode "bat" by substituting the initial phoneme /k/ with /b/. This kind of phoneme manipulation helps students approach new, unfamiliar words more confidently.
The Pyramid of Phonemic Awareness
The "pyramid" refers to a hierarchy of phonemic awareness skills. At the bottom are basic skills like phoneme blending and segmentation, which are essential for early readers. As students progress, they need to develop more complex skills at the top of the pyramid, such as phoneme manipulation (adding, deleting, and substituting sounds).
Images courtesy of *Really Great Reading*
Focusing on these advanced skills is crucial for helping students decode unfamiliar words and improving their overall reading proficiency, especially as they advance in their education. Kilpatrick (2015) tells us that research suggests that “phonological manipulation tasks are the best measures of the phonological awareness, skills needed for reading because they are the best predictors of word-level reading proficiency” (page 155) because phoneme manipulation (adding, deleting, and substituting) is actually the layer of phonemic awareness that is the most closely related to reading connected text (Kilpatrick, 2015). Kilpatrick emphasizes that strong phonemic manipulation skills correlate closely with successful reading outcomes.