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"Phonological awareness is a broad skill that includes identifying and manipulating units of oral language – parts such as words, syllables, and onsets and rimes. Children who have phonological awareness are able to identify and make oral rhymes, can clap out the number of syllables in a word, and can recognize words with the same initial sounds like 'money' and 'mother.'"

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This website has many different resources to help teachers teach phonemic awareness. In addition, it has video demonstrations.

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Good reading instruction begins with laying a solid foundation on which to build, and for reading that foundation is phonemic awareness.

The definition of phonemic awareness (PA) is the understanding that the individual speech sounds of English, known as phonemes, have unique differences and blend together to form words. The understanding that phonemes exist is a key element in the ability to later connect those sounds to the letters or groups of letters that represent them in print.

The ability to produce and understand spoken language is innate, meaning that children will naturally acquire oral language skills in the languages that are spoken and reinforced with them. Because spoken English is composed of words that are connected to provide meaning ("want cookie"), the awareness that words are actually groups of individual sounds is not readily apparent in speech.

For many children, phonemic awareness occurs without explicit phonics instruction through games, songs, and making connections while reading with an adult. These children will begin by developing an abstract understanding that phonemes exist inside of words, but a significant percentage of children will remain unaware that individual sounds comprise the words they use every day. These children will need explicit instruction to develop this awareness. The good news is that children who receive effective instruction can develop a solid foundation on which to build reading and spelling skills.

Phonemic awareness typically includes basic knowledge of initial, medial (middle), and final sounds, and rhyming, blending, and segmentation. Adams (1990) outlined five levels of phonemic awareness:

Basic ability to hear the sounds of words as measured by nursery rhymes

Ability to compare and contrast the sounds of words for rhyme or alliteration

Comfortable familiarity with the idea that words can be split into small sounds and awareness of blending and syllable-splitting

Thorough understanding that words can be analyzed into a series of phonemes

Ability to add, delete, or move any phoneme and generate a word or nonword as a result

Because phonemic awareness does not involve print, assessments and instruction utilize individual sounds, groups of sounds, and words. Some examples that move from simple to complex are included in the following activities.

How important is phonemic awareness?

Adams and other researchers have stated that the single strongest determinant of a child's future reading success is the degree of PA that a child possesses prior to entering school. This conclusion highlights the importance of assessing awareness when children first enter kindergarten and providing structured support for children who have not yet developed awareness of speech sounds.

Although the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has determined that phonemic awareness should be acquired by first grade, many children do not have access to high-quality PA instruction in the early grades. Children with auditory processing difficulties or learning disabilities are particularly vulnerable and may need extended instructional opportunities in order to identify and distinguish between sounds.

Because phonemic awareness has been shown to be an essential skill for reading, it's value is not limited to young children. Older students, too, often lack foundational knowledge of consonant and vowel sounds and struggle to make sense of simple decoding patterns. As stated by Torgeson (2005), these older students need phonics-based programs that build PA instead of assuming they already have it. If PA is not fully developed, middle and high school students may have difficulty when they encounter unfamiliar words.

PA instruction is also particularly important for English Language Learners (ELLs). Each language has unique speech sounds that may be difficult to transfer to English and the need for explicit PA instruction with this population is supported by research. A 2005 study by Genesee and others concluded that "ELLs with well-developed phonological awareness skills in English acquire initial reading skills more easily than ELLs with poorly developed phonological awareness skills in English." The results of a 2010 classroom study, Older Children Need Phonemic Awareness Instruction, Too (2010)

What are the recommended strategies for teaching phonemic awareness?

The first step in improving PA is to review the sounds of individual phonemes to ensure that students are able to hear, produce, identify, and manipulate phonemes.

Regardless of age, nothing should be presumed about a student's prior knowledge-instruction must start at the very beginning to confirm that there are no gaps in understanding. Teachers can then provide age-appropriate instruction on phonemes through interactive, multisensory activities.

Next, an effective strategy is to join phonemes together to form bigrams-letter combinations containing a beginning consonant and a vowel. Bigrams are important for teaching students to blend from one sound to the next without inserting pauses or extra sounds between spoken phonemes.

Developing the process of "sliding" from one sound to the next proves valuable when students move to adding blends (trigrams) and an ending consonant to form words. Additionally, this skill improves a student's ability to eventually connect phonemes to the letters represented by these sounds.

The Reading Horizons method includes this essential component through the use of the Slide. Slides are the beginning sounds that occur by moving from left to right when bigrams or trigrams are combined. Slides encourage blending sounds as a preliminary step to building words and as a support for fluency.

Students then add ending sounds to build real words and practice identifying and manipulating the individual phonemes in words.

Phonemic awareness is a foundational skill for reading readiness. With PA solidly in place, students are ready to begin connecting sound to print.

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Good reading instruction begins with laying a solid foundation on which to build, and for reading that foundation is phonemic awareness. The definition of phonemic awareness (PA) is the understanding that the individual speech sounds of English, known as phonemes, have unique differences and blend together to form words.

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This website offers learning games up to the 6th grade!  There are lots of phonemic Awareness and Phonics games to play. The best part....It's FREE! 😎

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ABCya! • ABCya! • Learning Games and Apps for Kids

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Educational games for grades PreK through 6 that will keep kids engaged and having fun. Topics include math, reading, typing, just-for-fun logic games… and more!

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This song practices several phonemic awareness skills. Most notably, it works on rhyming. Kids can guess the name of the student you are singing about.

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This website helps us understand more about phonemic awareness. The site offers different activities that will help you conduct assessments as well.

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What Is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that includes four developmental levels:

Word awareness

Syllable awareness

Onset-rime awareness

Phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken language words can be broken into individual phonemes-the smallest unit of spoken language.

Phonemic awareness is not the same as phonics-phonemic awareness focuses on the individual sounds in spoken language. As students begin to transition to phonics, they learn the relationship between a phoneme (sound) and grapheme (the letter(s) that represent the sound) in written language.

To develop phonological awareness, kindergarten and first grade students must demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

​ Read Naturally programs that develop phonemic awareness

Why Phonemic Awareness Is Important

First of all, phonemic awareness performance is a strong predictor of long-term reading and spelling success (Put Reading First, 1998). Students with strong phonological awareness are likely to become good readers, but students with weak phonological skills will likely become poor readers (Blachman, 2000). It is estimated that the vast majority-more than 90 percent-of students with significant reading problems have a core deficit in their ability to process phonological information (Blachman, 1995).

In fact, phonemic awareness performance can predict literacy performance more accurately than variables such as intelligence, vocabulary knowledge, and socioeconomic status (Gillon, 2004). The good news is that phonological awareness is one of the few factors that teachers are able to influence significantly through instruction-unlike intelligence, vocabulary, and socioeconomic status (Lane and Pullen, 2004).

Many students (75%) enter kindergarten with proficient phonemic awareness skills. The 25% of students who have not mastered these skills are from all socio-economic backgrounds and need explicit instruction in phonemic awareness. When instruction is engaging and developmentally appropriate, researchers recommend that all kindergarten students receive phonemic awareness instruction (Adams, 1990).

Phonological Awareness Skills

The following table shows how the specific phonological awareness standards fall into the four developmental levels: word, syllable, onset-rime, and phoneme. The table shows the specific skills (standards) within each level and provides an example for each skill.

Less Complex

​

More Complex

Word Awareness

Syllable Awareness

Onset-Rime Awareness

Phoneme Awareness

Sentence Segmentation
Tap one time for every word you hear in the sentence:

Rhyme Recognition
Do these two words rhyme: ham, jam? (yes)

Isolation
What is the first sound in fan? (/f/)
What is the last sound in fan? (/n/)
What is the middle sound in fan? (/a/)

​

Rhyme Generation
Tell me a word that rhymes with nut. (cut)

Identification
Which word has the same first sound as car: fan, corn, or map? (corn)

Categorization
Which word does not belong: mat, sun, cat, fat? (sun)

Categorization
Which word does not belong? bus, ball, house? (house)

Blending
Listen as I say two small words: rain ... bow.
Put the two words together to make a bigger word. (rainbow)

Blending
Put these word parts together to make a whole word: rock*et. (rocket)

Blending
What word am I saying? /b/ ... /ig/? (big)

*Blending
What word am I saying
/b/ /ĭ/ /g/? (big)

Segmentation
Clap the word parts in rainbow. (rain*bow)
How many times did you clap? (two)

Segmentation
Clap the word parts in rocket. (roc*ket)

Segmentation
Say big in two parts.

(/b/ ... /ig/)

*Segmentation
How many sounds in big? (three)
Say the sounds in big.
(/b/ /ĭ/ /g/)

Deletion
Say mat.
Now say mat without the /m/. (at)

Substitution
The word is mug.
Change /m/ to /r/.
What is the new word? (rug)

*Integrated instruction in phoneme segmenting and blending provides the greatest benefit to reading acquisition (Snider, 1995).

Instruction should be systematic. Notice the arrow across the top. The levels become more complex as students progress from the word level to syllables, to onset and rime, and then to phonemes.

Notice the arrow along the left-hand side. Students progress down each level-learning increasingly more complex skills within a level.

For example, look at the Phoneme Awareness column. Students learn to isolate, identify, and categorize phonemes first. Then students are taught to blend phonemes to make a word before they are taught to segment a word into phonemes-which is typically more difficult. The most challenging phonological awareness skills are at the bottom: deleting, adding, and substituting phonemes.

Blending phonemes into words and segmenting words into phonemes contribute directly to learning to read and spell well. In fact, these two phonemic awareness skills contribute more to learning to read and spell well than any of the other activities under the phonological awareness umbrella (National Reading Panel, 2000; Snider, 1995).

So, as we plan phonological awareness instruction, our goal is to systematically move students as quickly as possible toward blending and segmenting at the phoneme level.

Consonant Phonemes

There are two types of consonant phonemes:

Continuous sounds*

A sound that can be pronounced for several seconds without any distortion.

/f/ * /l/ * /m/ * /n/ * /r/ * /s/ * /v/ * /w/ */y/ * /z/ * /a/ * /e/ * /i/ * /o/ * /u/

Stop sounds

A sound that can be pronounced for only an instant. Avoid adding /uh/.

/b/ * /d/ * /g/ * /h/ * /j/ * /k/ * /p/ * /t/

*Blending words with continuous sounds is easier than blending words with stop sounds.

The continuous sounds can be pronounced for several seconds without distortion. The stop sounds can be pronounced only for an instant. It is important to avoid adding /uh/ to a stop sound as it is pronounced-which confuses students. As new phonological awareness skills are introduced, using continuous sounds may be easier at first.

Read Naturally Programs That Develop Phonemic Awareness

Funēmics: A Phonemic Awareness Program for Small Groups

Read Naturally's Funēmics is a systematic, program for pre-readers or struggling beginning readers that teaches all of the phonological awareness standards. Each lesson builds on skills taught in previous lessons, adding just a few elements at a time. With minimal preparation, teachers or aides present scripted instruction to small groups of students, using an interactive display (with brightly illustrated pages and interactive widgets) viewed on a tablet or whiteboard. Fun ēmics is entirely pre-grapheme.

Learn more about how Fun ēmics teaches phonological awareness skills:

Read Naturally® GATE+: A Systematic, Direct-Instruction Phonics Program for Beginning Readers

Teach phonemic awareness, phonics, and other foundational reading skills to beginning readers with Read Naturally GATE+'s explicit reading instruction. This motivating program provides scripted, interactive phonemic awareness and phonics exercises based on scientific research. Students master high-frequency words and decoding skills as they improve their fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.

Other Programs That Support Phonemic Awareness

The following programs do not focus on phonemic awareness but include phonemic awareness activities as part of a broader scope of instruction:

Signs for SoundsTM
Teacher-led, small-group instruction for teaching regular phonetic spelling patterns and high-frequency words through spelling. Focuses on spelling and phonics with additional support for phonemic awareness.
Learn more about Signs for Sounds

Bibliography

Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Blachman, B. A. (2000). Phonological awareness. In M. L. Kamil, P. B. Rosenthal, P. D. Pearson, and R. Barr (eds.), Handbook of reading research, 3, pp. 483-502. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Blachman, B. A. (1995). Identifying the core linguistic deficits and the critical conditions for early intervention with children with reading disabilities. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Learning Disabilities Association, Orlando, FL, March 1995.

Gillon, G. T. (2004). Phonological awareness: From research to practice. New York: The Guilford Press.

Lane, H. B., and P. C. Pullen. (2004). A sound beginning: Phonological awareness assessment and instruction. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

National Institute for Literacy. (1998). Put reading first. <http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/PRFbooklet.pdf>

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Snider, V. A. (1995). A primer on phonemic awareness: What it is, why it's important, and how to teach it. School Psychology Review, 24(3), pp. 443-456.

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Phonemic awareness ability is a strong predictor of reading success. Students must develop an understanding of spoken words, syllables and sounds (phonemes).

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Partners in Rhyme is perfect for kindergartners. The games are interactive and help them blend words as well as use memory.

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Learning words that rhyme can be a fun and engaging way to improve your vocabulary, language skills, and phonological awareness. Rhyming words share similar sounds at the end of the word, which can help with pronunciation and creative writing. Here are some examples of words that rhyme:

Remember that these are just a few examples, and there are countless rhyming words in the English language. You can explore rhyming dictionaries or engage in activities like reading poetry, singing songs, or playing word games to expand your repertoire of rhyming words.

In the game Words that Rhyme, young learners are introduced to the concept of rhyming and learn to build sounds and word relationships. Specifically, the children will be looking for end rhymes, with three pairs of rhyming words on each screen. Rhyming is an important skill to master, as it sharpens auditory awareness and heightens a child's ability to play with words and use them with more precision.
Once you click through the OK button to begin playing the game, it takes you through the brief instructions, which encourages you to look for three pairs of rhyming words on each page. Pictures show up on the screen with words at the bottom of each like digital flashcards. If the child does not know the word, they simply press the auditory button on the left of each word and it will be read aloud to them. Locate two rhyming words on the screen, and click once on each to pair them up as a correct rhyme.
Once you click a correct pair, the narrator will announce that A rhymes with B, and whisk the cards away. Incorrect matches get a slightly harsh sound and a "This is incorrect." statement. A timer does continuously tick up as you play, bringing more and more screens of matching rhyming words. The words begin simply, with only three letter simple words being used, but it quickly amps up with each subsequent screen if they are able to handle it. Learning rhyming skills is an essential skill to have and can be practiced here while employing other senses along with it.

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Rhyming Words | Rhyming Words For Kids | Phonics Games | Turtle Diary

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Partners in Rhyme is an online game for young toddlers about rhyming words. It helps them build sound and word relationships. In this game, kids get a set of words,

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Clapping Clara claps the syllables in words. Used for kindergarten and first grade.

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Heggerty is an online program for reading. The website has a plethora of information and helps distinguish the difference between phonemic and phonological awareness.

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When we talk about foundations of literacy, three "PH" words often come to mind: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. We see these terms when we view grade level reading standards, reading research, and built into reading lessons found in many core reading series. Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are oral and auditory, and the focus is on the sounds in words. Phonics, on the other hand, focuses on the letters that the sounds represent. Phonics involves print, phonological, and phonemic awareness do not. While phonological and phonemic awareness are both oral and auditory, there are differences between these two terms.

What is Phonological Awareness?

"Phonological awareness is the understanding of different ways that oral language can be divided into smaller components and manipulated." (Chard and Dickson, 1999) Phonological awareness refers to the bigger "chunks" or "parts" of language. When we ask students to rhyme, blend small words to make a compound word, break words apart into syllables or onset-rime, we are working at the phonological awareness level. Phonological awareness can be thought of as a big umbrella with the bigger "chunks" of language being the top of the umbrella.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made of individual sounds called phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound we hear in a word. Phonemic awareness falls underneath the umbrella as a sub-category of phonological awareness. Rather than working with larger units of spoken language, we ask students to listen for the individual sounds or phonemes in a spoken word. When we ask students to blend or segment words into the smallest unit of sound they hear, we are working at the phonemic awareness level. For example, the four sounds /p//l//a//n/ can be blended to make the whole word plan.

How Does Phonemic Awareness Help Reading and Literacy Development?

In their book, "Know Better, Do Better", David and Meredith Liben state "It is not an option to skip or shortchange phonemic awareness! Children without mastery of it will inevitably struggle." While decades of research support this statement, phonemic awareness is still the most common reason students struggle with word reading. When educators consider phonemic awareness and phonics to be interchangeable terms, phonemic awareness is often left out of instruction and the focus shifts to print with phonics.

Failing to provide explicit phonemic awareness instruction leads to many students lacking the understanding that words are made up of individual sounds. Instead, they get the message that words are whole units that need to be visually memorized. While students learn language naturally by listening to speech and words, hearing individual sounds in words is not natural. We don't speak in individual sounds, instead, our speech is co-articulated and we hear whole words in oral language. If we begin our literacy instruction by teaching letters and sounds, without phonemic awareness instruction, phonics does not make sense to students.

Phonemic awareness and phonics do work together when students learn to read and spell. Words are made up of sounds (phonemic awareness) and letters represent these sounds in print (phonics). Without the ability to hear sounds in words, phonemic awareness and phonics cannot engage in this reciprocal relationship. Researcher Wiley Blevins explains, "Phonemic awareness training provides the foundation on which phonics instruction is built. Thus, children need solid phonemic awareness training for phonics instruction to be effective."

It is essential for students to understand that words are made up of individual sounds, and they can blend, segment, and manipulate those sounds. If students can do this work through the air, we can transfer these skills to print, so they can read and spell more words.

How Does Phonological Awareness Develop?

It is important to support and scaffold students through the continuum of phonological awareness to allow them to eventually hear and manipulate those individual sounds in words- the phonemic awareness level. The image of the ladder below shows the continuum of phonological awareness. When providing instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, we begin at the phonological level. It is much easier to hear the bigger units of language versus the individual sounds in a word. For example, asking children to segment pencil into two-syllables, /pen/ /cil/, is an easier task when compared to segmenting the word pen into three individual sounds, /p/ /e/ /n/.

The largest unit of language is a word. Instruction in phonological awareness begins at the word level when children learn that compound words can be blended, segmented, and manipulated. For example, we can blend the small words class - room together to the compound word classroom. Or the opposite, we can segment compound words into two separate words. We can say the whole word and take it apart into two smaller words: raincoat, rain - coat. We can also substitute one small word in a compound word. Say sunshine, change shine to glasses and the word is sunglasses.

Once students can blend, segment, and manipulate compound words, we narrow the unit of language they hear and do the same work with syllables. For example, we blend the three syllables /cal - en - dar/, to say the whole word calendar. Students can segment a word into syllables: elbow can be segmented into /el/ - /bow/. We can substitute a syllable in a word to make a new word: reading; change /read/ to /talk/ and the word is talking.

We can narrow the unit of language again when we focus on the onset and rime. Onset-rime is breaking apart a syllable. The onset of a word is all the sounds that come before the vowel and the rime is the vowel and all the sounds after. Students blend the onset and rime into a whole word or segment a spoken word into the onset and rime.

For example, students can blend the onset /b/ and the rime /ig/ into the word /b-ig/, big. And if we were to segment the word flip, the onset would be /fl/ and the rime would be /ip/. Onset-rime is the last level of phonological awareness and teaches students to blend and segment two parts into a word. Developing a foundation of understanding in phonological awareness prepares students to hear individual sounds and develop phoneme awareness. The chart below shares examples of tasks and activities at the phonological awareness level

Phonological Awareness Activities

How Does Phonemic Awareness Develop?

When looking at the image of the ladder, the first three rungs on the ladder are phonological awareness and the top rung on the ladder is phonemic awareness. The focus is on hearing individual sounds in spoken words. While instruction begins with phonological awareness, our end goal is phonemic awareness. Students who are phonemically aware are not only able to hear the sounds in words, they are able to isolate the sounds, blend, segment and manipulate sounds in spoken words.

For example, segmenting the word pen into the sounds /p/ /e/ /n/ is an example of a phonemic awareness task. If students can segment the word, they can then spell the word. If they can blend those sounds, they can read the word. Additionally, if students can substitute the /p/ to a /h/, they can make a new word - hen. Phonemic awareness training provides students with the skills necessary to read and spell words when they see these sounds in print.

There are several skills included in phonemic awareness instruction and the chart below shares examples of skills and tasks at the phonemic awareness level.

Phonemic Awareness Activities

Phoneme Isolation

Phoneme isolation is a skill where students hear and isolate a sound at the beginning of a word, middle of a word, and end of a word, often referred to as initial, medial, and final sounds.

The first sound in the word name is /n/.

The final sound in the word bark is /k/.
The medial or vowel sound in the word cup is /u/.

Blending (parts to whole)

Blending is a skill that directly correlates to phonic decoding. Students hear sounds spoken aloud and they blend the sounds to make a word. During instruction, the teacher provides the phonemes and the students blend the phonemes into a whole word.

/s/ /u/ /n/, sun

/b/ /r/ /ā/ /k/, break
/p/ /r/ /i/ /s/, price

Segment (whole to parts)

Segmenting is a skill that directly correlates to encoding or spelling. Students hear a whole word and they segment the word into all the individual sounds they hear. During instruction, a teacher would say a whole word and students segment the word into individual phonemes.

Phoneme Manipulation:

Add

Delete
Substitute
Phoneme manipulation is practiced with adding a phoneme, deleting a phoneme, or substituting a phoneme in spoken words.

Adding an initial sound to make a word: Add /s/ to /-at/ and the word is sat

Deleting an initial sound from a word: Say cup. Without /k/, what's left is, /-up/.

Substituting an initial sound: The word is top. Change /t/ to /m/and the word is, mop.

How Do You Teach Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

Considering the research and the role phonemic awareness plays in building the foundation of reading, it is clear we owe it to our students to do better. All students benefit from explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness. In most literacy curricula, the amount of time dedicated to phonemic awareness, and the way it is presented, is not effective enough to create phonemically proficient readers. Often just a few minutes are devoted to this instruction, with varying skills taught each day. If we are going to do better for students, our instruction in phonemic awareness needs to be intentional.

For our younger learners, we should begin instruction at the phonological awareness level (compound words, syllables, onset-rime) to allow students the opportunity to blend, segment, and manipulate parts of words first before we have them do that same work with phonemes. With older learners, or struggling readers, our goal is to get to the phoneme level as quickly as possible so they can transfer these skills to reading and spelling.

Phonological and phonemic awareness skills can be divided into 3 levels: early, basic, and advanced. In the past, many educators thought the basic skills of blending and segmenting were enough to create proficient readers as these skills directly corelate to decoding and encoding. However, we now know that providing phonemic awareness instruction to the advanced level is critical.

Phonemic awareness instruction is powerful, but it does not need to take long. Dr. Heggerty created quick, 10-12 minutes lessons to provide students with the practice and repetition they needed to reach phoneme proficiency. Our lessons include all 8 phonological and phonemic awareness skills beginning with compound words and working our way to the phoneme level. Teaching these skills each day will allow our children the repetition and practice they need to hear, blend, segment and manipulate sounds in words.

How Do You Assess Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

We can assess students' phonemic awareness in many ways. Universal screeners, such as DIBELS or Acadience, assess some skills and can be an indicator that we need to "dig deeper" or learn more about certain students. Other assessments include the PAST or our Heggerty Phonemic Awareness assessments which provide more information by assessing more skills.

Because phonemic awareness is oral and auditory, assessments are completed one-on-one and can be time consuming to administer. A quick and effective way to check in on students' phonemic awareness is listening to their responses during instruction. You can rotate rows when students are sitting on the carpet and have a focus group each week. Once students know most of their letters and sounds, looking at their writing will show you what sounds they are hearing in words as they map those sounds to print. Similarly, listening to students sound out or decode words is a way to assess their ability to blend sounds into words

The Foundation for Literacy Development

In her blog post Of 'Hard Words' and Straw Men: Let's Understand What Reading Science is Really About Louisa Moats notes that, "Perhaps the most critical and least-practiced component of effective early instruction is phoneme awareness. Awareness of the sounds that make up spoken words, facility at manipulating those sounds, and the links between speech and print must be mastered for students to be fluent readers and accurate spellers of an alphabetic writing system like ours."

Both phonological and phonemic awareness focus on the sounds in language. We begin our instruction at the phonological level and narrow the unit of language until we can work at the phoneme level. focuses on teaching students to hear the specific sounds in words and is essential for literacy instruction.

It is important for students to be explicitly taught how to hear sounds in words to help them blend, segment, and manipulate those sounds. When a student has phoneme proficiency, they are able to transfer the oral and auditory skills to print to be able to read and spell words. Phonemic awareness is the necessary foundation for creating proficient readers and writers.

References:

Liben, David & Liben, MeredithKnow Better, Do Better. LIteracy Solutions, 2019.

Blevins, Wiley. Phonics from A to Z. 2017

Moats, Louisa. Of 'Hard Words' and Straw Men: Let's Understand What Reading Science is Really About, Oct 16, 2019

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What are Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness?

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When we talk about foundations of literacy, three "PH" words often come to mind: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. We see these terms when we view grade level reading standards, reading research, and built into reading lessons found in many core reading series. Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are oral and auditory, and...

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A pdf that will guide a teacher to assess their students' in phonemic awareness.

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Jack Hartman is so cool! He has so many videos out there to teach students reading. In this video Jack talks about blending and stretching words. Definitely a favorite of mine! 🥳

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Stretchy the Word Snake | Phonics Song for Kids | Segmenting and Blending Words | Jack Hartmann

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Why is it so important to read to your children? Healthline helps us understand.

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Babies and young children are sponges that soak in practically everything in their environments. It's true! Even during story time, their minds are at work, taking in all the language they hear and lessons the characters learn.

Reading to your child - at any age - will boost their brain development, your bond, and so much more. And all it takes is a few books, motivation, and a little time.

Here's how to get started.

First, set the scene in your head. You choose a book. You sit down in your favorite armchair, with your child in your lap, and open to the first of many smooth, colorful pages.

You begin to read, and your child is utterly captivated by the story. It's magic. What's even better is that your child isn't just having fun, they're learning!

Reality may look a little different: Just know you're not alone if your baby tries to eat the book or your toddler wanders around the room instead of sitting patiently. But the benefits of reading remain the same.

Bonding

Reading provides a wonderful opportunity for you and your child to connect. It's a nice way to spend time together and slow down during an otherwise hectic day.

Research from 2008 pointed out how reading can support a solid parent-child relationship. Kids feel secure when they're read to. Plus, caregivers who have a positive attitude toward books and reading in turn help their children view literacy in a positive way.

Listening skills

Hearing a story read aloud involves some level of comprehension on your child's part. And comprehension is dependent on paying attention - in other words, listening skills.

The experts at Scholastic explain that listening is a skill kids must acquire before they can read themselves.

They suggest that books on tape are a great addition to reading one-on-one with your child. These often provide entertainment value, too, like silly voices, music, and other embellishments.

Cognitive and language development

Even the youngest children benefit from hearing their caregivers read to them. A 2013 study showed that babies who are read to and talked to score higher in language skills and cognitive development, like problem solving.

Research from 2018 suggests that this link extends throughout childhood into the teen years. In fact, researchers say that verbal interactions (reading, talking, etc.) between parents and young kids may promote higher language and IQ scores all the way up to age 14.

Expanded vocabulary

Experts from the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning also explain that reading books to kids helps expand the number and variety of words they use. Think about it: The books you read often contain words you might not otherwise use in your everyday communications.

While reading a book, you might end up using more specific names for different plants or animals or use more adjectives (descriptive words) altogether. And this adds up.

One estimated that children who are regularly read to in the 5 years leading up to kindergarten are exposed to 1.4 million more words than children who aren't read to during those years.

Attention span

Dinah Castro, a bilingual family well-being educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension, shares that reading to children helps them develop key concentration and self-discipline skills.

You've probably dealt with a squirming, distracted toddler at story hour. But what you may also notice is that - over time - regular reading gets kids listening in order to comprehend.

And when they're listening, they're more likely to sit still, develop a longer attention span, and even work on their budding memory-retention skills.

Creativity

Books and stories open up a whole new world to your child. Yes, there are plenty of nonfiction books on dinosaurs, bugs, and airplanes. Fiction stories, though, go beyond the real world and employ fantasy elements that get kids thinking outside the box.

Children have vivid imaginations as is, so reading serves to further feed their creativity. And experts at PBS note that creativity is important for developing interests and ideas, as well as for fostering emotional health.

Life lessons

Books provide an opportunity to talk about real-world situations in age-appropriate ways. Kids especially enjoy books that feature children their own ages doing things they do in everyday life.

Along with modeling what happens in various situations, reading books on targeted subjects may help children not feel alone when they deal with something new, like moving across the country, or something potentially uncomfortable, like going to the dentist.

Social and emotional development

Castro also says that reading to young children teaches them how to cope with "difficult or stressful experiences." She further explains that reading stories about potentially emotional situations, like starting at a new school, can help get a conversation going and show children that their feelings are normal.

Start today! Babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and even older children all benefit from having a caregiver read to them. You don't even need a large personal library of books to get started.

Think beyond the store - you can find a wide variety of books at your local library, secondhand shop, or Little Free Library. You can even encourage your child to borrow books from and lend them to their friends.

The youngest babies (under 6 months old) benefit from books that have simple but bold or bright images with lots of contrast. Talk to your baby as you look at the books, but words on the page aren't necessary.

As they get a bit older (7 to 12 months), you may want to expand your collection to books with simple phrases or just a line of text that relates to the picture on the page.

Babies ages 12 to 18 months may find books with pictures of other children doing everyday things interesting. Same goes for books that have animals, television characters, or other familiar scenes in them. For this age group, you may look for books that have more detailed pictures and a simple story or progression of events.

As your baby starts to babble and eventually talk, try involving them in what they see on the page.

For example, point to a picture and ask "What's that?" or declare "That's a banana!" to get your child engaging with the book. Keep it positive and try to repeat your child's words back to them ("Yes - that looks like a cat, but it's actually a squirrel!").

There are lots of books, so try not to get too overwhelmed. Nursery rhymes, especially ones you might have memorized, are a good choice for babies.

And as far as construction, look for sturdy books that are made from cardboard (board books), fabric, or vinyl. Books with handles are also fun and let your baby transition from reading time to play time.

Kids between the ages of 19 and 30 months also enjoy books that feature familiar characters.

At this age, they tend to favor books with lots of action, pictures, and details versus lots of words on the page. Look for books that contain short stories, particularly those with cause-and-effect relationships or a problem that the characters must work to overcome.

Repetition is important at this age, so try to find books that allow you to rhyme, sing, or otherwise repeat the text in some way. While you're at it, take some time to pause as you read books with repetition to see if your little one fills in the blank.

You may also want to take time to draw connections between a main character and your child. For example, you might point out, "He's sleeping in a big boy bed, just like you!"

By the way, you can start introducing books made with paper pages versus board books at this age. Just be sure to supervise to guard against your child ripping the pages.

Preschoolers and elementary school-aged kids have a wide range of reading abilities. It's a good idea to take their lead when it comes to simple versus complex books.

Younger kids (and even some older ones) may still appreciate pictures with little text. That said, you can start introducing stories that have more complex plots in them and books with more words than pictures - even chapter books.

As your child begins reading on their own, you might involve them in the process of reading together by asking them to read words or sentences out loud along the way. This is great practice.

Ask questions as you move through the text, too - you don't have to wait until the end of the book or chapter to check your child's comprehension. Try open-ended questions like "What do you think might happen next?" These will help your child delve deeper, rather than surface questions like "What color is the house?"

Experts recommend engaging in literacy activities (like reading) for around 30 minutes per day. But you can also think outside the book here.

Try reading traffic signs or cereal boxes, singing songs, listening to audiobooks together, or having your child read to you to the best of their ability. It's all good.

Librarian Donna Jeansonne says that you shouldn't stop reading to your child once they learn to read themselves. While independent reading is certainly important, reading out loud to kids as old as age 14 still holds benefits, both academically and emotionally.

At this age, it's about your older child's reading fluency and comprehension. It may be helpful for them to follow along in the book as you read. And consider asking questions about the text to gauge their comprehension.

Again, all you really need to do is take the time to read to your child. It's truly as simple as that. However, you might be wondering how to make the experience more enjoyable for everyone.

Here are some tips:

Be consistent. Whether it's one book per day or 15, try to make reading a part of your regular routine. And while you're at it, you don't have to read different books each time you sit down. Kids love hearing the same stories over and over again - and they learn through this type of repetition.

Take your time. Be sure to leave enough time to read versus sneaking it in or - worse - making it a chore. Of course, you won't have loads of time each day to read, so some quickies are just fine. However, your child should see reading as a dedicated activity and one that you give your full attention to.

Make it fun. Use different voices for characters, pauses, songs, or other dramatics to make the story come to life. Reading with flair will help your child better understand the story. It also provides a good model of expressive and fluent reading for kids who have begun reading by themselves.

Point out connections. Children love applying stories to their own lives. It not only makes the text more meaningful, but it also may help your child cope with different situations they encounter in their everyday experience. Point out those connections to your child. Note where the character was brave about that monster beneath their bed. Applaud the character who used the potty for the first time.

Don't stop with books. Any exchange of words is beneficial to kids. So, if you're uninspired by books one night, turn to telling stories. You can also look at pictures and talk about what you see or ask your child to be the storyteller. Anything that gets language flowing between you and your child is golden.

When it comes to early literacy and language skills, both the quality and quantity of the words you speak to your child matter. Books provide an excellent opportunity to get talking, telling stories, and connecting with your little one.

If you still don't know exactly how to start, consider hitting up your local library and chatting with a librarian in the children's department. You can get book suggestions, take out books and other media for free, and sign up for events (like in-person or virtual story hours) that'll get your whole family inspired to read.

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Reading to Children: Why It's So Important and How to Start

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One of the most powerful things you can do for your child is to read with them. Learn more about the benefits, along with tips for reading to babies, toddlers, and beyond.

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I found this video on YouTube. It is a sixteen minute video that demonstrates different iPad apps for early reading. There are some great apps in this video. I wish I would have had them for my son when he was small! The apps help with Phonemic Awareness as well as phonics! You are welcome! ❤️

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Phonics iPad apps for young children 2020

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This cheat sheet helps me remember the basics of phonemic awareness. 😎

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I love this blog because it gives us book recommendations for families to read-aloud. The blog author also gives book reviews and reading quotes. This is an excellent resource for parents!

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It's summer! And you know what that means... summer reading! I'm not talking about the scary book report kind. I'm talking about reading aloud, just for fun. Because shhh... no one talks about this much but reading aloud is actually just as much for the grown ups as it is for the kids!

In case you aren't convinced, or in case you are as much a book nerd as I am and you want some extra inspiration, ten (or twenty, I lost count) quotes about reading to children:

Why reading aloud is essential

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." - Emilie Buchwald

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go." - Dr. Seuss

"You may have tangible wealth untold. Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be - I had a mother who read to me." - Strickland Gillilan

"When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate. " - Mem Fox

"Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. " - Neil Gaiman

"Few things leave a deeper mark on the reader, than the first book that finds its way to his heart." - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

"I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp." - JK Rowling

"Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read." - Marilyn Jager Adams

"Reading ... a vacation for the mind." - Dave Barry

"There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all." - Jacqueline Kennedy

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life." - Walt Disney

"You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child." - Dr. Seuss

"When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener." ― Paula Fox

"Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift." - Kate DiCamillo

"Language is to the mind more than light is to the eye." - Ann Sullivan

"Instead of educating the I.Q., we need to educate the H.Q., the heart quotient, the matters of truth, love, justice, and compassion. There are two ways to do this. One is through the read life experiences and the other is through literature. Literature has the power to take us outside ourselves and returns to ourselves a changed self." ― Jim Trelease

"Being read to as a child is one of the great experiences in life." - Billy Collins

And now - I polled my social media followers for this - What kids books do you love to read as an adult? - and we came up with this list of great books for no matter how old you are.

Great family read-alouds

The Phantom Tollbooth

A Little Princess

The Chronicles of Narnia

Where the Red Fern Grows

The Cay

A Single Shard

The Mouse and the Motorcycle series

Wonder

Charlotte's Web

Pippi Longstocking

Superfudge

The Giver

The Wind in the Willows

A Wrinkle in Time

Winnie the Pooh

Anne of Green Gables

Treasure Island

The Jesus Storybook Bible

What would you add to the list?

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10 (or 20) great reading quotes plus 10 (or 20!) great family read-alouds - Sally Lloyd-Jones

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It's summer! And you know what that means... summer reading! I'm not talking about the scary book report kind. I'm talking about reading aloud, just for fun. Because shhh... no one talks about this much but reading aloud is actually just as much for the grown ups as it is for the kids!

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Thrive Literacy Corner is a blog that helps teachers with different phonemic activities such as, creating a sound wall and syllable segmentation.

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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:
Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers shop to see all my literacy products. Want to remember this? Save Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Strategies & Activities to your favorite Pinterest board!

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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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This website not only gives you information about phonemic awareness but offers examples and activities for the teacher to try.

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Phonological awareness is a broad skill that includes identifying and manipulating units of oral language - parts such as words, syllables, and onsets and rimes. Children who have phonological awareness are able to identify and make oral rhymes, can clap out the number of syllables in a word, and can recognize words with the same initial sounds like 'money' and 'mother.'

Phonemic awareness refers to the specific ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Phonemes are the smallest units comprising spoken language. Phonemes combine to form syllables and words. For example, the word 'mat' has three phonemes: /m/ /a/ /t/. There are 44 phonemes in the English language, including sounds represented by letter combinations such as /th/. Acquiring phonemic awareness is important because it is the foundation for spelling and word recognition skills. Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of how well children will learn to read during the first two years of school instruction.

Students at risk for reading difficulty often have lower levels of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness than do their classmates. The good news is that phonemic awareness and phonological awareness can be developed through a number of activities. Read below for more information.

What the problem looks like

A kid's perspective: What this feels like to me

Children will usually express their frustration and difficulties in a general way, with statements like "I hate reading!" or "This is stupid!". But if they could, this is how kids might describe how difficulties with phonological or phonemic awareness affect their reading:

I don't know any words that rhyme with cat.

What do you mean when you say, "What sounds are in the word brush?"

I'm not sure how many syllables are in my name.

I don't know what sounds are the same in bit and hit.

A parent's perspective: What I see at home

Here are some clues for parents that a child may have problems with phonological or phonemic awareness:

She has difficulty thinking of rhyming words for a simple word like cat (such as rat or bat).

She doesn't show interest in language play, word games, or rhyming.

A teacher's perspective: What I see in the classroom

Here are some clues for teachers that a student may have problems with phonological or phonemic awareness:

She doesn't correctly complete blending activities; for example, put together sounds /k/ /i/ /ck/ to make the word kick.

He doesn't correctly complete phoneme substitution activities; for example, change the /m/ in mate to /cr/ in order to make crate.

He has a hard time telling how many syllables there are in the word paper.

He has difficulty with rhyming, syllabication, or spelling a new word by its sound.

How to help

With the help of parents and teachers, kids can learn strategies to cope with phonological and/or phonemic awareness problems that affect his or her reading. Below are some tips and specific things to do.

What kids can do to help themselves

Be willing to play word and sounds games with parents or teachers.

Be patient with learning new information related to words and sounds. Giving the ears a workout is difficult!

Practice hearing the individual sounds in words. It may help to use a plastic chip as a counter for each sound you hear in a word.

Be willing to practice writing. This will give you a chance to match sounds with letters.

What parents can do to help at home

Check with your child's teacher or principal to make sure the school's reading program teaches phonological, phonemic awareness, and phonics skills.

If your child is past the ages at which phonemic awareness and phonological skills are taught class-wide (usually kindergarten to first or second grade), make sure he or she is receiving one-on-one or small group instruction in these skills.

Do activities to help your child build sound skills (make sure they are short and fun; avoid allowing your child to get frustrated):

Help your child think of a number of words that start with the /m/ or /ch/ sound, or other beginning sounds.

Make up silly sentences with words that begin with the same sound, such as "Nobody was nice to Nancy's neighbor".

Play simple rhyming or blending games with your child, such as taking turns coming up with words that rhyme (go - no) or blending simple words (/d/, /o/, /g/ = dog).

Read books with rhymes. Teach your child rhymes, short poems, and songs.

Practice the alphabet by pointing out letters wherever you see them and by reading alphabet books.

Consider using computer software that focuses on developing phonological and phonemic awareness skills. Many of these programs use colorful graphics and animation that keep young children engaged and motivated.

What teachers can do to help at school

Learn all about phonemes (there are more than 40 speech sounds that may not be obvious to fluent readers and speakers).

Make sure the school's reading program and other materials include skill-building in phonemes, especially in kindergarten and first grade (these skills do not come naturally, but must be taught).

If children are past the age at which phonemic awareness and phonological skill-building are addressed (typically kindergarten through first or second grade), attend to these skills one-on-one or in a small group. Ask your school's reading specialist for help finding a research-based supplemental or intervention program for students in need.

Identify the precise phoneme awareness task on which you wish to focus and select developmentally appropriate activities for engaging children in the task. Activities should be fun and exciting - play with sounds, don't drill them.

Make sure your school's reading program and other materials include systematic instruction in phonics.

Consider teaching phonological and phonemic skills in small groups since students will likely be at different levels of expertise. Remember that some students may need more reinforcement or instruction if they are past the grades at which phonics is addressed by a reading program (first through third grade).

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Phonological awareness is a broad skill that includes identifying and manipulating units of oral language - parts such as words, syllables, and onsets and rimes. Children who have phonological awareness are able to identify and make oral rhymes, can clap out the number of syllables in a word, and can recognize words with the same initial sounds like 'money' and 'mother.'

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I absolutely LOVE this resource because when I am not sure what to teach my class, or I need to be flexible because one of my other lessons didn't work out, I can quickly snag a lesson on this site. Sometimes they are even FREE!

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Phonemic Awareness Lessons Worksheets & Teaching Resources | TpT

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Browse phonemic awareness lessons resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace trusted by millions of teachers for original educational resources.