(Pexels, n.d.)
Phonemic Awareness/ La conscience Phonologique
While phonemes represent individual units of sound within spoken language, "phonemic awareness refers to the ability to focus on and manipulate phonemes in spoken words" (NRP, 2000, Chapter 2, p. 1). Both the English and French language share a 26-letter alphabet yet English has 44 phonemes and French has 36 (Lingvist, n.d).
Phonics/ la phonétique
Phonics is what links spoken sounds (phonemes) to the letters used to represent sound (graphemes). Phonological awareness is necessary for accurate decoding, blending and spelling.
Teaching Phonemic awareness and phonics through music
Songs and song lyrics offer a wealth of potential activities that can target specific phonemic and phonological awareness skills while still being developmentally appropriate and engaging for students. “Song lyrics (a form of poetry) often are embedded with rhyme, assonance and alliteration. This playing with the sounds of language through song can be a gateway to the development of phonemic awareness” (Iwasaki et al., 2013, p. 138). Songs allow students to hear proper pronunciation, rhymes and word families in authentic contexts. “Learning language in song is also a much more engaging way to practice pronunciation than simple listen-and-repeat drills. This means that you are more likely to put in more pronunciation practice time without realizing it” (Khaghaninejad & Fahandejsaadi, 2016, p. 100).
"Sound—hearing it, recognizing it, and producing it—is central to musical activities. This makes music a great bridge to support students to be aware of phonological structures, or sounds of language(s)."
(Rowe et al., 2023, p. 493)
Click the Image to explore the French phonetic alphabet with pronunciation guides
“Engaging young children in music experiences can promote phonological awareness skills that serve as a foundation to literacy”
(Rowe et al., 2023,p. 488)
Finding engaging French texts that have multiple examples of literacy devices can be challenging for educators. Song lyrics are an easy-to-find resource for teachers to draw inspiration from. Some songs may focus heavily on certain phonemes whereas hip-hop and rap music may provide multiple examples of alliteration and rhyme. Yopp and Yopp (2009) demonstrate the importance of playing with sound and show that phonological awareness activities can and should be engaging and game-like.
Click the image to visit a slide deck offering specific strategies and resources to help integrate explicit phonemic and phonological strategies in a French Immersion class.
Phonemic awareness/ phonics Lessons and activities
In this activity called "Imposters", students must listen for differences in the graphemes (letters) and the phonemes (sounds) that they are hearing. This repeated listening and reading also supports fluency
While listening to this song, students are searching for rhyming words as well as identifying word families.
During this song, students are practicing sound families as well as counting syllables within words. Allowing students to choose their own words allows for differentiation. This song also links Social Studies content.