Term

Fall 2017

Capstone

Capstone Project

Degree Name

MAESL

Facilitator(s)

Trish Harvey

Content Expert

Judy Croegaert

Abstract

The research question for this paper and project was: Why is phonemic awareness important for English learners (ELs) and how can it be developed? The interest in this topic arose from observing English learners struggle with various English phonemes, especially the vowels, and the surprising difficulty of teaching students to acquire them. Research shows that phonemic awareness contributes to successful reading achievement and can affect intelligibility. English learners may struggle with phonemic awareness as phonemes that exist in English may not exist in their L1s. This paper and project focuses on native Spanish speakers and the distinction of the /i/ and /I/ phonemes, as the /I/ phoneme does not exist in Spanish and is thus often perceived as /i/. The project is a 10-lesson curricular unit aimed to teach K-1 students to both perceive and produce the /i/ and /I/ phonemes distinctly. The project is viewed as a template for further developing phonemic awareness using various phonemes with which students may struggle.

Project Type

Curriculum

Keywords

Curriculum, ESL/ ELLs, Reading, Teachers/ Teaching

dc_type

text

dc_publisher

DigitalCommons@Hamline

dc_format

application/pdf

dc_source

School of Education Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

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Education Commons

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