Joseph Torgensen's Phonemic Awareness

On the same day as I researched Florida Center for Reading Research: Phonemic Awareness, I also looked into Joseph Torgensen's article on Phonemic Awareness. Fortunately, this provided me with insightful information, which I was in need of when planning my lesson plan for Monday.

When reading the article by Joseph Torgensen, he states “Phonological ability, or talent, is a trait that is strongly heritable. In other words, children can vary in their talent for processing the phonological features of language in the same way they vary among one another in musical ability, height, or hair color.” He also states that this has been proven in a study of twins shows variations in linguistically related to phonological skills in inherited.

 

I must keep in mind, that not all children at a preschool age or even kindergarten age will be able to manipulate phonemes. However, with practice they will be able to improve their ability to decipher individual phonemes. It is hard to believe that such a skill can actually be inherited, however as I read more in his article and my own personal reflection/experiences this does make sense. Just as some children perform better in writing versus reading-- some children have a greater or lesser ability to decipher individual sounds.