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Hello fellow educators! Welcome to the toolkit for supporting students as they develop phonemic awareness on their path to literacy. Phonemic awareness is included under the overarching classification of phonological awareness, is critical to the mastery of reading, and is defined as the ability to comprehend, recognize, and control each of the individual sounds in a word (National Center on Improving Literacy, 2022). Students begin breaking down language from the largest components of a sentence, which are words, to the smallest, which is the phoneme. Before trying to read or spell, becoming familiar with the sounds that make up words can determine how successful students are in their reading endeavors. As students master phonemic awareness they should be able to segment, blend, and swap phonemes in words. In the classroom, and at home, phonemic awareness skills should be assessed to determine the need for differentiation, taught intentionally, and learned in a logical progression as each skill builds on the last (Cooley, 2024). Most sources agree that there are several components to achieving phonological awareness. According Reading Rockets, phonemic awareness is the highest level of phonological awareness and is mastered after the students can successfully distinguish words from each other, syllables within words, and initial consonants from the rime (Reading Rockets, 2023). For example, they should be able to count how many words are in a sentence, how many syllables are in a word, and segment the beginning sound, or onset, from the following vowel sound and accompanying letters. All of these skills cumulate to produce confident and efficient readers.

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Cooley, M. (2024, February 13). Phonemic awareness lesson plans. 95 Percent Group. https://www.95percentgroup.com/insights/phonemic-awareness-lesson-plans/

Harrill, K. (2022, September 23). How to teach phoneme isolation. Sweet for Kindergarten. https://sweetforkindergarten.com/how-to-teach-phoneme-isolation/

National Center on Improving Literacy. (2022). Phonemic awareness: What is it and why is it important? National Center on Improving Literacy. https://www.improvingliteracy.org/resource/phonemic-awareness-what-is-it-and-why-is-it-important

Reading Rockets. (2023). Basics: Phonological and phonemic awareness. Www.readingrockets.org. https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101/reading-and-writing-basics/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness

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This skill is an important steppingstone to achieving phonemic awareness. Students that have mastered the skill of syllables should be able to break a word into its syllables of sound and count how many syllables are in a word (Reading Rockets, 2023). Accomplishing this task makes it easier for students as they continue to break words into even smaller pieces of sound, phonemes. One of the most common strategies for teaching how segment words into syllables is by clapping or jumping along with separate sounds of the word as it is spoken in unison. For differentiation, the words selected could have more syllables for advanced students and less for students that need extra support. Next, since students should already be familiar with rhymes, using poetry is a beautiful way to allow the rhythm of each word to emphasize the syllables for easy identification. To individualize the learning experience for students at different levels and increase engagement, poems can be chosen based on length, word size, and subject. The third strategy for syllable instruction is to have the students feel the syllables by placing one hand under their chin as they say each word to help understand the points of segmentation within the word. This method could be adapted by using mirrors to watch the syllables as they speak for students that may have physical disabilities or struggle with focusing. Once students exhibit mastery by counting and voicing syllables, the next step is to learn onset and rime before moving on to phoneme isolation.

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The skill of phoneme isolation is marked by a student's ability to identify one of the sounds within a word. Typically, a student learns to isolate the first sound, then the last sound, ending with the sound in the middle which can be practiced through the sound game where students find all the objects that have the same sound at the start, middle, or end (Cooley, 2024). The sound game supports the diverse needs of students by being able to be geared toward students of varying levels of understanding by which objects the teacher chooses to include. Another strategy is to use songs that support phoneme isolation. One song that works well for this is the Beginning Sounds Song by Jack Hartmann which is recommended by Harrill who also suggests sorting as a good strategy to teach phoneme isolation (Harrill, 2022). Using songs supports students that learn from hearing or repetition. Choosing a song with a video, especially one with the word and visual cue of the beginning letter being a different color, supports students that learn visually. The sorting game supports kinesthetic learners and also can be differentiated by individualizing which beginning, middle, or end sounds the students are working with plus the size of words that they are sorting. When a student has mastered this skill, they should be able to indicate any sound within a word when asked for the initial, medial, or final phoneme. The next step is phoneme segmentation and blending.

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Beginning Sounds | Beginning Sounds Song | Word Play | Jack Hartmann

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Phoneme segmentation is the ability of a student to break a given word into its phonemes. Three strategies for teaching phoneme segmentation are magnetic tiles, finger tapping, and sound mapping. Magnetic tiles are helpful in teaching segmentation because a word like dog could have one letter on each magnet tile so when it is connected it reads dog, but if you pull each magnet tile apart, the word is visually broken into letters which can help the students in segmenting the word into phonemes. If magnetic tiles are not available, scrabble tiles or boggle cubes work just as well. Finger tapping involves tapping a different finger with each different sound within a word and sound mapping helps the students visualize the order a word needs to go in while they sound it out (Cooley, 2024). Finger tapping combines their thought processes with muscle movement to help them strengthen their memory. This supports the diverse needs of students because any length of word could be used, the students could reuse fingers if they are practicing higher level words. Sound mapping also incorporates a visual aspect to aid learners who need to see to understand a concept. Mastery of phoneme segmentation should look like a student being able to break any given word into its smallest parts of sound. The next step is phoneme blending before the student can tackle phoneme manipulation.

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Phoneme blending is closely connected to phoneme segmentation. It is the reverse process. Instead of taking a whole word and breaking it into sound chunks, the students will take a group of phonemes and say the united word. One of the best strategies for teaching phoneme blending is to integrate the instruction into interactive reading. The teacher can choose a book that is developmentally appropriate for the students in the class and occasionally read a word only using its segmented phonemes and ask the class to blend and say the word together. This supports diverse needs of students by allowing students that need a little help to watch the blending be modeled by their peers. Another strategy is to play "I spy" but instead of saying the colors of things, say what it is in segmented phoneme form like "I spy a /m/ /a/ /p/" and have the students find and say the object. The teacher can select harder or easier words depending on the level of individual students, even calling on specific students with their learning level in mind. Lastly, the teacher could create puzzle words and mix them up, so the students have to look through a list of pictures to sound them out and spell the word in its entirety. This activity appeals to visual and hands-on learners. When a student has mastered phoneme blending, they should be able to smoothly say a word when given the phonemes that it is made up of without too much hesitation. The next step is phoneme manipulation.

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The highest level of phonological awareness is phonemic awareness and manipulation. Phoneme manipulation is the ability to add, subtract, or replace a letter sound in a word to change it to another word completely (Cooley, 2024). For example, if you change the /t/ in stop to /l/ what word do you have now? This skill develops more quickly with frequent practice. One strategy to teach and practice this skill is by playing Simon Says. If Simon has students add, delete, or substitute a phoneme, the students need to say the new word out loud. If he did not tell them to, and they say it out loud, they sit back down for a round. This activity supports diverse needs of students by creating opportunity for scaffolded instruction, and it enhances focus by creating a need to pay attention to be successful in this game. The teacher could also create a show-and-tell activity where students all get the same beginning word and have to find one of many hidden letters from around the room to create a new word, then the students each share the word they made with the class. This strategy supports students that meet the low entry level requirement but also the students that reach the high ceiling by maybe choosing to add multiple letters to their word. Lastly, the teacher could give each student a whiteboard, so that the participation ratio increases. Then the teacher gives them words to write, and practices addition, deletion, and substitution of phonemes. They can easily erase and start over for unlimited practice, which supports the diverse needs of students who get it the first time and also students that need to try again until they understand. A student that has mastered phoneme manipulation can change words by removing or adding sounds and they begin to truly comprehend the necessary literacy concepts for decoding and encoding.