How to develop a phonemic hearing?

Many children after testing the level of preparation are given a recommendation to develop a phonemic hearing. Often parents do not even know what it is and how to do it. In this article we will help you deal with such issues.

So, phonemic hearing is the ability to recognize and differentiate speech sounds. If the child is not sufficiently developed, he does not correctly perceive certain sounds, does not distinguish them in pronunciation. As a consequence, there are difficulties with the perception of the speech of the interlocutor.

Some specialists in the field of children's speech disorders distinguish several stages of mastering a child's speech:

1. The first stage (prephonemic) is characterized by a lack of understanding in the child of speech and differentiation of sounds. During this period, the baby also lacks his own active speech.
2. At the second stage, the child can distinguish between the most contrasting phonemes, but they are not yet able to differentiate in terms of sound. If a person does not speak correctly, the kid does not understand it yet. At this stage, the development of phonemic hearing in children begins.
3. The third stage is characterized by the ability to distinguish the sounds of the language and hear them correctly. He understands the difference between correctly pronounced words and their distorted form.
4. At this stage, the phonemic hearing reaches the culmination of its development. New, correct forms of perception of sounds and their pronunciation begin to prevail. Active speech becomes practically in all its manifestations correct.
5. The final stage. Phonemic development is completed. The kid is able to correctly hear and speak, differentiate close phonemes and reproduce them correctly.

If the child has an insufficient level of development of phonemic hearing, learning to write and read is difficult: it is difficult for a child to switch from reading by letters to full perception of the word. The complexity of the letter is characterized by an abundance of spelling errors.

There are games for the development of phonemic hearing, which parents and children should conduct:

• The definition of the initial and final sound in the word;
• Inventing words that start at a certain sound;
• Games with "chains of words": the player comes up with a word, and the second selects one that must begin with the last sound of the previous one (it's important to remember that this is not about letters, but about sounds).
• Game in "catching sounds": the mother or father utters the words, and the child should clap his hands or knock on any object with a stick when he hears the sound agreed in advance.

Harmonious development of the child is not only the level of phonemic perception and the ability to pronounce certain sounds, but also the ability to differentiate them in the flow of speech. In order to teach the child to read and write, one must develop a phonemic hearing from an early age.

If a child has deviations in speech development, he has difficulties in teaching his native language: he will gradually master the articulatory movements, the ways of combining sounds with each other, distinguish words and stuff.

Hearing is one of the main conditions for the formation of speech. However, even in children with a good hearing, there are violations of pronunciation of sounds. There can be several reasons: disruption of the articulatory apparatus, low level of development of phonemic perception, or both.

Phonemic perception is the development of phonemic hearing and sound analysis. If it is high in children, then they start talking early, because they perceive sounds of speech well and quickly.

In the event of abnormalities, the child violates the sound, slows learning to read and errors appear in the letter. Then you need to seek help from a specialist - speech therapist.