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1)Reading Rockets (PA) Youtube Playlist 

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1)Reading Rockets (PA) Youtube Playlist 

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Phonemic Awareness Activity Playlist

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Article in general tips for building phonemic awareness at home and and school.

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Kids in pre-K and kindergarten can play with words, rhymes, and syllables they hear in everyday speech to prepare for reading. This is called phonological awareness.

Parents and caregivers can introduce phonological awareness during reading, singing, or play activities.

Kids who struggle with these kinds of activities may be showing early signs of reading issues.

There are a few ways kids in pre-K and kindergarten can get ready to read. One way is by noticing and playing with the words, rhymes, and syllables they hear in everyday speech. This called phonological awareness .

Kids also start to tune in to the individual sounds or phonemes in words. This is called phonemic awareness. The more you can build on these early "pre-reading" skills, the more prepared your child will be for the challenge of learning to read.

Good phonological awareness starts with kids picking up on sounds, syllables and rhymes in the words they hear. Read aloud to your child frequently. Choose books that rhyme or repeat the same sound. Draw your child's attention to rhymes: "Fox, socks, box! Those words all rhyme. Do you hear how they almost sound the same?"

It also helps to point out repeated sounds. For example, if you're reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, ask your child to listen to the /fffff/ sound in fish. (Really stretch the sounds out at first.) Outside of story time, try pointing out other words that start with the /fffff/ sound, just like in the book.

Ask your child to pick out the rhyming words in books without your help. Ask, "Did you hear a word that rhymes with fox?" Teach your child nursery rhymes and practice saying them together. Or say four short words, like log, cat, hog, frog. See if your child can pick out the word that doesn't rhyme.

Make syllables easier to understand by clapping the "beats" your child hears in words. Let's say you choose the word elephant. Pause as you say each syllable - e-le-phant - and clap out each syllable together. You can also get your child up and moving by having your child stomp or jump with each syllable.

Guessing games such as "I spy" can be used to work on almost any phonological skill. Want to practice noticing what sounds word begin with? Try "I spy something red that starts with /s/." Want to work on rhymes? "I'm wearing something warm that rhymes with boat."

Singing in general is a great way to get kids rhyming. There are also good songs teachers use to focus on other kinds of phonological and phonemic awareness skills. "Apples and Bananas" is a fun one. You can search online for more songs about phonemic awareness or ask your child's teacher for recommendations.

Sound blending is an important skill for early readers. They need to put sound units - phonemes - together to be able to read a word smoothly. You can help your child start working on this by putting together sounds of different words. Ask your child to connect the beginning sound with the rest of a word. For example, say, "Start with /p/ and add /ig/. What do word do you hear if you put them together?"

Have your child work on hearing a word and taking it apart. Start by using compound words such as cowboy, baseball or firefly. Tell your child, "Say the word cowboy. Now take away boy. What word is left?"

You can also use LEGO bricks to make this point. Give your child two attached LEGO bricks to represent parts of the word. Then have your child physically take the LEGO pieces apart while removing part of the word.

8. Get creative with crafts.

Kids respond to hands-on learning. Try making a collage of items that start with the same sound using pictures from magazines. Sock puppets can be another fun way to work on these skills. Make one that likes to munch on words that start with a certain sound. Let your child have fun "feeding" the puppet different objects or pictures that start with that sound.

There are many resources and ideas online to work on phonological and phonemic awareness skills. Check out YouTube for teaching videos, Pinterest for games and crafts, or the app store for nursery rhymes, sound games, and songs.

Whatever you do, keep the activities short and fun. If your child finds one activity too difficult or boring, try something different. If you find that activities of this type are too hard, talk to your classroom teacher . Your district's early childhood department may also be able to help you get extra help.

There are many ways to include sound play in your daily routine with your child.

Kids who play with sounds, syllables and rhymes when they are young are gaining important reading readiness skills.

If these skills are really difficult for your child, you may want to seek extra support in this area.

About the Author

About the Author

Kelli Johnson, MA is an educational speech-language pathologist, working with students from early childhood through 12th grade.

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9 ways to build phonological awareness in pre-K and kindergarten

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Kids in pre-K and kindergarten can play with words, rhymes, and syllables they hear in everyday speech to prepare for reading. This is called phonological awareness. Parents and caregivers can introduce phonological awareness during reading, singing, or play activities. Kids who struggle with these kinds of activities may be showing early signs of reading issues.

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3)Reading Rockets Phonemic Awareness Activities 

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Speech - Sound Activities & Sample Videos of Activities

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That's a complicated sounding term, but it's meaning is simple: the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the sounds in spoken language. Phonological awareness is really a group of skills that include a child's ability to:

Identify words that rhyme

Count the number of syllables in a name

Recognize alliteration (words with the same beginning sound)

Segment (break) a sentence into words

Identify the syllables in a word

The most sophisticated phonological awareness skill (and the last to develop) is called phonemic awareness - the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. When playing with the sounds in word, children learn to:

Blend individual sounds to make a word

Stretch out a word into its individual sounds

Swap in a different sound to the beginning, middle, or end of a word to make a new word

Strong phonemic awareness is one of the strongest predictors of later reading success. Children who struggle with reading, including kids with dyslexia, often have trouble with phonemic awareness, but with the right kind of instruction they can be successful. Learn some of the warning signs for dyslexia in this article, Clues to Dyslexia in Early Childhood.

Parents can make a big difference in helping their children become readers by practicing these pre-reading oral skills at home. Try some of the simple rhyming and word sound games described here.

Try these speech sound activities at home

Rhyme time

"I am thinking of an animal that rhymes with big. What's the animal?" Answer: pig. What else rhymes with big? ( dig, fig, wig)

Road trip rhymes

While you're out driving in the car, spot something out the window and ask your child, "what rhymes with tree or car or shop?" Then switch roles and have your child spot something and ask you for a rhyme. This can turn into a game of nonsense rhymes ("What rhymes with tree stump?") but that's great for practicing sounds, too!

Word families

Word families are sets of words that rhyme. Start to build your family by giving your child the first word, for example, cat. Then ask your child to name all the "kids" in the cat family, such as: bat, fat, sat, rat, pat, mat, hat, flat. This will help your child hear patterns in words.

Silly tongue twisters

Sing songs and say silly tongue twisters. These help your child become sensitive to the sounds in words.

Tongue ticklers

Alliteration or "tongue ticklers" - where the sound you're focusing on is repeated over and over again - can be a fun way to provide practice with a speech sound. Try these:

For M: Miss Mouse makes marvelous meatballs!

For S: Silly Sally sings songs about snakes and snails.

For F: Freddy finds fireflies with a flashlight.

Syllable shopping

While at the grocery store, have your child tell you the syllables in different food names. Have them hold up a finger for each word part. Eggplant = egg-plant, two syllables. Pineapple = pine-ap-ple, three syllables. Show your child the sign for each and ask her to say the word.

"I spy" first sounds

Practice beginning sounds with this simple "I spy" game at home, on a walk, or at the grocery store. Choose words with distinctive, easy-to-hear beginning sounds. For example, if you're in the bathroom you can say, "I spy something red that starts with the "s" ssss sound ( soap)."

Sound scavenger hunt

Choose a letter sound, then have your child find things around your house that start with the same sound. "Can you find something in our house that starts with the letter "p" pppppp sound? Picture, pencil, pear "

Which letter sounds do I teach first?

Reading expert Linda Farrell recommends that you begin with teaching the letter names, and then focus on the letter sounds that are closest to their letter names (such as /v/). And here's a great tip for teaching the trickier letter name-letter sound combinations - use arm motions. In this video, Linda demonstrates motions for /x/ and /y/. (From our video series Reading SOS: Expert Answers to Family Questions About Reading.)

Sound games

Practice blending sounds into words. Ask "Can you guess what this word is? m - o - p." Hold each sound longer than normal.

First sounds

When you're reading together with your child, pick a word from the book and say it with emphasis on the first sound. Pick another word and compare them. "Zzz-zookeeper and rrr-rhinoceros. Can you hear what sound zzz-zookeeper starts with? Is it the same as rrr-rhinoceros?

Jump, skip, hop!

Create simple picture cards that you draw or cut out of magazines. Have your child, identify what's in the picture, and then break that word into its individual sounds. For example dog is d-o-g, three sounds (phonemes). Three sounds? You and your child do three jumping jacks, skips, or hops (followed by a high-five). You can also do this game outdoors without the cards, just call out simple words for your child.

Snail talk

Tell your child you're going to communicate in "snail talk" and they need to figure out what you're saying. Take a simple word and stretch it out very slowly (e.g., /fffffllllaaaag/), then ask your child to tell you the word. Switch roles and have your child stretch out a word for you.

"I spy" blending

Here's an easy phoneme blending game you can play while talking a walk. For blending, you can say, "I see a sign that says s-t-o-p" Then your child has to blend the sounds to guess your word - stop. (Remember to say only the sounds in the word - not the letters.) Keep the words short, moving from two to three to four sounds depending on your child's skill level.

Sound counting

Using LEGO bricks, beads, or pennies, say a word and have your child show you how many sounds the word makes. For example, top = t-o-p = three sounds, so your child would place three objects in a row. Then have them tap each object as they say the sound. Remember, your child is just showing you the sounds they hear. So the word bike would be = b-i-k (silent e) = only three sounds.

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Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Activities for Your Kindergartener

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Phonological and phonemic awareness are important pre-reading skills, related to the ability to hear, identify, and play with the sounds in spoken language - including rhymes, syllables, and the smallest units of sound (phonemes). Children with strong phonological awareness skills are ready to become readers.

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Research based information in teaching ELL's how to read Including : Phonemic Awareness , Phonics , Fluency ,Vocabulary & Comprehension

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As a classroom teacher, I was largely ignorant of, and definitely suspicious of, research. I believed that researchers could make their studies come out any way they wanted them to, and that a good teacher who reflected on her own teaching knew much more about how to be effective with her students than any researcher did. Later, as a university professor, I learned how important good research can be, and how difficult it is to do really good experimental research in a field such as education, where it is impossible to control all the variables.

For that reason, I was pleased in 1997 when Congress funded the National Reading Panel (NRP) to evaluate research about teaching children to read. The panel's charge was to review existing studies, choose those that were well designed and well implemented, and synthesize their findings. The results were published in 2000 (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), and became the basis of the Reading First grant program included in the No Child Left Behind legislation of 2001. Although there was initially a good deal of controversy about the findings of the report, all U.S. elementary school teachers were soon very aware of the five "essential elements" of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension).

Teachers of English language learners (ELLs), however, were left to wonder if and how the findings of the NRP applied to their students. How do you teach phonemic awareness and phonics in English to students who can't yet hear and distinguish the sounds? How do you teach fluency to students whose control of the structures of the English language is still limited? How do you teach them grade-level vocabulary when their vocabulary knowledge starts so far behind that of their English-speaking peers? How do you teach reading comprehension in English when they don't yet comprehend the English language?

Now there appears to be help. In 2002, the U.S. Department of Education funded the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority and Youth to survey, select, and synthesize research on teaching language-minority students to read and write. Their report was published recently (August & Shanahan, 2006).

How much help will this report provide for teachers of ELLs? A preliminary review of the Executive Summary (August, 2006) and the section of the full report on "Educating Language Minority Students" reveals these four potentially important general recommendations:

Literacy in the native language is an advantage.

We already knew this (see, for example, Collier & Thomas, 1997), and it doesn't help teachers working in situations where literacy instruction in the native language is not possible.

Substantial coverage of the five essential elements of reading instruction helps.

However, this finding is based on only 14 studies that looked at instruction of the essential elements of reading with ELLs. Because of the small number of studies, this recommendation is based on the fact that there is nothing in these 14 studies that contradicts the findings of the numerous studies of native speakers that were reviewed by the National Reading Panel. Also because of the small number of studies, no specific practices could be advocated for teaching the essential elements of reading to ELLs.

Reading programs for ELLs should include intensive language development as well as instruction in literacy strategies and skills.

This recommendation is not based specifically on the research, because there were no studies that addressed the inclusion of intensive language development in reading instruction for ELLs. It is instead a hypothesis drawn from several other findings: (1) native speakers benefit more from instruction in the essential elements than do ELLs; (2) ELLs with greater language proficiency benefit more from instruction in the essential elements than do those with less proficiency; and (3) instruction in the essential elements with ELLs has a greater effect on decoding and fluency than on comprehension.

Instruction needs to be adjusted to meet the needs of ELLs.

The report, however, states that there is not enough research to be able to identify specifically how those adjustments should be made. I could find only seven specific suggestions that would be useful to teachers of reading classes that include ELLs:

Provide additional work on English phonemes that are not present in the students' native language.

If students are literate in their native language, focus on differences between that language and English, with less attention given to elements that will transfer.

Provide extra practice in reading words, sentences, and stories.

Use cognate words in the native language as synonyms when teaching vocabulary.

Identify and clarify difficult words and passages.

Consolidate knowledge of the text through the use of summaries.

Find appropriate ways to use the native language.

These seven findings do not constitute a reading program for ELLs. We obviously need much more research. However, given the fact that teachers cannot wait until research catches up with their needs in order to implement effective practices with their ELL students, I think it is important to look not only at the research that is available, but also at what experienced, reflective teachers of ELLs (and observers of those teachers) consider to be best practices. The rest of this article will discuss the implications of available research on instructional practices in the teaching of the five essential elements of reading to ELLs, based on the findings of the National Literacy Panel as much as possible, but also drawing on information from reliable sources such as The Knowledge Loom: Spotlight on Elementary Literacy (The Education Alliance at Brown University, n.d.), as well as my own experience.

Phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is difficult for ELLs because they may not yet have enough experience with English to be able to distinguish sounds that differ from those of their native language. There are three aspects of phonological awareness when learning to read in a second language that are important for teachers of ELLs to remember and incorporate into their instruction:

ELLs cannot develop phonological awareness in English until they are familiar with the sounds of English.

This means that before explicit instruction in phonological awareness begins, children should have extensive experiences with fun and appealing songs, poems, chants, and read-alouds that will allow them to hear and reproduce the sound patterns of English.

Once explicit instruction has begun, modifications must be made to allow for more practice with sounds that can potentially cause confusion.

These are sounds that either don't exist in the native language (most of the short vowel sounds of English don't exist in Spanish, for example), or sounds that are perceived as different in English but the same in the native language (such as /r/ and /l/ for speakers of Japanese, or /b/ and /v/ for speakers of Spanish). Because these differences vary from one language to another, teachers will have to become familiar with which sounds of English will need extra practice, depending on the language backgrounds of their students.

Once phonological awareness has developed in any language, it transfers to other languages that are learned.

Therefore, students who are literate in their native language will not need to develop this skill again in English; they will only need to become familiar with the sounds of English and to learn to discriminate sounds that are different between their native language and English.

Phonics

Phonics can be problematic because ELLs often have difficulty discriminating between similar sounds, and because the English language does not have a regular system of correspondence between letters and sounds. Here are some issues related to phonics instruction for ELLs, with discussion of their implications:

Systematic phonics instruction can be very effective in helping ELLs, even those at fairly low levels of language proficiency, learn to decode words.

However, this skill does not facilitate reading comprehension if students' oral language proficiency is not developed to the level of the texts they are expected to read. For this reason, reading instruction should be combined with intensive development of the oral language needed to understand the text.

The most effective reading programs for ELLs combine systematic phonics instruction with a print-rich environment that provides exposure to appealing reading materials in varied genres.

Skills practice that is embedded in meaningful texts helps ensure that decoding skills don't progress beyond students' ability to comprehend the text.

Many of the components of phonics instruction need to be modified to meet the particular needs of ELLs.

For example:

Before phonics instruction begins, students must have the phonemic awareness skills they need in order to perceive individual sounds in words. This is particularly important for sounds that are problematic because of the native language.

Teachers must be aware of whether a students' native language uses a non-Roman alphabet or is non-alphabetic. Even if ELLs have had no instruction in reading in the native language, environmental exposure to a different writing system can negatively affect the ease with which they learn to recognize the letters of the English alphabet.

ELLs must be able to hear and reproduce English sounds with a degree of accuracy commensurate with their pronunciation abilities, before they are taught to make associations between those sounds and particular letters.

It is helpful to explicitly point out different letter combinations that have the same sound, and provide extra practice with them. Multiple spellings of the same sound can be very confusing for ELLs, particularly if they have had some reading instruction in a language such as Spanish, which has almost completely regular sound-symbol correspondences.

Teachers must pay attention to the meanings of the words used to teach phonics skills. Teaching students to decode words they don't know only reinforces the idea that "reading" is pronouncing sounds out loud rather than creating meaning.

Automatic recognition of frequent words is very important for ELLs, whether the words follow phonics rules or not. Although ELLs may develop good decoding skills, their lack of total proficiency in the English language will always slow them down somewhat. Automatic recognition of words can help mitigate this difficulty.

Most ELLs will need additional time to master phonics. Given the need for extra practice to learn to hear and produce the sounds of English, to learn the meanings of the words used in phonics instruction, to learn the multiple combinations of letters that make the same sound, and to learn many more sight words than English speakers need, additional time for phonics instruction should be built into reading programs for ELLs.

Fluency

Fluency is difficult for ELLs because their lack of proficiency in English slows down their ability to decode words and hinders their ability to understand the meanings of the words and how the words combine to produce meaningful sentences and discourse. These suggestions will help teachers adapt fluency instruction for ELLs:

ELLs cannot achieve fluency in oral reading before they have achieved fluency in speaking.

Repeated readings of texts that contain unfamiliar vocabulary and sentence structures will not increase fluency. When working on developing fluency, be sure that students are reading texts that they are familiar with and can understand. Students' own language experience stories are a very good choice, as are read-alouds that students have heard several times and discussed.

ELLs' normal self-consciousness about accents and errors can affect their reading fluency, especially if they are asked to read aloud in front of the entire class.

This effect will be magnified if students are openly corrected or criticized. Fluency practice for ELLs can be facilitated by having them read along with the teacher, or by reading chorally with a group. If individual oral reading is necessary, provide an authentic purpose for the reading (such as a theatrical performance, or delivering information that the rest of the class needs), and let students practice first with a partner.

Decoding skills, fluency in oral reading, and reading comprehension interact in various ways.

The ability to decode words easily is obviously necessary for fluency, and it also facilitates comprehension by allowing the reader to pay more attention to meaning. Comprehension, in turn, facilitates fluency by making it easier to recognize new words. Effective instruction for ELLs integrates these three elements of reading (plus vocabulary learning) into the same lessons using the same text, as each element helps build and reinforce the others, producing a multiplier effect.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is difficult for ELLs; even for quite proficient learners, the extent of their knowledge of vocabulary is only a fraction of what it is for native speakers of English, and the failure to understand even a few words of a text can have negative effects on comprehension. There are many things teachers can do to help ELLs improve their reading vocabulary, including the following:

ELLs need more vocabulary instruction than their native-speaking peers.

If a native-speaking child enters kindergarten knowing about 5,000 English words, and an ELL with no previous exposure to English enters the same class knowing no English words, it's obvious that the same instruction for each of them will not produce the same results. Everything a teacher of ELLs does should revolve around vocabulary acquisition-explaining, demonstrating, drawing, repeating, reading, writing, and playing with words throughout every aspect of instruction.

ELLs need instruction in different vocabulary words than their native-speaking peers.

ELLs lack many of the basic words that native speakers know, so just teaching the vocabulary words that are suggested in the reading materials you are using will not be sufficient. Here are some of the many types of words that need to be explicitly taught:

words that are crucial for understanding a text;

words that are encountered in a wide variety of contexts;

frequently used words that contain word parts (roots, prefixes, suffixes) that can help students analyze other unknown words;

words with multiple meanings, whether spelled differently (homophones such as to, two, and too) or spelled the same (such as a dining room table and a multiplication table);

figurative language and idiomatic expressions;

academic words that indicate relationships among other words (such as because, therefore, and since to indicate cause and effect).

ELLs need different vocabulary teaching techniques and strategies than their native-speaking peers.

Handing out a list of definitions or asking students to put the words into sentences won't help ELLs learn the meanings of the words. Here are some things to keep in mind:

ELLs who are literate in a language that has many words that are similar in meaning and form to English words should be taught to recognize these cognates and use them to create meaning.

The meanings of words are acquired through multiple opportunities to hear, say, read, and write the words in slightly different meaningful contexts. Teachers will have to create these contexts in the classroom, since incidental learning of vocabulary cannot be relied on for ELLs.

Explicit explanations of unknown words should include contextual support through real objects, pictures or drawings, gestures, examples, demonstrations, or experiments that accompany the verbal explanations.

The use of context clues to infer meaning is not always successful with ELLs because they may not understand the context well enough to infer an accurate meaning.

Having to explain what a word means to other students helps develop comprehension of the full meaning of the word.

Comprehension

Reading comprehension is more difficult for ELLs than for native speakers for various reasons. Three of the most important reasons are discussed here:

ELLs are more likely than native speakers to lack the background knowledge necessary for understanding texts.

ELLs' prior educational experiences may have been substandard or interrupted, so reading texts that assume certain prior knowledge becomes difficult. Even for students with good educational backgrounds, cultural differences and culturally based assumptions can result in a lack of background knowledge and thus loss of comprehension. Whatever the reasons for a lack of necessary background knowledge, before asking ELLs to read a particular text, teachers must identify information that is prerequisite for understanding the text, evaluate students' prior knowledge of these prerequisites, and fill any gaps that are found. The best kinds of activities for building background knowledge are those that get students involved in manipulating language and concepts, rather than just receiving information from the teacher. These include experiential activities such as science experiments, classification activities, role playing, previewing a reading and generating questions about it, and sharing predictions about the answers to those questions.

The language level of the text to be read, compared with ELLs' language proficiency, is a major factor in how much they will understand of the text.

Even advanced ELLs and those who have been redesignated as fluent in English will experience difficulty with unusual vocabulary, figurative language, very complex sentence structures, or unfamiliar styles and genres (just as many native speakers of English do). For this reason, the integration of intensive language development with reading instruction is highly recommended for ELLs at all levels of language proficiency.

Reading comprehension instruction for ELLs needs to be modified to address their needs.

Asking ELLs to read the same texts and do the same activities as everybody else will only result in frustration for teachers and failure for students. This is not a matter of "dumbing down" the curriculum or applying different standards. It is a matter of implementing the curriculum at a language level that makes it accessible to ELLs, while at the same time working to develop their oral language so they will be able to comprehend texts at higher levels. Here are some general principles for modifying reading instruction for ELLs:

Provide as much nonverbal support for reading comprehension as possible, including pictures, diagrams, real objects, gestures, acting, and graphic organizers. The support can be used both for helping students understand a reading passage and for assessment, so students can show what they have understood in ways that are not entirely dependent on verbal ability.

Explicitly teach comprehension strategies, such as reader-generated questions, summarizing, and monitoring comprehension. Remember, however, that teaching strategies is not enough; students must practice them with texts that are accessible at their level of language proficiency. If students don't experience successful application of the strategies, they won't even try to use them with other texts.

Plan interactive activities around reading and interpreting texts. Sharing ideas, comparing perspectives, and coming to agreement (or agreeing to disagree) are all ways that students use the language of the text in meaningful ways, and thus progress to higher levels of language proficiency and reading comprehension.

Conclusion

The original intention of this article was to provide specific suggestions for modifying reading programs to meet the needs of English language learners, based on the findings of the National Literacy Panel. Because of the paucity of appropriate research studies, however, the recommendations made in the NLP report are not extensive enough to help teachers build appropriate reading programs for ELLs. I therefore looked beyond the NLP findings and included theory and experience as well as research.

I hope that readers will take this synthesis of research, theory, and experience and integrate it into their ongoing examination of what they do in their classrooms, what happens as a result of what they do, and why it happens. Research can tell us which kinds of practices are effective in general, but ultimately only individual teachers can determine what is most effective for them and the particular group of students they are teaching at the moment.

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What Does Research Tell Us About Teaching Reading to English Language Learners?

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As a classroom teacher, I was largely ignorant of, and definitely suspicious of, research. I believed that researchers could make their studies come out any way they wanted them to, and that a good teacher who reflected on her own teaching knew much more about how to be effective with her students than any researcher did.

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Concepts and Research

Phonemic Awareness (PA) is:

1. the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992; see References).

2. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes. Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense.

3. fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon" begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run", he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word.

4. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system.

5. a strong predictor of children who experience early reading success.

An important distinction:

Phonemic awareness is NOT phonics.

Phonemic awareness is AUDITORY and does not involve words in print.

Phonemic Awareness is important ...

It requires readers to notice how letters represent sounds. It primes readers for print.

It gives readers a way to approach sounding out and reading new words.

It helps readers understand the alphabetic principle (that the letters in words are systematically represented by sounds).

...but difficult:

Although there are 26 letters in the English language, there are approximately 40 phonemes, or sound units, in the English language. (NOTE: the number of phonemes varies across sources.)

Sounds are represented in 250 different spellings (e.g., /f/ as in ph, f, gh, ff).

The sound units (phonemes) are not inherently obvious and must be taught. The sounds that make up words are "coarticulated;" that is, they are not distinctly separate from each other.

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Definitions of key PA terminology:

Phoneme: A phoneme is a speech sound. It is the smallest unit of language and has no inherent meaning.

Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words, and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992; see References). Phonemic awareness involves hearing language at the phoneme level.

Phonics: use of the code (sound-symbol relationships to recognize words.

Phonological Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of language. This is an encompassing term that involves working with the sounds of language at the word, syllable, and phoneme level.

Continuous Sound: A sound that can be prolonged (stretched out) without distortion (e.g., r, s, a, m).

Onset-Rime: The onset is the part of the word before the vowel; not all words have onsets. The rime is the part of the word including the vowel and what follows it.

Segmentation: The separation of words into phonemes.

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Examples of Phonemes

The word "sun" has three phonemes: /s/ /u/ /n/. The table below shows different linguistic units from largest (sentence) to smallest (phoneme).

The word "shut" also has three phonemes: /sh/ /u/ /t/.

Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills

Blending: What word am I trying to say? Mmmmm...oooooo...p.

Segmentation (first sound isolation): What is the first sound in mop? /m/

Segmentation (last sound isolation): What is the last sound in mop? /p/

Segmentation (complete): What are all the sounds you hear in mop? /m/ /o/ /p/

What Teachers Should Know

What Teachers Should Be Able to Do

Definition of phonemic awareness (PA).

The relation of phonemic awareness to early reading skills.

The developmental continuum of phonemic awareness skills.

Which phonemic awareness skills are more important and when they should be taught.

Features of phonemes and tasks that influence task difficulty.

Terminology (phoneme, PA, continuous sound, onset-rime, segmentation).

Assess PA and diagnose difficulties.

Produce speech sounds accurately.

Use a developmental continuum to select/design PA instruction.

Select examples according to complexity of skills, phonemes, word types, and learner experience.

Model and deliver PA lessons.

Link PA to reading and spelling.

Evaluate the design of instructional materials.

(modified from Moats, 1999; see References)

What Does the Lack of Phonemic Awareness Look Like?

Children lacking phonemic awareness skills cannot:

group words with similar and dissimilar sounds (mat, mug, sun)

blend and split syllables (f oot)

blend sounds into words (m_a_n)

segment a word as a sequence of sounds (e.g., fish is made up of three phonemes, /f/ , /i/, /sh/)

detect and manipulate sounds within words (change r in run to s).

(Kame'enui, et. al., 1997; see References)
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Phonemic Awareness Research Says:

"The best predictor of reading difficulty in kindergarten or first grade is the inability to segment words and syllables into constituent sound units (phonemic awareness)" (Lyon, 1995; see References).

The ability to hear and manipulate phonemes plays a causal role in the acquisition of beginning reading skills (Smith, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 1998; see References).

There is considerable evidence that the primary difference between good and poor readers lies in the good reader's phonological processing ability.

The effects of training phonological awareness and learning to read are mutually supportive. "Reading and phonemic awareness are mutually reinforcing: Phonemic awareness is necessary for reading, and reading, in turn, improves phonemic awareness still further." (Shaywitz, 2003, see References)

Phonological awareness is teachable and promoted by attention to instructional variables (Smith, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 1998; see References).
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University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning

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Phonemic Awareness: Concepts and Research

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Concepts and Research the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992; see References). essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes.

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7)Yolanda Soryl - Early Literacy Specialist

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7)Yolanda Soryl - Early Literacy Specialist

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Youtube videos on phonemic awareness activities with small groups

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Yolanda is an internationally renowned teacher specialising in early literacy teaching and an inspiring and motivational speaker. Yolanda runs extensive courses for teachers and developing resources for early literacy teaching.

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Phonemic Awareness Activity Playlist

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How to Teach Phonemic Awareness in Kindergarten, 1st, & 2nd Grade | Phonemic Awareness Activities

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Phonemic Awareness Assessment
The following assessments for preschool through first grade are provided by Literary Resources, Inc., a company that was created by thirty year veteran teacher, Dr. Michael Heggerty. As a first grade classroom teacher, Dr. Heggerty worked on an action research project on the importance of phonemic awareness in acquiring and mastering sound reading skills. These assessments are designed to be used throughout the school year. The same assessment can be given as a pre-assessment and then as a post-assessment, or a second assessment has been provided to be used at the end of the preschool year. This second assessment asks students to segment and blend with phonemes, and asks students to produce rhyming words. Both assessments are able to provide teachers with baseline data and data at the end of the school year. There is also an assessment provided for second grade and above if it is needed.

Informal Assessment

Formative/Summative Assessments

Target Grade Level: Pre-K-1

This assessment measures phonemic awareness.

Estimated Completion Time: 15 minutes

Format: Oral

This assessment should be administered individually.

Phonemic Awareness Assessment
This assessment was created by early reading specialist, Wiley Blevins. This assessment was published in his book Phonics from A to Z. This assessment measures the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds.

Informal Assessment

Target Age Range: 5-8

This assessment measures phonemic awareness.

Estimated Completion Time: 10 minutes

Format: Oral

This assessment should be administered individually.

DIBELS Assessments
The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of early literacy skills from kindergarten through sixth grade.They are designed to be short fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. These research-based measures are linked to one another and predictive of later reading proficiency. The measures are also consistent with many of the Common Core State Standards in reading, especially the foundational skills. Listed below are the DIBELS Initial Sound Fluency and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency. You can learn more about DIBELS here. You can access all DIBELS assessments here.

Formal Assessment

Target Grade Level: Pre-K-1

These assessments measure initial sound fluency and phoneme segmentation fluency.

Estimated Completion Time: 5 minutes

Format: Oral

This assessment should be administered individually.

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Phonemic Awareness Assessment This assessment was created by early reading specialist, Wiley Blevins. This assessment was published in his book Phonics from A to Z. This assessment measures the...

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10)Article on Phonemic Awareness Instruction

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10)Article on Phonemic Awareness Instruction

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LINCS | Adult Education and Literacy | U.S. Department of Education

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Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken
words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become more aware of how the sounds in words work.
They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes. Phonemes are the smallest parts of
sound in a spoken word that make a difference in a word's meaning. Early readers can show they have phonemic
awareness in several ways, including recognizing which words in a set of words begin with the same sound,
isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word, combining or blending the separate sounds in a word
to say the word, and breaking or segmenting a word into its separate sounds.

Although phonemic awareness is a widely used term in reading, it is often misunderstood. For example,
phonemic awareness and phonics are not the same thing. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that the sounds
of spoken language work together to make words. Phonics is the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes ( letters) that represent those sounds in written language.

Children who cannot hear and work with the phonemes of spoken words will have a difficult time learning
how to relate these phonemes to graphemes when they see them in written words.

Here are some of the highlights from the evidence-based research on phonemic awareness instruction:

Phonemic awareness can be taught and learned. Effective phonemic awareness instruction
teaches children to notice, think about, and work with (manipulate) sounds in spoken language.

Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read. It improves the ability to read
words and comprehend what is read.

Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to spell. Direct instruction in phonemic
awareness, especially in how to segment words into phonemes, helps children relate the sounds to letters as
they spell words.

Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when children are taught to manipulate phonemes by
using the letters of the alphabet. Such instruction makes a stronger contribution to the improvement of
reading and spelling when children are taught to use letters as they manipulate phonemes rather than when
instruction is limited to phonemes alone.

Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when it focuses on only one or two types of phoneme
manipulation, rather than several types. A focus on teaching children to blend and segment phonemes in
words, especially, is likely to produce greater benefits to reading ability than teaching several types of
manipulation.

Phonemic awareness instruction can help all types of students learn to read, including preschoolers,
kindergartners, first graders who are just starting to read, and older, less able readers.

Approximately 20 hours of class time over the school year should suffice for phonemic awareness
instruction.

In general, small group instruction is more effective when helping students acquire phonemic awareness
and learn to read, compared to individual or whole class instruction.

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Childhood - Teaching Approaches - Phonemic Awareness

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Phonemic Awareness Instruction Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become more aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes.

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Mrs. Judy Araujo, M. Ed., CAGS, Reading Specialist

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Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds, called phonemes , in spoken words. Phonemic awareness activities can be done with eyes shut.

Phonemic awareness is not phonics, rather, phonological awareness forms the basis of phonics. Phonics is the understanding that sounds and print letters are connected; this is the first step towards "reading."

Before children learn to read, they need to become more aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds, called phonemes .

Phonemes are the smallest parts of sound in a spoken word that makes a difference in a word's meaning. Listen to the word ball. It has 3 sounds /b/ /aw/ /l/. If we switch (or manipulate) /b/ for /w/ we have a whole new word wall. Change /aw/ to /e/ and we have another new word well.

Phonemic awareness improves a child's word reading, comprehension, and ability to spell.

Phonological Awareness encompasses several sound-related skills necessary for a person to grow as a reader. As a child develops phonological awareness he not only comes to understand that words are made up of small sound units (phonemes), he also learns that words can be segmented into larger sound "chunks" known as syllables and each syllable begins with a sound (onset) and ends with another sound ~ Rimes.

When measuring a child's phonological awareness, we look at his ability to apply several different skills. A child with strong phonological awareness should be able to recognize and use rhyme, break words into syllables, blend phonemes into syllables and words, identify the beginning and ending sounds in a syllable and see smaller words within larger words (ie. cat in catalog).

Phonemic awareness is just one aspect of phonological awareness.

While phonological awareness encompasses a child's ability to recognize the many ways sounds function in words, phonemic awareness is only the understanding of the tiniest sound units in words.

Because phonemic awareness is a subskill under the phonological awareness "umbrella," not all of the measures for determining a reader's skill level are applied when assessing phonemic awareness. A reader with strong phonemic awareness will demonstrate the ability to hear rhyme and alliteration (the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of several different words used in a sentence or paragraph, such as sweet smell of success), find the different sound in a set of words (ie. bat, ball, wet) and blend and segment phonemes .

Listening Games: To sharpen the child's ability to attend selectively to sounds. Think of: environmental sounds, storytelling and sharing activities, read alouds, following oral directions, sequencing of events, and being a listening detective ~ detecting the mistake heard.

With eyes closed, have the child identify the sound of clapping, a bell, a drawer opening/closing, a book slamming, crackers smashing, paper crumpling, marbles in a jar, paper ripping, a zipper going up and down, scissors cutting, etc.

Have the child identify a sequence of sounds.

Can the child locate the source of the sound?

Practice, from a familiar nursery rhyme, detecting what is said out of order. For example, Humpty Dumpty wall on a sat, or swap the word parts as in one, two, shuckle my boo. Also, can the child detect that the story order is incorrect, as in mixing up the order in the Three Little Pigs? If he/she can ~ that is being a good listening detective!

Have the child listen to and participate in storytelling, listen to read alouds, follow oral directions, and sequence events.

Identify animals by the sounds they make.

Rhyming : To use rhyme to introduce the child to the sounds in words. Think of: nursery rhymes, text variations where a rhyming word can be inserted, rimes ~ see my Rime page, poetry, and fingerplays.

Round Robin Game: I'm going on a trip and I'm taking a pet, net, jet, etc. Rhyming words need to be given by the child.

Rhyme Hunt: I see something in this room that rhymes with rock. Continue in this manner.

Say two words, and the child gives thumbs up/thumbs down if the words rhyme or not.

Ask What rhymes with top and starts with /h/? What rhymes with rack and starts with /t/? Continue with these riddles.

Sing new words to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know It: Did you ever see a bear in a chair ? (Replace bear and chair with different words the next time around.) Did you ever see a bear in a chair? No, I never. No, I never. No, I never. No, I never. No, I never saw a bear in a chair. Did you ever see a bell in a ______.. . . " Continue the song in this manner.

Read lots of Mother Goose rhymes to your child. Teach your child to use meaning and meter to notice and predict rhyming words. Follow this link to printable nursery rhyme charts.

Have the child sit with friends/family in a circle with fists up as in One Potato, Two Potato. As a group, say a nursery rhyme, with fists being tapped one at a time in a circle. If the child's fist is the rhyming word, the fist goes behind the back. Continue in this manner.

Evoke the realization that almost any word can be rhymed. Say a word, and have the child say a rhyme for it, even if it is a nonsense word.

Say rhyme phrases, and have the child fill in the blank, such as A cat is wearing a ____. A mouse lives in a _____.

ing rhymes for action play ~ barking/parking, ringing/singing, wishing/fishing ~ have the child give a rhyming word and act these out.

Words and Sentences : To develop the child's awareness that language is made up of strings of words.

Add A Sound (Synthesis) to introduce the child to synthesize words from their separate phonemes. To Add a Sound, explain that if we put a sound at the beginning of a word, we can have a new word, as in ox, add /f/, now we have fox. A t add /c/, now we had cat. Say a vowel with a consonant and have the child add a sound.

Different Words, Same Final Phoneme: Gather objects in your house, and ask the child which 2 objects end with the same sound, or even say a word such as fork, and ask the child to find something in the room that ends with the same sound. Cake ends like fork.

What Is Missing? Say 2 words and ask the child what sound was taken away, such as rice/ice ( the r sound is missing), same/aim (s sound), thick/ick (th sound), or do this in reverse ~ what sound was added?

Use alliteration in silly sentences, such as six silly snakes sat soaking up some sun. Ask what sound was heard most often. Big bears bake bread, etc. Jiggle, Joggle, Jee by Laura Richards and Chicky Chicky Chook Chook by Cathy MacLennan are two books focusing on alliteration that preschoolers enjoy.

Round Robin Game: I'm going on a trip and I'm taking a pen, pencil, peanut, parrot. . . . Continue this game using various letters.

Create story titles and a story for a character such as Robert the Running Rabbit. This is a form of alliteration.

Do discrimination activities. Listen for which word starts with the same sound as take. Say three words such as pencil, tub, pan. The child should recognize tub as having the same beginning sound as take. Which word does not belong: mat, leg, had ~ it would be leg because of the short e sound ~ the other 2 words are alike because they both have short a. This would be more advanced. You can play which word does/does not belong using beginning letter sounds, vowels, ending letter sound.

Blend onset and rimes such as g-ame is game, n-ight is night, tr-uck is truck. (The onset is beginning letter sound or blend, the rime is the vowel and string of letters that comes after.) Have the child segment the onset and rime on own. See my Rime page.

Sounds In Words: You can use 4 different colored blocks for this activity ~ green, yellow, blue, orange. Each color represents one sound, but not a particular sound. For example, on the word rice, the child may represent /r/ with a green block, /i/ with a yellow block, and /s/ (the actual ce in the word sounds like /s/) with a blue block. When the green block is taken away, it becomes /i/ /s/ ~ ice, a whole new word. It is important for your child to segment words into their phonemes. Ask your child to change rice to mice. Your child should swap out the green /r/ sound with a different color ~ perhaps orange, for /m/. To change mice to mitt, the blue block is slid out, and the green block can now represent /t/.

Awareness of Syllables : To develop the ability to analyze words into separate syllables and to develop the ability to synthesize words from a string of separate syllables.

After modeling, and asking the child to listen to syllable counts, have the child clap the syllables in his/her first and last name. Have the child feel his chin move to the various syllable amounts. Count syllables in various words.

Blend and Segment Syllables: Have the child blend the 2-word parts heard sun/shine, up/stairs, ta/ble. Say a word, and have the child segment the syllables.

Play Syllable and Sound Deletion: Say table. Say it again but don't say /ta/. The answer would be ble. Any 2 or more syllable words can be broken down in this manner. Say computer. Say it again but don't say er. It would be compute.

Phonemes : To develop the ability to analyze words into a sequence of separate phonemes and to develop the ability to synthesize words from a sequence of separate phonemes.

Blend the sounds in a word into a word as in /s/ /a/ /d/. Talk like a robot, segmenting each sound, and have the child blend the sounds into a word.

Say a sentence leaving a word out that you deliberately segment, such as where did I leave my /p/ /e/ /n/? This is a fun way for the child to blend.

Say a word, and have the child segment it on own. Use Elkonin boxes, which look like this:

The sounds of the word /f/ /i/ /sh/ fit nicely in the 3 squares because fish has 3 sounds. Ask the child to point to the box where he/she hears /i/ for example. The answer would be the middle box.

Elkonin boxes

Have the child work on sound discrimination ~ does boy start with /b/ or /v/? Say various words and give 2 sound options.

Have the child do manipulation activities with plain blocks, crayons, or ziti which are used to represent sounds: Show the child 3 pieces of ziti. Say this says map, /m/ /a/ /p/. Now change map to mop. The child should know to swap out the middle ziti. Then say, now change mop to cop. Now change cop to cot. The child should be swapping out the correct ziti. You can also do this orally without the ziti. Say change the /a/ in map to /o/. What is the word? Mop! Now change /m/ in mop to /c/. What is the word? Cop!

Play "Sound of the Day" by renaming common items with the same sound, for example, mamper, mesk, mencil. . . .

Consonant Blends ~ Adding and Subtracting Initial Sounds: The child should have plain blocks or pieces of ziti ~ any item ~ small, uniform, and plain. Say a simple word such as lay. The child must represent the phonemes heard by using the plain blocks or ziti. Lay has 2 phonemes /l/ and /a/. Now say a rhyming word play.That has 3 phonemes to be represented /p/ /l/ /a/. Continue in this manner.

Building Sounds in Words: Start with a 2 sound word such as pie, a 3 sound word from that is spy, a 4 sound word from that is spice. Here are some 2 sound words. . . .good luck 🙂 my, an, at, in, ice, ate.

Guess A Word: Have the child find a secret object in the room. You guess what the object is while he says it phoneme by phoneme such as /ch/..../ai/..../r/.

Introducing Letters and Spellings : To introduce the relation of letters and speech sounds.

Ask riddles such as What ends with /d/ and is a color?

Guess What ~ Introducing Sounds and Letters: I'm thinking of something in this room that starts with /sh/. Say the SOUND, not the letter name(s).

Initial Sounds and Letters: Use pictures from a book, objects in a room, or just say words from your head. Say 2 words and ask the child if they begin with the same sound. Do dog and deer begin with the same sound? What about milk and nest?

Final Sounds and Letters: Say 2 words such as dress and glass. Ask the child if the words end with the same sound. What about box and hill? Continue playing in this manner.

Word Search Initial or Final Consonants: Ask the child to find something in the room that starts with. . . and say any letter of the alphabet ~ NOT the sound, but the actual letter. The child must determine the sound of the letter to find the object. Play the same game with ends with. . . again say the letter name, not the sound.

Introduction to How Words Are Spelled By Adding A Letter: Start with writing down 2 letters such as at, ad, or even sa or ma. Add a 3rd letter for the child to decode such as mat, sat, pat in the at example or in the sa example sat, sad, sag.

Graphic posted with permission from Kathy Schumacher at http://www.tunefulteaching.com. Check out her great site!
Word versions of my pages are available for $10/page but do NOT include graphics due to copyright laws. Please pay via the PayPal DONATE button located on the bottom of the left-hand menu and email me the names of the pages you would like: judithearaujo@gmail.com. Thank you! Copyright 09/05/2012 Reference Adams, Marilyn Jager. Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. Brookes Publishing: Baltimore, 1998.
Copyscape alerts me to duplicate content. Please respect my work.

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Phonemic/Phonological Awareness - Mrs. Judy Araujo, M. Ed., CAGS, Reading Specialist

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Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds, called phonemes , in spoken words. Phonemic awareness activities can be done with eyes shut. Phonemic awareness is not phonics, rather, phonological awareness forms the basis of phonics. Phonics is the understanding that sounds and print letters are connected; this is the first step towards "reading."

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12)Phonemic Awareness Vs Phonological Awareness 

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12)Phonemic Awareness Vs Phonological Awareness 

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An Explanation

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Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

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As you learn more about reading development and instruction you may come upon two terms that look quite similar: phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. While the two are often used interchangeably there are slight distinctions between them.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize that words are made up of a variety of sound units. The term encompasses a number of sound related skills necessary for a person to develop as a reader. As a child develops phonological awareness she not only comes to understand that words are made up of small sound units (phonemes). She also learns that words can be segmented into larger sound "chunks" known as syllables and each syllable begin with a sound (onset) and ends with another sound (rime).

Phonological awareness provides the basis for phonics. Phonics, the understanding that sounds and print letters are connected, is the first step towards the act we call reading.

When measuring a child's phonological awareness look at his ability to apply several different skills. A child with strong phonological awareness should be able to recognize and use rhyme, break words into syllables, blend phonemes into syllables and words, identify the beginning and ending sounds in a syllable and see smaller words within larger words (ie. "cat" in "catalog").

Phonemic Awareness

While phonemic awareness also involves an understanding of the ways that sounds function in words, it deals with only one aspect of sound: the phoneme. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that holds meaning. Almost all words are made up of a number of phonemes blended together. Consider the word "ball". It is made up of three phonemes: /b/ /aw/ /l/ . Each of its sounds affects the meaning. Take away the /b/ sound and replace it with /w/ and you have an entirely different word. Change the /aw/ for an /e/ sound and again the meaning changes.

Phonemic awareness is just one aspect of phonological awareness. While phonological awareness encompasses a child's ability to recognize the many ways sounds function in words, phonemic awareness is only her understanding of the most minute sound units in words. Because phonemic awareness is a sub-skill under the phonological awareness "umbrella" not all of the measures for determining a reader's skill level are applied when assessing it. A reader with strong phonemic awareness will demonstrate the ability to hear rhyme and alliteration (the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of several different words used in a sentence or paragraph), find the different sound in a set of words (ie. "bat", "ball", "wet") and blend and segment phonemes.

Using These Two Terms

Though there is a distinction between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness the two terms are often used interchangeably. For the most part both are used to refer to what is technically phonological awareness. The more common term used to encompass both skill sets is phonemic awareness. In most literature on reading you will see "phonemic awareness" used. Know when you see this term usually the writer is actually referring to "phonological awareness".

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Phonemic Awareness vs. Phonological Awareness Explained

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As you learn more about reading development and instruction you may come upon two terms that look quite similar: phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. While the two are often used interchangeably there are slight distinctions between them. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize that words are made up of a variety of sound units.

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Phonological awareness is different from phonics (and includes phonemic awareness) and is an essential skill to learn to read. Therefore, it is critical to make this concept explicit for all students with dyslexia. Developmentally appropriate phonological awareness goals should be incorporated into your student's IEP.

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Thrive Literacy Corner - Thrive Educational Services

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This post may contain affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links. Please read the disclosure policy for more details.

In this post, I share my favorite phonological and phonemic awareness strategies and activities for struggling readers.

Phonological awareness is the first step in learning how to read and spell. Phonological awareness refers to the ability to hear and manipulate sounds (can be syllables, onset, rime, or phonemes), while phonemic awareness refers to the ability to recognize and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) that make up words.

So for example, whether a student can identify the beginning sound in a word, if a set of words rhymes, or break a word into syllables is highly dependent on their phonological awareness skills.

Most individuals naturally acquire phonological and phonemic awareness through exposure to print, games, songs, and interactions with others. But for students with language disabilities like dyslexia, they need explicit instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness.

Confused about phonological awareness and phonemic awareness? I once was too. Head over to this post for an ultimate guide, then come back here.

Keep reading for my favorite phonological and phonemic awareness strategies and activities.

Reading Intervention Activities for Phonological & Phonemic Awareness

Phonological and phonemic awareness activities are tasks where students must listen to and manipulate sounds. For younger learners who are not yet reading, these are performed completely orally without looking at any letters. For older students, you can do this orally and using letters, as they need to practice both ways.

The only difference between phonological and phonemic awareness activities is that phonological activities focus on hearing and manipulating syllables, onset, rime, and phonemes. In phonemic awareness activities, you simply work with phonemes. So phonological awareness tasks come before phonemic awareness tasks.

Below is a general guide to when you can work on specific phonological and phonemic awareness skills:

Phonemic Awareness Task Cards

If you want something ready made, that doesn't involve any planning or prep, and that takes 5 minutes or less a day, then check out my Phonemic Awareness Task Cards.

These are printable cards with scripted oral activities that can be used with beginning readers or as an intervention with struggling readers.

These actually start off as phonological awareness activities, such as segmenting and blending syllables, counting words, and rhyming. The tasks progress to more advanced phonemic awareness activities, such as phoneme deletion and substitution.

Use A Sound Wall

If you have a word wall up, I strongly suggest you switch to a sound wall. Sound walls have lots of reading research to back them up for improving reading and spelling skills, and they make a lot more sense than word walls. They build on phonemic awareness because they focus on the phonemes. You cannot teach blending, segmenting, or other phonemic awareness skills without the foundational understanding of phonemes.

Check out my post all about implementing a sound wall.

Rhyming words

So many of my students struggle with rhyming words because they focus on one letter in any part of the word and struggle to focus on the ending. I usually start to teach orally by segmenting 2 rhyming words and focusing on the rhyming pattern. I ask for more words that rhyme and we make a list.

Then we move on to visually finding rhyming patterns, using a highlighter to box in the rhyming pattern in two words. After the student has mastered this, then I give 1 word and ask for a rhyming word.

The rhyming game below is a favorite with my students. I print rhyming words on cardstock and have them play memory. When they find a match, they must write the words.

Onset and rime

Getting visual with onset and rimes is a great way for struggling readers to see the sound and begin to isolate it. I use Elkonin boxes, flashcards, cubes, or letter tiles.

Say a word aloud and have students segment the onset and rime. Use color cubes to represent the onset and rime to help students visualize the 2 parts of the word.

Move away from using visuals to performing this task mentally. Students should be able to listen to a word and identify the beginning sound without any visual aids.

When using flashcards with graphemes, you can create new words by moving the onset card to a different rime. You can do the same with the rime, by switching the onset.

Sentence Segmentation

This is probably not common but many students need it. How often do you notice students leave out a word or more when copying or reading?

Say a sentence aloud and have students put a finger up for every word they hear.

Dictation drills can help with this. Say a simple sentence one time. Have students listen and write the sentence.

You could also use cut up sentence strips to switch things up a bit.

Syllable Segmentation

In my experience, most people do not understand syllables. My students always do that thing where they clap or put their hand under their chin to count syllables and they always do it wrong. They don't know what to count!

Explicit syllable instruction is so important but many students are not getting it. Make sure they know a syllable is a part of a word with a spoken vowel sound. We count the vowels we hear, not what we see. Then, we split the word according to a set of rules.

I focus on 1 rule at a time and spend a lot of time practicing. First, I work on words splitting them after marking vowels, consonants, and the pattern. I like to have students cut the word written on a flashcard to visualize the syllables. I also isolate the syllables and have them read them separately and put them back together.

Check out all my syllable posts here.

Phoneme Segmentation

This is easy to do with few supplies. I like to use Elknonin boxes to isolate each sound visually. { You can download my free template here.} Students can either write a letter in each, use chips or cubes to represent each sound, or use letter tiles or flashcards to segment the sounds in a word.

Another great strategy is tapping out the sounds. Students tap their fingers onto their arms for each syllable or sound they hear in the word. No supplies needed!
Read more: How To Teach Phoneme Segmentation

Here the student is using Elkonin boxes to segment and blend a word. This is also a helpful visual aide for onset rime and phoneme deletion, described below.

Blending

Blending is another area where many of my students struggle. You can work on blending syllables, onset and rime, or individual phonemes.

For younger students, you can say 2 parts of a word aloud and ask them to put them together. You can do this with syllables and phonemes as well.

I love using Elkonin boxes for blending because it provides a visual for them while they blend. This involves looking at the letters or a picture, while students use a manipulative for each sound and push them together as they blend the sounds. You can see below how I use it this way. { Download the template here}

From here I teach them a few strategies like finger sliding as they sound out a word, covering the onset or ending as they blend, and doing daily blending drills.

Blending drills are an important part of any Orton-Gillingham lesson. To do this you set up your phonogram cards in 3 or 4 piles using only sounds the student already knows. Then they blend as you remove cards from each pile.

Syllable, Onset, Rime, & Phoneme Deletion

Once they can identify the beginning sound or onset, you can delete the sound and they should be able to say the new word. You can start with visuals like cubes, letter tiles, and flashcards but the goal is for students to perform this task mentally.

Delete different syllables or sounds in a word, such as the beginning, middle, and final sound. You could also insert a new sound and see if they know the new word (substitution).

A typical exercise I do with my students is showing them a simple word like cat. I remove it after a few seconds and ask them to picture the word. Then I ask them what is the beginning sound, middle sound, and final sound. I say "take away the /c/ and what do you have?" Students should say "at". Then I say " add a /p/ to the beginning. What word do you have now?" This is phoneme substitution which is tricky at first, but model it and provide lots of practice.

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Games

Phonological awareness games are a great multisensory way to get students to work on their phonological and phonemic awareness. Here are some of my favorite games:

Use any board game and add flashcards. Choose a phonologicl awareness activity for students to complete on their turn. It can be segmenting a word, finding a word that rhymes, splitting a word into syllables, phoneme deletion, or blending nonsense words. To complete their turn, students must do the activity after moving their pawn.

Use pictures of common items to ask for the name of the picture and the beginning sound.

Play a memory game using a set of words that rhyme printed on cardstock.

Challenge students to make 10 new words using syllables flash cards.

Challenge students make 10 nonsense words using flashcards of the letter sounds they know.

Check out my Phonemic Awareness Task Cards to help you get those phonemic awareness activities in - in just 5 minutes a day and without any prep!

If you're looking for more tips on teaching struggling readers, check out these other posts:
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Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Strategies & Activities for Struggling Readers

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This post may contain affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links. Please read the disclosure policy for more details. In this post, I share my favorite phonological and phonemic awareness strategies and activities for struggling readers. Phonological awareness is the first step in learning how to read and spell.

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16)High Quality Reading Instruction on PA 

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16)High Quality Reading Instruction on PA 

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Page 4: Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to listen, identify, and manipulate phonemes-the smallest units of sounds that are combined to create words. For instance, the three phonemes in the word "mop" are /m/ /o/ /p/. Students learn to read more easily when they are aware of these phonemes.

For Your Information

Phonemic awareness is not the same as phonics. Phonemic awareness relates exclusively to spoken sounds. Phonics, on the other hand, corresponds to how spoken sounds are represented in written text.

Why Should I Teach It?

Students who acquire phonemic awareness skills in the early grades generally:

Have an easier time learning to read

Acquire better reading comprehension

Learn to spell more accurately

Learn how to decode words

Conversely, when difficulty with sound blending and segmenting occurs, students often have a hard time learning how to transfer spoken sounds into written text, exacerbating reading difficulties.

Research Shows

Students with poor phonemic awareness skills in first grade are more likely to have reading difficulties in fourth grade.
(Pressley, 2006)

Phonemic awareness is the best predictor of students' ease of early reading acquisition, better than IQ, vocabulary, and listening comprehension.
(Sensenbaugh, 1996)

How Do I Teach It?

When Should I Teach It?

Phonemic awareness is typically taught in kindergarten and first grade.

A teacher's primary focus is to help young students listen for, identify, and manipulate speech sounds so they can learn to recognize and create different words. It is important for teachers to introduce beginning readers to the relationship between sounds and words by providing auditory examples of how words are formed with sounds.

Here's an example of how a teacher might introduce the relationship between sounds and words to help students understand how words are formed.

Phonemic Awareness

Teacher: We are going to learn about sounds today. We are going to move sounds around to form new words. To make a new word, you have to change the beginning sounds and then say the new word out loud.
Listen, /mat/. I am going to change the word mat to hat. Take off the first sound /m/. That leaves /at/. Then add /h//h/ /at/. The word is /hat/. Now, change the /h/ to /p/. Say the new word.

Below are some helpful hints on how kindergarten and first-grade teachers can incorporate phonemic awareness instruction in the classroom:

Tips for Teaching

Start with easy "blend" sounds that are continuous, such as /m/, /s/, and /f/, rather than with short, "stop" sounds, such as /b/, /d/, and /t/.

When modeling sounds, instruct students to watch your lips and mouth.

Ask students to practice in front of mirrors as you model, so that they can watch the movements of their lips and mouths.

Use games, music, pictures, and objects to teach early phonemic awareness skills.

Engage students in active learning techniques. For example, students can hold up fingers for each sound heard in the word "bubbles." Or small toys and objects can be used to cue students (e.g., a student holds a toy dog and says the sounds /d/ /o/ /g/).

Avoid adding in extra sounds such as the "schwa" / ə / after individual phonemes (e.g., /tə/ instead of /t/).

The Bigger Picture

Phonemic awareness is part of a bigger picture called phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is composed of a continuum of skills that support students as they learn to read and spell accurately. Phonemic awareness (which is composed of blending, segmenting, and manipulating phonemes and words) contributes more to reading success than do the other phonological awareness skills. The graphic below illustrates this continuum of skills.

Phonological Awareness Continuum

discriminating counting rhyming alliteration blending segmenting manipulating

Phonemic Awareness

For Your Information

Although this page discusses the technical differences between phonemic awareness and phonological awareness, be aware that other resources sometimes use the terms interchangeably.

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Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to listen, identify, and manipulate phonemes-the smallest units of sounds that are combined to create words. For instance, the three phonemes in the word "mop" are /m/ /o/ /p/. Students learn to read more easily when they are aware of these phonemes.