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Phonological Awareness | Reading A-Z | Reading A-Z

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Award-winning reading solution with thousands of leveled readers, lesson plans, worksheets and assessments to teach guided reading, reading proficiency and comprehension to K-5 students

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"Phonological awareness," "phonemic awareness," and "phonics," are literacy terms we often hear used simultaneously, and maybe even interchangeably! However, as we work with children, helping them to develop a strong foundation of literacy and language skills, we must realize the important distinction between these terms.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate parts of spoken language. Skills are at a listening/auditory and spoken/verbal, level - NO print - spoken words requiring ears only!

It is a broad term and comprised of a group of skills that progress developmentally, but of course, overlap as children mature. As phonological awareness skills develop, children will begin to attend to, discriminate, remember, and manipulate (segment/blend) words and sounds at these levels or chunks:

Sentence
Understanding that the sentence they hear, "Thecatisfat" is comprised of four separate words "The cat is fat".

Word

Understanding the words "cat" and "fat" rhyme.

Understanding two words become one in a compound word: cat + fish = catfish

Syllable
Understanding the word "cat" as one syllable.

Phonemic Awareness
Understanding and manipulating the three sounds in "cat" = /k/ /a/ /t/

Let's take a closer look at phonemic awareness. It is a specific skill under the broad category of phonological awareness. If we put phonological awareness skills on a continuum, phonemic awareness is the most sophisticated and last to develop.

The following is a list of specific phonemic awareness skills. Keep in mind, all of these are done at the auditory/spoken level, NO print:

Recognize words in a set begin with the same sound (cat, cake, kite all begin with the /k/ sound)

Isolate and say the first/last/middle sound/s in a word (cat begins with the /k/ sound and ends with the /t/ sound, etc.)

Blend separate sounds (phonemes) into words (/k/- /a/ - /t/ = cat)

Segment words into sounds (cat = /k/- /a/ - /t/)

Delete/manipulate sounds in spoken words (What is "cat" without the /k/? - "at"

Basically, phonemic awareness skills include learning how to break apart (segment) and combine (blend) the sounds in words. Phonemic awareness should begin in Pre-K with the focus on the simpler phonemic awareness skills of isolation and identifying beginning and ending sounds. Because phonemic awareness is a more advanced phonological awareness skill, development continues into kindergarten and early elementary.

Why are phonemic awareness skills so important?

Well, children who cannot hear and manipulate the phonemes of spoken words will have a very challenging time learning how to relate phonemes to letters when they see them in written words, Phonics. Therefore, Phonological Awareness skills are foundational for Phonics.

What is Phonics?

Phonemic awareness, however, is not phonics.

Phonics skill development focuses on helping children understand the relationship between sounds of written letters, letter combinations, and words. Phonics deals with written language, therefore we need to use our ears AND eyes, where as Phonological Awareness (and phonemic awareness) involves NO print, just listening and saying sounds and words. To keep this straight in my mind, I think about phonological awareness activities as those which can be completed with the eyes closed, while phonics activities require us to see the written letters and words, so, eyes need to be open.

Both phonemic awareness and phonics are interrelated, foundational skills and necessary for reading. However, it is important to understand a foundation of all phonological awareness skills should built before intense concentration is given to phonics.

The Benefits of Phonemic & Phonological Awareness

PreK is the time to begin to lay the foundation for strong reading skills, and it is important to begin by concentrating on phonological awareness skill development. In addition, if we do not help children gain the foundational understanding of sounds that phonemic awareness brings, phonics (assigning a letter a sound, spelling, and reading) will make little sense. And research supports this.

In summary, Phonemic Awareness is critical for reading. It primes readers for mapping speech to print, connecting sounds with written symbols, and also gives children a way to approach sounding out, blending sounds to make and read new words.

Phonological Awareness Activities & Strategies

In Pre-K, Phonological Awareness skills most certainly need to be taught explicitly, but fun extra practice can be woven in anytime.
Activity 1: Games to Play While Lined Up
Here are a few ideas for some simple games to play while children wait in line:

1. Sentence game: say a sentence, "The cat is fat". Tap the first 4 children on the head as you say each word of the sentence. Ask, "How many words?", four! Repeat the sentence, or say a different sentence, as you go down the line of children.

2. Rhyme game: Say a few words that rhyme, "cat, fat, bat". Prompt children to join in the game. You may need to prompt by saying some initial sounds: /p/ - at, /s/ - at, etc. Include silly words (/z/ - at) and blends (/th/ - at)!

3. My Turn/Your Turn syllable count game: (My Turn) Model clapping/stomping/tapping the syllables for objects you see in the classroom (Ceil-ing, floor, ta-ble, com-pu-ter). (Your Turn) Prompt children to imitate you. Ask after each word, "How many syllables?"

4. Repeat the beginning sound game: /c/ - /c/ - cat, /c/ - /c/ - cake, /c/ - /c/ - car. Prompt children to join in with other words.

The Get Set for School curriculum offers many activities that support early Language and Literacy skill development for children in your Early Childhood classrooms.

Here are some additional sample activities and products to explicitly instruct young learners in some key Phonological Awareness skills.
Activity 2: Discriminate rhymes
Each of the four Mat Man books features the beloved character, Mat Man. Rhyming verses in all the books help children discriminate and learn about rhymes.

Mat Man helps students learn about shapes, professions, rhymes, while expanding their imaginations, exploration, and community awareness.

Click here to see more sample pages from the Mat Man Book Series.
Activity 3: Discriminate between environmental sounds and speech sounds
Children learn important social, math, literacy & language concepts as they move and sing to upbeat songs on the Sing, Sound, and Count with Me Music Album

For example, the song "Syllable Sound Off" helps to develop children's understanding of syllables as they listen for and move to identify 2, 3 and 4 syllable words... all in one song!

Rhymes are taught in a fun playful way in the song "Rhyming Riddles". In fact, most songs on the music album include verses with rhyming words!
Activity 4: Identify Sounds and their sources
The Sound Around Box is a versatile classroom tool that will help you teach early language and literacy concepts in a fun and hands-on way. It provides the opportunity for many group activities which will help children develop important social skills as they engage in multisensory play with rhymes, syllables, beginning sounds, alphabet knowledge, letters, word parts, and test their memory skills!
Activity 5: Develop early language, literacy, motor, and social skills
Line It Up engages children in fun interactive activities that develop early language, literacy, motor, and social skills. The set includes a mountable magnetic display bar to hold the Story, Letter, and Coloring Cards.

The 26 Coloring Cards each have simple picture. The picture can be colored, but also used to facilitate a "Syllable Chant" activity. For example, on the "A" card: al-li-ga-tor.

The 26 Picture Cards can be used for phonemic awareness activities as children name each picture and identify those that begin with the target sound. For example:

Show picture side of Letter Card A. Name each picture.

Alligator begins with /ă/. Say it with me, /ă/, alligator.

Does violin begin with /ă/? No, violin begins with /v/.

Does astronaut begin with /ă/? Yes, /ă/, astronaut.

Continue with banana and apple.

Let children circle beginning /ă/ pictures.

All of the Get Set for School products support a variety of learning opportunities for your developing children. The products and activities highlighted shown here are just a snapshot of the many skills these products can facilitate.

To learn more about these and other Get Set for School activities and products, visit our website.

A-Z for Mat Man and Me

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5 Phonological & Phonemic Awareness Activities

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"Phonological awareness," "phonemic awareness," and "phonics," are literacy terms we often hear used simultaneously, and maybe even interchangeably! However, as we work with children, helping them to develop a strong foundation of literacy and language skills, we must realize the important distinction between these terms.

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This data brief provides a snapshot of key findings from the Fall 2020 PALS assessment period. A report is in progress and will provide additional analyses and context to support interpreting these findings, as well as offer a technical appendix discussing data analysis methodology.

PALS UPDATE 2019-2020

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This data brief provides a snapshot of key findings from the Fall 2020 PALS assessment period. A report is in progress and will provide additional analyses and context to support interpreting these findings, as well as offer a technical appendix discussing data analysis methodology. PALS UPDATE 2019-2020

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This short matching game is a great challenge for digraphs review! Match the letter combination to the picture for easy digraphs practice.

No standards associated with this content.

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Digraphs Matching | Game | Education.com

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Do some quick digraphs review with this short-and-sweet matching game.

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Demolish some digraphs by identifying the correct letter sounds in this silly game! In Digraphs Demolition, Kindergarteners can practice hearing digraphs by busting through the bricks that have the matching sight words on them. Also good for first grade, this word game develops phonological awareness in young readers of all age levels.

Grade

Subject

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Digraphs Demolition | Game | Education.com

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Smash sight words in this fun game that challenges kids to knock out the spoken word with the click of a mouse.

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Literacy Acceleration for Students in Grades Pre-K–5

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Party In The Jungle | Fun Phonemic Awareness Song | Jack Hartmann

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Home | Night Zookeeper - Fantastically Fun Learning

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Night Zookeeper is a children's brand that makes learning fantastically fun and helps kids unlock their creativity. Online reading & writing program, a book series, and a TV series, all for ages 6-12.

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Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle - the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech.

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Please see Starfall's how-to-teach-reading page, Learn to Read with Phonics, Fluency, and Comprehension, and print the Free Phonics Printouts for children. Starfall™ books, games, movies, and songs follow a research-based method of systematic phonics starting with consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. Emergent readers gain confidence as they progress to long vowels and other letter-sound relationships such as digraphs.

Brought to you by Zac the Rat™, Peg the Hen™, and Gus the Duck™.
Starfall™ Where Children Have Fun Learning to Read™

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Learn to Read with Phonics | Starfall Education

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Starfall's movies, games, and ebooks create an environment where children have fun as they learn to read. We use a proven sequential phonics method.

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Last updated on August 25, 2020

I love using books to practice building phonological and phonemic awareness skills. These books provide fun and engaging auditory practice in the form of an entertaining read aloud!

There are so many great opportunities to practice phonemic awareness skills during the school day, but we often pass by them because we are focused on other things.

You can use most books to practice a phonemic awareness skill or two but some are just perfect for adding that teachable moment into your day. 👩🏽‍🏫

These phonemic awareness books are fun for you to read, and engaging for your students! I have listed the skills I practice when we read them in my room but many of them lend themselves to more than one type of practice.

Have fun reading them and take advantage of all of those practice opportunities! #doubleduty
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10 Inviting Phonemic Awareness Books Your Students Will Love

Do you know the difference between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness? I used these terms interchangeably for years, but they're actually quite different. Read this post to learn the difference phonological awareness VS phonemic awareness.

Phonological Awareness Books

Since phonological awareness and phonemic awareness activities build on each other, I like to practice a few phonological awareness skills first.

Even if some of your kiddos have mastered hearing and manipulating words, syllables, and onset and rime, it never hurts to use these phonological awareness books as extra practice!

Sound Discrimination

The marvelous monsters love to show off their skills in a silly talent show. For example, purple Pete wears a plaid pullover and performs a puppet show.

Kids will love listening to the silly alliterations in this book! They practice sound discrimination as they listen for each monster's special beginning sound.

It's important for readers to practice sound discrimination at the end of words, too. Fox in Socks is the perfect book to practice end of word sound discrimination.

Kids are captivated by the fun story and will get plenty of practice with this classic Dr. Seuss book.

Warning: these tongue twisters are no joke! Get ready for lots of giggles as you read them! ☺️

Rhyming

These sheep in a jeep get into some deep (muddy) trouble as they travel. Simple rhymes finish each page in a pattern that is easy for students to anticipate.

This beloved book is a great option when practice rhyming because the story is engaging and the rhymes are easily completed by listeners.

In this classic book, a baby llama walks around asking other animals about their mamas. Each page has a riddle that leads to the name of baby animal. The riddles are rhythmic and include wonderful vocabulary as well.

Kids love to "guess" the animal by completing the rhyme. There are a few tricky ones in there which makes it extra fun!

Mrs. Millie is always getting things mixed up. She mixes up similar sounding words by changing the sounds. It's easy to figure out what she's really trying to say if you can find the rhyme.

Kids love trying to figure out which word she's trying to say. There is a ton of phoneme and syllable manipulation in this book which makes it perfect for practice phonemic awareness skills as well.

Note: This is a whole series so if your kids can't get enough of Silly Mrs. Millie, don't worry! There are more books! 👏

Syllables

Some people collect stamps, but Jerome collects words. He likes all kinds: short and sweet words, two syllable treats and multisyllable words that sound like songs. That is why I love using this book to practice syllables.

We can categorize Jerome's favorite words by the number of syllables and make our own list of favorite words that we have collected, too!

This fun (and silly!) book is perfect for practicing syllables. It tells kids to keep a beat as they hear the different words in the book. There are all sorts of animals sounds to practice on. They will love counting the syllables.

The fun rhythm of this book will have kids begging to hear it again and again. (I can tell you this from experience. 😉) You probably won't mind reading it, either, because it is such excellent practice!

Phonemic Awareness Books

Phoneme Manipulation

This billy sook...I mean SILLY BOOK switches around all sorts of sounds. Shel Silverstein uses common phrases and switches beginning phonemes and syllables around.

Kids will have fun catching the mix ups and correcting them. They also may get a kick out of watching you read it. It can be super tricky to get all of the words out! 😂

The Hungry Thing is...you guessed it! HUNGRY! He points at a sign that says "Feed Me" and asks for shmanckases, but no one quite knows what those are. A little boy figures it out. He wants pancakes!

Kids will love telling you what Hungry Thing wants to eat next as they practice changing the phoneme in the word. It's a win-win!

I like to extend this activity with a turn and talk activity. I ask the kids to change their favorite food into a "Hungry Thing" word. This gives them the chance to practice changing phonemes on their own, too!

One day a rooster on a farm wakes up with laryngitis. He needs to find someone else to wake up the farm. He asks Cow for help. Cow tries to say cock-a-doodle-doo correctly but really has trouble with those phonemes!

This adorable book follows Cow as he switches around the phonemes in that tricky phrase. Kids have fun switching them back to help Cow wake the farm up in the morning. 🐄

These phonemic awareness books are not just my favorites. They're my students' favorite books, too! They love the engaging stories, fun rhythm and questions and answers. I love that they are loving books and we are getting extra practice in such important skills. You just can't go wrong with these read alouds!

What other books are perfect to teach phonological and phonemic awareness? Let me know below! 👇

If you're looking for more opportunities to practice phonemic awareness, check out these excellent phonemic awareness videos!

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10 Inviting Phonemic Awareness Books Your Students Will Love

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I love using books to practice phonemic awareness skills. These books provide fun and engaging auditory practice in the form of an entertaining read aloud!

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Free educational games aimed at children between 5 and 8 years old. Made by a UK teacher with 20 years of experience in education.

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ABCya! * First Grade Learning Games, Ages 6 - 7

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Kids LOVE our free online games! Fly dragons, build dream houses, and explore while practicing addition, reading, and more 1st grade skills. Play now!