The last blog post is on a topic that is fascinating me at the moment. I have brought my children to France for three months, to experience school in the second of their native languages - French.

At home in Australia they are in grade 3 (reading fairly fluently) and Grade 1 (getting the hang of it). In Australia, I feel they are managing fairly well with the acquisition of literacy, but their writing is all over the place, their spelling still quite phonetic at times and their understanding of sounds is limited to the basic ones we give to each letter. 

Here in France, they are doing one term in the equivalent of Prep and Grade 1. They spoke French fairly fluently before coming, but had never tried to read or write it, yet in four weeks of a very rigorous phonics-based method (each night they have a particular sound to learn, and they learn all the different ways that sound can be "spelt" and then they rote learn a set of words with that sound and the various spellings), they are reading in French almost as well as in English.

Now of course, the acquisition of the key to literacy, that is obtaining an understanding of the concept of sound symbol correspondence, only needs to happen once. Once you've got it, you can transfer it to any other language you know the sounds of. But still, I can't help feeling that the methodical way in which the sounds of the French language are being approached, in my children's school, and in every other school across the country, sounds synchronised to the day as far a sI can tell, has something going for it. In any case, my kids are lapping it up...

Phonemes. The sound elements of words. Most of us may not use the term, or care that linguists love it, but to most literate speakers of English, it is obvious that words are made up of these individual sounds. In literate societies, we can use this understanding for 'I spy' and crossword clues. Whether we know what they're called or not, we are aware of phonemes as the 'sounds' of the letters of the alphabet, and we know we can put them together to form words. This constitutes basic phonemic awareness.

Few of us, certainly not those who went to school in Australia in the seventies or early eighties, would remember ever having had to learn that words are composed of individual sounds, beyond a hazy recollection of sounding out 'c-a-t' in primary school. Even fewer would find it easy to accept that not all speakers of English have this concept. We don't know much about illiteracy in highly literate societies like Australia, and we get away with dismissing the characteristics of pre-literacy, such as a young child's inability to play 'I spy', as cognitive immaturity. The assumption that phonemic awareness comes naturally has shaped theories of phonology and the teaching of literacy in Australia and elsewhere. But since the mid-2000s, in light of concern about the literacy achievement of Australian students, that assumption has been questioned. A debate has emerged focusing on phonemic awareness and its relationship to alphabetic literacy – the ability to communicate and obtain meaning through reading and writing a language in a script whose characters broadly represent the basic sounds of the spoken language – and has challenged the assumption that we naturally conceive of words as being made up of individual sounds.

So do alphabetic literacy and phonemic awareness develop hand in hand?

Plenty of research shows that, far from being a natural state, phonemic awareness comes only with alphabetic literacy. Both need to be taught explicitly. Studies have focused on the ability of non-literate people to perform phoneme segmentation tasks. David Olson (1996:6) cites findings by Shankweiler and Liberman that pre-literate children have difficulty counting the 'sounds' in words, or adding or deleting phonemes. Other studies have demonstrated that pre-literate children initialy conceive of writing as a direct representation of concepts (Treiman & Kessler, in press:5) and sometimes look for logographic meaning in words – for example understanding that 'camel' means camel because there are two humps represented logogrpahically in the word (Bowman & Treiman 2004:4; Treiman & Kessler, in press:6) – without an awareness of sound-symbol correspondence or the existence of individual sounds. A further set of studies have shown that specific instruction in phonemic segmentation can improve reading ability (for example Ball & Blachman cited in Treiman 2000:4).

Research involving illiterate adults and those literate in languages with non-alphabetic (character-based and syllabic) scripts has supported the suggestion that the inability of pre-literate children to conceive of phonemes is related to literacy rather than to other aspects of child cognitive development. Olson (1996:7) cites findings by Morais, Cary, Alegria, Bertelson that Portugese adults who had received minimal reading instruction were better able to carry out segmentation tasks than those who had no literacy, and points to similar findings amongst non-literate adults in Brazil (Bertelson, de Gelder, Tfouni and Morais cited in Olson 1996:7), India (Prakesh, Rekha, Nigam and Karanth cited in Olson 1996:7) and rural America (Willis cited in Olson 1996:7). He also cites examples of less ability to manipulate phonemes amongst Chinese speakers with character-based literacy, as compared to those familiar with alphbetic Piyin, and Japanese children with syllabic literacy, as opposed to American children learning English (Olson 1996:7).

A range of studies demonstrating that reading difficulties in children are often caused by an absence of phonemic awareness provide further confirmation of the close relationship between phonemic awareness and alphabetic literacy (for example, Just and Carptenter 1987:318).

This relationship at the basic level does not appear to be in doubt. Before considering the implications of this, however, it is important to acknowledge that the hand-in-hand development does not continue beyond the acquisition of basic phonemic awareness. Literate people, while able to spearate their speech into the sounds that are represented by their orthography, make no differentiation between certain phonologically different sounds, when differentiation is not required for meaning; they have little awareness of allophones. This suggests that phonological awareness is only developed in literate adults to the basic level required to understand the alphabetic principle. Beyond that, its development ceases, and literacy continues to develop through morphophonemic and ideographic means, with some phonemic differences being ignored, and words being recognised as whole units of meaning, in order to accommodate the irregularities of English spelling (Mackay 1987:50&53). While the development of phonemic awareness ceases, literacy continues to develop throughout a person's life (DEST 2005:7)

Implications for theory of phonology

That phonemic awareness is not present without a level of alphabetic literacy, and that the focus of pre-literate children is firmly on meaning, poses problems for computational theories of phonology which attempt to establish structural relationships between pronunciation and the form related to meaning, without considering contextual factors (LING 465 Study Guide 2006:10.9). Cognitive theory, which focuses on an individual's concepts and representations as the most important elements of cognition, (LING 465 Study Guide 2006:10.9) is most useful in articulating the need to focus on concept formation in examining how literacy and phonemic awareness are acquired, and in how best to to aid the process.

Implications for the teaching of literacy

For the teaching of literacy, evidence that phonological awareness is necessary for alphabetic literacy to be acquired, and is not naturally present in non-literate individuals, provides strong argument for the teaching in early education of phonics: explicit instruction in the phonological make-up of words and language and the relationship between sounds and letters (the alphabetic principle). This argument remains controversial, given the dominance of 'whole language' in Australian schools since the 1970s: a theory of literacy teaching which supposes that children can learn to read naturally, just as they learn to speak, if given motivating exposure to the written word (DEST 2005:28). In 2005, however, an independent inquiry into the acquisition of literacy by Australian school children ('the Nelson Report'), commissioned by the Australian Government, argued that the teaching of phonics was an essential part of the teaching of literacy and recommended that phonics instruction be re-introduced into Australian schools (DEST 2005:37-38) to improve literacy outcomes.

Although 'whole language' theory is clearly flawed by its failure to recognise that phonemic awareness does not come naturally, other elements of 'whole language', such ensuring children are exposed to a rich literary environment with a focus on meaning and recognition, need not be discarded. These are useful in developing literacy beyond the acquisition of basic phonemic awareness. This too is acknowledged in the Nelson Report, which points to a variety of measures required to ensure effective literacy acquisition, including direct instruction in phonics, as well as exposure to a rich print environment (DEST 2005:9). The report also cites studies which have demonstrated the effectiveness of integrated teaching strategies, provided this builds on a grounding in phonics. (Camilli, Vargas & Yurecko; Center; Louden; and Swanson & Hoskyn, cited in DEST 2005:33).

Implications for the teaching of literacy to non English-speaking children

Extrapolating from what we know about the needs of English-speaking children in literacy acquisition, some implications can be drawn for the teaching of literacy in English to children whose native language is not English. The close relationship between phonological awareness and alphabetic literacy, coupled with the obvious point that a child must be familiar with the sounds of a language before phonological awareness can be acquired (Just & Carpenter 1987:296), point strongly to the need for language policy which permits the teaching of basic alphabetic literacy in a child's first language. This is of particular relevance in multilingual, generally post-colonial, societies where the official language and language of education is English but where English is generally not acquired by children until they reach school age.

As an example, in Solomon Islands, where the medium of instruction is English, children generally start school with oral competence in one or more of the country's many indigenous languages, some knowledge of the lingua franca, Solomon Islands Pijin, but no knowledge of English (personal observation 2002-05). The phonological inventories of the indigenous languages and Pijin are signficantly different to English, which makes acuisition of initial literacy in that language extremely difficult. This challenge is compounded by the low level of English competence of most of the country's teachers which further limits subsequent exposure to spoken English. It is arguable that the challenge of acquiring phonemic awareness and susequently literacy in these circumstances contributes significantly to poor educational outcomes and low literacy levels in Solomon Islands (although lack of resources and a degraded education system also play a role). A policy which saw basic phonemic awareness and early literacy taught in a language in which children had already acquired oral familiarity, would be likely to improve lliteracy achievement. If this were not possible, due to resource constraints, non-phonemic respelling, to help children to become familiar with the sounds of English in reference to the sounds of their native language, such as in the spelling guides proposed by Fraser (1996:35), could assist.

Given the scarcity of literary resources in many indigenous languages in countries such as Solomon Islands, and the fact that literacy continues to develop beyond the basic acquisition of phonemic awareness, high-level literacy may best be served by a bilingual policy which sees the introduction of English soon after basic literacy has been acquired. This would enable a text-rich environment can be provided to students.

Conclusion

Although it seems natural to most literate speakers of English to consider words as being composed of individual sounds, research has demonstrated that illiterate and pre-literate people do not conceive of words in this way. Phonemic awareness is not naturally acquired but must be taught, and alphabetic literacy is difficult to acquire without it. At the basic level, phonemic awareness develops hand in hand with alphabetic literacy, and one requires the other. Beyond the basics, however, given that orthography in most languages, including English, is not purely alphabetic but morphophonemic and irregular, literacy continues to develop, whereas phonemic awareness does not. These facts argue strongly for direct instruction in phonemic awareness in early literacy teaching, and a subsequent exposure to a rich text environment. They also argue for the importance of familiarity of the sounds of the language in which literacy is being taught, and therefore against the teaching of initial literacy in English to non-English speaking students.


Reference List

 

Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), 2005, Teaching Reading: Report and Recommendations of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy. Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved 1 June 2006 from

http://www.dest.gov.au/nitl/

Bowman, M. & Treiman, R. 2004, ‘Stepping stones to reading’, Theory into Practice. Retrieved 17 June 2006 from

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~rtreiman/Selected_Papers/

Fraser, H. 1996, 'Guy-dance with pro-nun-see-ay-shon', English Today, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 28-37.

Just, M. & Carpenter, P. 1987, The Psychology of Reading and Language Comprehension, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, pp.287-97 and 316-25.

LING 465, Applied Phonology, Study Guide 2006, University of New England, Armidale, NSW.

Mackay, I. 1987, 'Writing systems', in Phonetics: The Science of Speech Production, 2nd edn, College Hill Publications, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, pp. 46-54.

Olson, D. 1996, 'Language and Literacy: What writing does to language and mind', Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, vol 16, pp. 3-18.

National Reading Panel 2000, Teaching Children to Read (NIH Publication 00-4769) National Institute of Health, Washington DC. Retrieved 18 June 2006 from

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/smallbook.htm

 

Treiman, R. 2000, ‘The foundations of literacy’. Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 9, pp. 89-92. Retrieved 17 June 2006 from

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~rtreiman/Selected_Papers/

Treiman, R. 2004, ‘Phonology and spelling’ in Handbook of children's literacy, eds P. Bryant & T. Nunes, Kluwer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, pp. 31-42. Retrieved 17 June 2006 from

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~rtreiman/Selected_Papers/

Treiman, R. & Kessler, B. (in press), ‘Learning to read’ in Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics, ed. M. Gaskell, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England. Retrieved 17 June 2006 from

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~rtreiman/Selected_Papers/

There is an awesome power to the written word. I thought this blog was such a great idea: words about words, a chance to write about something that stirs a passion in me. And yet my own respect for the written word, and in particular its permanence, has paralysed me. Unlike in an academic paper, a diplomatic cable, or even a simple letter, in the blogosphere the choices not only of topic, but of style, register and tone, are all mine when pen is put to paper. If readers stumble upon these words, what will they infer from the choices I have made?

I am one of those who took far longer than the average communicative human to drop the comma after “Dear John” in email. I still have to force myself to use abbreviation in texts and have only recently begun to insert, heaven forbid, the odd smiley face here and there. But in my passionate linguist’s mind I know this belligerence is irrational. I accept that these evolutions of language are facilitating communication. They are the means by which living languages remain alive. It is the subject for another post, but I don’t consider it a coincidence that it is a mongrel, bastard, pilfering, unregulated language such as English that has evolved into a global lingua franca. French, with its evolution kept resolutely in check by the Academie, never stood a chance.

So with the courage of a new year’s resolution for this science-fiction date of 2014, I will focus on the fact that neither pen nor paper is actually involved here. If I can’t remove the trace of these words from cyberspace, I can at least remove them from view at the click of a mouse.

So let’s begin. And what better place to start than with the putting of pen to paper. This is an expression that has become archaic in the lifetime of my teenage step kids. In a few of short decades, the pen has lost its primacy as the weapon of choice for the average literate person setting down their thoughts.

My two-year old daughter loves pens. She wants to hold and write with every one she sees. She loves to draw and “write” on paper but the only time she sees me use a pen is to sign the attendance sheet at her crèche. In her life, she will certainly spend more time writing on a keyboard or tablet than in an exercise book. Yet she may well use this expression “to put pen to paper”. No better one has yet emerged to replace it and any one that does will take generations to acquire equivalent weight and meaning.

Although a bit of googling shows that the phrase “to put pen to paper” doesn’t feature often in idiom lists, its meaning is undeniably more than just literal and was so well before the pen was displaced by the keyboard, the stylus and the finger. It means to articulate one’s thoughts in a written form, to commit them to a medium that can be shared, to set them down. The most common definition offered is the literal “to write on paper” (for example in Free Dictionary by Farlex). Another school sees it mainly as “to sign on the dotted line”, as in this Daily Mirror headline from November 2013: Brendan Rodgers wants Jordan Ibe to put pen to paper on a new deal at Liverpool. But Free Dictionary’s other definition, also given by the Cambridge Dictionary online, “to start to write something”, is already much broader and moving into the idiomatic.

A short glance at the definition of “pen” takes us further: “an instrument for writing regarded as a means of expression” (Free Dictionary again), “a writer or author” as in “a hired pen”, “a style of writing”. Then there are the quotes: "Tyranny has no enemy so formidable as the pen" (William Cobbett); "The pen is mightier than the sword" (Edward Bulwer-Lytton Richelieu). These refer to that awesome power which delayed the start of my blogging career. To write is to commit yourself. Unless of course you are texting, or sending an email with a smiley face…

So I think my daughter will use this phrase, just as we still say someone “has an axe to grind”, though I for one have never seen one ground, or “knows the ropes”, though they have never set foot in a boat. Pens have as indelible a place in our cultural history as axes and sailing ships and will be remembered in the language they have spread. We just happen to be the generation that has seen their physical demise.