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This is when students hear words and syllables as separate sounds.

An example of phonological awareness is hearing "I love reading" and being able to tell me that there are 3 words in the sentence.

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This is when students can hear each sound as its own unit. This is not about written letters.

For example, if I told you to tell me the individual sounds, the phonemes, in the word "cat", you could tell me /c/ /a/ /t/. As an adult, you have developed phonemic awareness, so you hear each sound in the word.

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An activity you can do to help your child at home!

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An activity you can do to help your child at home!

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This activity is great to do to work on the last aspect of the phonological continuum: phonemes. This activity is called Say It And Move It. Show your child a picture of an object, such as a dog. Put a mat in front of them with three boxes. They will also have something tangible to move. These items could be game chips, mini pretzels, gold fish, or any other small object. They will see the dog and say "dog". They they can move a chip for each sound as they say it. Thus, they would say /d/ and put their object in the first box. Then say /o/ and put their object in the second box. Lastly, they would say /g/ and put their object in the last box. They then can blend these sounds together and say "dog".

If your child is very kinesthetic and likes to learned by moving their bodies, do this activity with them outside. Draw the boxes with chalk on a sidewalk or driveway, and their bodies can be the moveable objects. When you show them the picture, they can hop to each box as they say each sound they hear in the word, and then can run across all of the boxes when they say all the sounds together as the full word.

Example of Say It And Move It on paper:

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Go around your house and pick out objects your child can name. Things may include a book, banana, box, ball, pencil, mirror, flower, iPad, pillow, apple, or other objects. On an idea card, sticky note, or any scrap piece of paper write the number 1. Do this for the numbers 2 and 3 as well. Give your child one object and have them say its name and then clap out how many syllables the word has. Then put that object under the numbered piece of paper with the number corresponding to the number of syllables the word has. For example, give them an apple. They will say "apple" then clap twice as they say /a/ /pple/. This is two syllables, so they would place the apple under the piece of paper with the number two on it. This is to work on the third aspect of the phonological awareness continuum: syllables.

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If students cannot discriminate between different sounds and individual words, they may struggle with reading and writing. Students must be able to hear individual sounds to sound letters in words while reading and while creating their own writing. Children who don't develope phonemic awareness by the middle of first grade will have difficulty learning to read. Gaining phonemic and phonological awareness is a CRUCIAL part of literacy development.

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What is phonics? How does phonemic and phonological awareness get your child ready for phonics instruction?

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What is phonics? How does phonemic and phonological awareness get your child ready for phonics instruction?

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Phonics is directly related to WRITTEN language. An example of this is seeing the written word "cat" and being able to say the sounds involved the the written word are /c/ /a/ /t/. Thus, phonics instruction includes the relationship between letters and sounds and how to blend sounds represented by letters.

The students must first be able to say the sounds they hear in a single word and distinguish what that single word is. Then they are ready to write letters for those sounds and blend those letters to create words.

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How are the phonemic and phonological awareness similar?

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How are the phonemic and phonological awareness similar?

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They both have to do with HEARING and SOUNDS, not actual written letters.

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How long do children need to develop phonemic awareness?

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How long do children need to develop phonemic awareness?

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They need 20 hours of explicit instruction! This can be done in the classroom and at home! That is why YOU can be such an important aspect in their development of phonemic awareness!