Electronic Theses and Dissertation

Abstract ummi salamah, 2015. the usefulness of phonics and phonemic awareness in beginning reading. thesis, graduate english education of program in language education syiah kuala university. advisors : (1) abdul gani asyik, m.a, ph.d (2) dr. bukhari daud, m.ed. key words : phonics, phonemic awareness, stages, roles, obstacles. this study is a library research which looks into the usefulness of teaching phonics and phonemic awareness in english beginning reading, the suggested stages in implementing both and finally the obstacles of using both phonics and phonemic awareness in beginning reading classroom based on the experts’ opinion which were then reviewed, rewritten and discussed in the finding chapter . those opinions are compiled based on the scholars’ research findings on that issue. the main data are obtained from books, journals and published articles, which are related to the research problems. there are some stages in implementing phonics, they are vowel and consonant sounds in such simple and familiar words and it continues to digraph, suffixes, diphthong, and letters with dual personalities, schwa sound, silent letter digraphs and some letters with tricky sounds. phonemic awareness should chronologically be taught with rhyming, manipulating, blend ing, segmenting and deleting. it has been for years, some experts such as bald (2007), greeve (2007), paul (2003), hempenstall (2011), konza (2011), gibbons (2002) and many more have studies about phonics and phonemic awareness as the crucial predictor for reading acquisition. phonics and phonemic awareness show considerable advantages in early reading such as instead of memorizing words, the children can acquire decoding skills which results in leading the children to improve their confidence in reading, thus, they can focus on the meaning of the reading an d reading for enjoyment. they are also hoped to help the children understand that english has variations in spelling. lastly, there are some obstacles that hinder the implementation of both phonics and phonemic awareness, they are the irregularity of english spellings, the lack of phonological knowledge of people working with children in early reading, and the rise and fall mood of the children in learning and the i nadequate of supportive parents.