Using Phoneme Discrimination to Help Emergent Bilinguals With Reading Disabilities Acquire New Sounds

Phoneme discrimination is the ability to detect subtle similarities and differences between phonemes. Phoneme discrimination is a strong predictor of reading development and poor phoneme discrimination may predict reading disabilities (Lyytinen et al., 2004). The ability to discriminate phonemes may be an even more critical skill for Emergent Bilinguals (EBs, also known as English Learners) and EBs with reading disabilities because they need to enhance their perception of phoneme boundaries to enhance their word reading ability. As EB populations in schools increase, addressing phoneme discrimination gaps becomes increasingly important. Classroom instruction should include repeated exposure to differentiating phonemes with known high frequency words and minimal pairs to develop a strong foundation for discerning phonetic features.