INTRODUCTION

In this chapter the researchers indicated the root of the problem being studied,
appropriate context of the problem in relation to the theory, research, and/or practice, its
scope, and the extent to which previous studies have successfully investigated the problem,
noting, in particular, where gaps exist that this study attempts to address. It is then followed
accordingly by the rationale of the study, statement of the problem, significance of the study,
scope and delimitation, theoretical and conceptual framework, and lastly the key terms and
concepts used in the study.
1.1. The Rationale

Children, when first sent to school, are already equipped with the knowledge that
words are made up of different sounds, they are also mindful about the rhymes of these
sounds and could identify the initial sounds of each words. These skill falls under the concept
of phonemic awareness. To learn about English Phonology which is the study of patterns and
functions of sounds is a challenge to some learners in general classrooms. During instructions
and classes, the students experience hardships in acquiring the basic skills in language
literacy domains such as Alphabet Knowledge and Phonemic Awareness (DepEd, 2016). The
results of enhancement of phonological awareness and the knowledge in reading are mutually
supportive and are interrelated, “Reading and Phonemic Awareness are mutually reinforcing:
Phonemic Awareness is necessary for Reading and Reading, in turn improves Phonemic
Awareness continually (Shaywitz, 2003).

Even if there are 26 letters in the English Language, the number of phonemes are
approximately 40 phonemes or also known as sound units. By the time children have
familiarized and mastered their phonemic awareness, beneficial knowledge of the alphabetic
principle is holistically followed by an observable convenience in language production and
comprehension (Adams, 2010).

A child’s level of phonemic awareness by the start of formal education is widely

known to be the most significant single determiner of success that she or he will experience
in understanding how to read or conversely, the likelihood that she or he will display slower
progress in language learning (Adams, 1990). In fact, research clearly shows that phonemic
awareness can be improved through teaching strategies, and that with this effort, it

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purposively accelerates the children’s subsequent reading and writing development (Ball &
Blachman, 1991).

The insufficiency of phonemic awareness of an individual seems to be a major

contributor to the difficulty of reading acquisition. Children who are not able to segment
words and syllables into phonemes do not develop to decode single words correctly and
consistently thus leading to the display of various reading disabilities (Lyon, 1994).

This study assessed the current situation of the respondent’s phonemic awareness
particularly the Grade 4 students from Tambacan Elementary School. It is important to know
how aware these students of the speech sounds. Better understanding of speech sounds will
lead them to easily look for new words, use it effectively according to context and to have a
better understanding of things using the second language- English.

1.2. Statement of the problem

This research aims to assess the phonemic awareness of the selected Grade 4 pupils of
Tambacan Elementary School. This study had sought answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of phonemic awareness of the selected Grade 4 pupils of

Tambacan Elementary School in terms of DIBELS – First Sound Fluency measure?

2. What is the level of phonemic awareness of the selected Grade 4 pupils of

Tambacan Elementary School in terms of DIBELS – Phonemic Segmentation Fluency
measure?

3. How do Grade 4 pupils of Tambacan Elementary School segment phonemes in Part

1 and 2 of the assessment?

1.3. Significance of the study

The main objective of this research study is to assess the level of Phonemic

Awareness of the Grade 4 students of Tambacan Elementary School using the two different

measures; (DIBELS) – Phoneme Segmentation Fluency and Initial Sound Fluency and

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency. The findings presented in this study will be a great

significance to the following:

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Students. This study will be of great help to the students because through this research, the
researchers will be able to come up with a solution regarding the students who are not fully
aware of phonetics and speech sounds. This research will help improve the linguistic and
communicative competence of students and help them to become more proficient in the
English Language.

School administration. This study will help increase the school’s competence in English by
identifying the root problem of the students not being able to speak in English well, which is
their Phonemic Awareness.

Future researchers. The information that is discovered in this research will help the future
researchers who will decide to take the Phonemic Awareness topic. This will serve as a guide
for them and will give them less hassle in their data gathering procedure and make this study
as their cross-reference for future research studies in the field of Linguistics specifically in
the field of Phonology.

1.4. Scope and delimitation

The purpose of this study is to assess the level of phonemic awareness of select Grade
4 pupils of Tambacan Elementary School. To determine the phonemic awareness, the study
will include the use of Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skill, First Sound Fluency
and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency as measures to get the researchers’ desired data. The
study will be conducted in Tambacan Elementary School and the respondents will be the
Grade 4 students.

1.5. Conceptual framework

DIBELS
Grade 4 students MEASUREMENT
LEVEL OF
who are Non-
1. First Sound Fluency PHONEMIC
readers/Slow 2. Phoneme Segmentation
readers
AWARENESS
Fluency
3. Multiple choice questions

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

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 Figure 1 illustrates the relationship of the students who are non-readers or sow readers

from Tambacan Elementary School (Independent Variable) to their Level of Awareness

(Dependent Variable). The researchers will come up with a two different types of test

Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) measurement, The First Sound

Fluency (FSF) and the Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF), and the Open-Ended

Questionnaire wherein the respondents are given a chance to expound his/her understanding

regarding the in DIBELS First Sound Fluency and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency

(Intervening Variables). The researchers will use those tests to gather data from the

respondents and asses their level of phonemic awareness.

1.6. Theoretical framework

Phonological Acquisition and Change

This perspective relies heavily on the notion that language is biased to capitalize on
the phonemic preferences of its speakers, both in adults and children (Locke, 1983). The
framework Locke has provided for viewing language acquisition within the context of
linguistic changes is a useful reference to the researchers’ study of the awareness of the
respondent in their academic level.

Development of Speech Perception

Hazan and Barrett examined the performance of school age children in speech
discrimination in two conditions. They left two acoustic use to the word’s identity in the
word. In the other conditions, they retain only one of these cues. So the listener might have to
switch the cue he/she is using in the single-cue usage case. This framework of Hazen and
Barrett serve as basis of how Grade 4 pupils assess their phonemic awareness with their
knowledge about phonemes.

1.7. Key Terms and Concepts

To provide better understanding of the study, the following terms are defined both
conceptually and operationally.

Awareness - knowledge or perception of a situation or fact (Lexico Oxford, 2019).

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 - In this study, it is used to gauge an individual’s mindfulness on speech
sounds and how it affects the identification of first sounds and segmentation
of words.
DIBELS - Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills are a set of standardized
procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of early literacy skills.
They are designed to be short fluency measures used to regularly monitor the
development of early literacy and early reading skills (University of Oregon).

- the tool used to gather data from the respondents.

Fluency - the quality or condition of being fluent (Lexico Oxford, 2019).

- In this study, fluency is referred as the respondent’s capability to identify

speech sounds and segment words correctly such that it conforms to the
standards of phonetics/phonology.

Phonemic Awareness -is a subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to
hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest mental units of sound
that helps to differentiate units of meaning.

- In this study, it is used as the level of knowledge of a person on the sounds or

phonemes that are presented through the DIBELS procedure.

Phonemic Segmentation- the ability to break down words into individual sounds (Lexico
Oxford, 2019).

-it is used in the study as to how respondent identify speech sounds.

Phonetic - the study and classification of speech sounds (Lexico Oxford,

2019).

- In this study, phonetics is referred as the guide on how words are

segmented and how phonemes are identified.

Segmentation - division into separate parts or sections (Lexico Oxford, 2019)

- In this study, segmentation is a term that is used to divide the words

according to their respective speech sounds.

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 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1. Related Literature

MTB-MLE

The introduction of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) is

one of the changes in the basic education curriculum of the new K-12 program which
specifically caters kindergarten, Grade 1, 2, and 3 to support the goal of "Every Child- A
Reader and A Writer" as soon as they enter the first grade (Capitol University, 2018).

According to Manabat (2016), the DepEd released a statement saying that the MTB-
MLE mandates the usage of the language that students are familiar with or their first
language as a medium in academic teaching to let them to grasp basic ideas and concepts in
an easier way. Which implies that learners kick-start their general learning in the language
they know best-their mother tongue and the necessity to develop a strong foundation in their
mother language is essential before they could effectively learn an additional language.

MTB-MLE means to “first-language-first” education, which refers that schooling

should begin in the mother tongue and some of the transitions to additional language
specifically Filipino and English. It is created to address the high dysfunctional literacy of
Filipinos where language is a key factor. Considering the child’s own language enables
him/her to express him/herself comfortably, then, there is no anxiety of committing mistakes.
It encourages active participation by children in the learning process because they know and
understand what is the discussion all about and it is clear to them on what is being asked.
They can immediately use their mother tongue to design their ideas, speak up their thoughts,
and add new concepts to their existing knowledge.

DIBELS

The Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills is a professional and

standardized reading assessment tool that is being performed by many schools in the United
States. This testing has various components that are carefully designed to measure the
different parts of reading. It is a comprehensive measurement that is important in identifying
students having reading difficulties. Moreover, it comes with instructional support that guides
teacher to plan strategies that will provide differentiated instruction to the students and help
them build their skills. The DIBELS is made up of a developmental sequence of one-minute

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measure: recognizing initial sounds (phonemic awareness), naming the letters of the alphabet
(alphabetic principle), segmenting words into phoneme (phonemic awareness) reading
nonsense words (alphabetic principle), oral reading of a passage (accuracy and fluency),
retelling (comprehension), and word use (vocabulary).

The format of this comprehensive early literacy assessment was invented by Dr.
Roland Good and Dr. Ruth Kaminski of the Dynamic Measurement Group. This sort of
testing was first administered at the University of Oregon. This assessment is used to screen
whether there is a risk of reading difficulty to monitor among students and to evaluate their
progress and guide the teaching strategy that is being used.

DIBELS Phoneme Segmentation Fluency

A phoneme is a speech sound and it is the smallest unit of language. Segmentation is

the separation of words into phonemes. The DIBELS Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF)
Measure is a standardized, individually administered test to Gauge one's phonological
awareness (Kaminki &Good, 1996). The PSF Measure further expounds a student’s ability to
segment three-and four-phoneme words into their individual phonemes fluently and
consistently. The PSF measure is identified as a good predictor of the variations of reading
development (Kaminski & Good, 1996). The PSF task is done by the examiner verbally
displaying words of three to four phonemes. The participant would then articulate the
individual phonemes in each item orally. After the student is done, the examiner shows the
next word, and the scored correct phonemes produced in one minute determines the result of
the final score.

DIBELS First Sound Fluency

DIBELS First Sound Fluency (FSF) is a standardized, individually done kind of a test
that shows the measure of phonemic awareness skills in the beginning and middle of
kindergarten. Initial Sound Fluency (ISF) is an earlier measure of phonemic awareness that is
available in DIBELS but later, it was changed into First Sound Fluency (FSF). FSF gauges
how well a student can hear and produce the initial sounds in words.

FSF directly assesses one of the greatest concepts of Beginning Reading which is the
Phonological Awareness. The design of phonological awareness envelopes a range of skills
of varying levels of difficulty. FSF measures a subset of these skills, that is considered to be
easier for younger students because there are fewer demands on working memory. As with

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most assessments done under the concept of phonemic awareness, FSF appears to work best
with young student who are already very proficient at identifying initial sounds.

2.2. Related Studies

PHONEMIC AWARENESS

Phonological awareness is capable of being taught and promoted through sufficient

attention with regards to the variables of instruction (Simmons et al; 1998). There is enough
time evidence that the major observable difference between good and poor readers lies in the
Phonological Processing Ability.

According to Adams (1990), without direct instructional support, phonemic

awareness skips a quarter of middle class first graders and substantially more of those who
come from less literacy-rich backgrounds. Moreover, these children serve as an evidence on
the unprecedented difficulty in learning to read and write. The challenge, therefore is to find
ways to attract the attention of children for them to notice the phonemes, to discover the
existence of around units and its degree of segmentability. Phonemic Awareness is different
from phonics and it is basically auditory which means that it does not involve words in print
but rather purely sounds (Moats, 199). As to why is awareness of phonemes is difficult, the
main dilemma lies in large measure of people do not pay attention to the sounds of phonemes
as they produce or listen to speech but instead, they directly attend their active attention to the
meaning and force of the utterance as a whole.

Phoneme awareness and letter-sound knowledge account for more of the differences
in early reading and spelling success than general intelligence, overall maturity level, or
listening comprehension because they serve as the basis for learning an alphabetic writing
system (Learning First Alliance, 2000). Phonemic Awareness is the skill of hearing and
manipulating sounds that are verbally produced and it is also the comprehension about the
idea that words and syllables are composed of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992).

Phonemic awareness is an essential aspect when trying to learn how to read in an

alphabetic writing system because letters represent sounds or phonemes (Adams et Al; 2001)
and the ability to hear and manipulate phonemes play a causal role in the acquisition of the
start of reading skills (Smith et Al; 1998).

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 Phonemic Awareness is about hearing, not seeing and the extra listening experience
helps in the development of basic phonemic awareness and that all skills and understanding
must be in place, in order for a child to become a confident and competent reader, speller and
speaker of a language (Badham, 2000).

LANGUAGE PRODUCTION

Language production processes can give ideas as to how language comprehension and
language typology works. To focus on the work in memory retrieving, motor planning and
serial order in action planning links the fields of Production-Distribution-Comprehension
(PDC) under language production, typology, and comprehension (Macdonald, 2013). Lashley
(1951), claimed the development and organization of plans for output sequences as “both the
most important and also the most neglected problem in cerebral physiology." He explained
that complex sequential actions such as speaking must be guided with a plan that is initiated
before the actual execution, a view that continues to convince a number of researches in
motor behavior, including language production. Phonological overlap among various
elements in the utterance plan increases the difficulty and complications in both production
and memory tasks (Acheson and Macdonald, 2009), and semantic overlap between words
increase errors in language production (Smith and Wheeldon, 2004) and memory tasks (Tse
et al; 2011). Conversely, production of the correct serial order of elements is developed by an
increased linguistic frequency or coarticulatory experience, both for memory task
(Woordward et al; 2008) and language production (Dell et al, 1997). By contrast, young
children who are less experienced speakers, produce more errors in their overall utterances of
a language and a relative higher proportion of perseverations (Stemberger, 1989).

VOCABULARY AND COMPREHENSION

One of the fundamental roles of vocabulary to a student is its effect to the overall
language proficiency (Yuksel & Kavanoz, 2010). Recently, many empirical researches
evidenced that vocabulary has a positive relationship with student’s comprehension of printed
and written texts and even has one of the strongest correlation with second language
acquisition (Jeon & Yamashita, 2014). Vocabulary is considered a key predictor for reading
comprehension (Lervag &Aukrust, 2010). Furthermore, vocabulary enhancement also helps
minority students in improving their skills in reading comprehension (Lesaux et al; 2010) and
in terms of understanding different text (Rydland et al; 2012).

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 According to Alexander (2004) difficulties in language comprehension can include
many difficulties associated with processing speed, detail, or organization of written or
spoken information. Students with difficulties in language comprehension may display
difficulties in abstraction and ambiguous information. Consequently, it is also found out that
difficulties in language and comprehension may be assessed by giving out possible formats
such as providing the students with support and helping them with the use of educational
equipment, academic instructions and arrangements, or personal assistance to further attend
to their needs.

According to (Meeting the Challenges of Early Literacy Phonics, 2019), sufficient

amount of time is needed in teaching the basic meaning of the words thus, learning the basic
phonic skills is a key factor to becoming a good reader and this has shown the power of this
early instruction in phonics for young students' overall reading and writing development.

LISTENING AND READING

According to Vandergrift and Goh (2012) listening is a special skill that "enables
learners to receive and interact with language skills". This study was supported by Osada
(2004) who concluded that listening is the first step to comprehension and it is slowly
transforming from a passive skill that can be enhances through sufficient exposure into an
active skill that involves a number of processes in one. Listeners therefore, are not only
decoding but are also in the process of interpreting the meaning of the message they have
received just as what they do when they to comprehend the content of what they are reading.

Teaching reading instructions is a key element in honing student's comprehension

skills. However, many instructors display an insufficiency in teaching various reading
comprehension strategies (Kocukoglu, 2013). There are thousands of speed reading books,
systems and softwares that are available at hand today and basically these systems are equally
effective. The convenience of training yourself in speed reading using online resources is
now made possible through the advent of technology. No matter which approach you follow,
speed reading depends on which series of exercises suits an individual the most. Repeated
and increased speed to train your eyes and mind to collaborate, to take what is shown and
interpret information faster is just three of the possible outcomes of regular speed reading
training (Bram, 2008).

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