Phonemic Awareness

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Phonemic Awareness is the awareness of and ability to manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words (Kilpatrick, 2015). Phonemic awareness is a subset of the broader category of phonological awareness, which is one’s conscious awareness of and ability to “play with” the sound structures in oral language (Paulson & Moats, 2010). Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds-phonemes-in spoken words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become more aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes (the smallest parts of sound in a spoken word that make a.

Phonemic Awareness

Sequencing Phonemic Awareness Skills

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness instruction typically spans two years, kindergarten and first grade. Oral activities in kindergarten focus on simple tasks such as rhyming, matching words with beginning sounds, and blending sounds into words. In first grade, phonemic awareness tasks are more advanced, focusing on blending ('Blend these sounds together 'mmmm-aaaa-nnnn), segmentation ('What are the sounds in man?), and the substitution and manipulation of phonemes (e.g., Change the first sound in man to /r/. What word do you have?').

Phonemic Awareness Development Continuum

Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills


  • Sound and Word discrimination: What word doesn't belong with the others: 'cat', 'mat', 'bat', 'ran'? 'ran'
  • Rhyming: What word rhymes with 'cat'? bat
  • Syllable splitting: The onset of 'cat' is /k/, the rime is /at/
  • Blending: What word is made up of the sounds /k/ /a/ /t/? 'cat'
  • Phonemic segmentation: What are the sounds in 'cat'? /k/ /a/ /t/
  • Phoneme deletion: What is 'cat' without the /k/? 'at'
  • Phoneme manipulation: What word would you have if you changed the /t/ in cat to an /n/? 'can'

Curriculum Maps

Phonemic awareness skills can be taught in a particular sequence that maximizes student understanding and instructional efficiency. Phonemic awareness is only taught in kindergarten and first grade. By the end of first grade, students should have a firm grasp of phonemic awareness.

Curriculum maps list specific skills that relate to each big idea. Each skill can be taught during at an optimal time during the school year.

Phonemic Awareness

Click here for an explanation of how to read curriculum maps.

TIP: Go to the Curriculum Maps page in the Resources section to view and download Curriculum Maps for each Big Idea and grade.

How to read curriculum maps

The numbers in the top row of the curriculum map correspond to the months of the school year. For example, if your school year begins in September, then September would be month 1 on the map. If your school year begins in August, then August would be month one.

The shaded boxes marked with 'X' represent the months in which a particular skill should be taught.

The map can be read using either a 'horizontal trace' or a 'vertical trace'. To do a horizontal trace, you select a skill you are interested in, then trace across the row to find the months marked with an 'X' for that skill. This will tell you which months a skill should be taught. To perform a vertical trace, select a particular month, then trace down the column to find the shaded boxes. The shaded boxes correspond to the skills that should be taught that month.

Phonemic awareness has been shown through research to be the single most powerful predictor of future reading ability in beginning readers.

What is phonemic awareness?

Phonemic awareness is a term that means 'awareness of the individual speech sounds of language'. The term comes from the word 'phoneme', which is the technical term for a single speech sound in spoken language. That's easy to remember if you know that the word 'phoneme' comes from the word 'phone', which means 'sound'!

For example, what are the speech sounds in the word 'spin'? Remember, we are not talking about the letters in the word (i.e. 'ess, pea, eye, owe, en'), but the speech sounds made by the mouth.

Move your mouse or your finger over the numbers below to hear the speech sounds:

Test

Understanding that the word 'spin' is made up of these speech sounds is an example of phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to be aware of and to perform tasks using individual speech sounds in spoken words. For example, if you take the /s/ out of the word above, what is the new word?

The ability to join speech sounds together to make a word (a skill called blending) and the ability to divide words into their separate speech sounds (a skill called segmentation) are two of the most important phonemic awareness skills for students learning to read.

Blending, or the ability to join speech sounds together to make words, is a crucial phonemic awareness skill that helps students to read unfamiliar words.

Segmentation, or the ability to split words up into their separate speech sounds, is a crucial phonemic awareness skill. Segmentation helps students to develop spelling skills.

Phonemic awareness has been shown through research to be the single most powerful predictor of future reading ability in beginning readers. Difficulty with phonemic awareness is a hallmark of the struggling reader.

Strong phonemic awareness skills give students learning to read an advantage in learning the relationships between the speech sounds of the language (phonemes) and the letters and letter patterns that typically represent them (graphemes). This ability helps students to learn to decode written language when reading unfamiliar words (it also helps students to encode words when spelling).

The role of phonemic awareness and its relationship with phonemes, graphemes and letters may be summarised using a 'Word Burger' analogy. We have created a free infographic for you to view and download HERE.

WHICH READING DOCTOR® APPS HELP WITH DEVELOPING PHONEMIC AWARENESS?

Apps for teaching basic phonemic awareness skills

The following Reading Doctor® teaching tools help students to understand the speech sounds in CVC, CCVC and CVCC words (words such as 'cat, stop' and 'list'). These tools are recommended for teaching phonemic awareness skills to beginning readers (aged 4-8) as well as to older, struggling readers. For more information about how each app targets phonemic awareness, please click on the links:

Phonics Graphemes for Beginners

Easily teach children the links between the letters of the alphabet and speech sounds for reading and spelling with phonics.

The Phonics Teaching Tool

Teach students about the relationship between speech sounds and spelling.

Phonemic Awareness Vs Phonological Awareness

Phonics Words for Beginners

Easily teach students to read their first words with phonics!

Phonemic

Apps for teaching students more advanced phonemic awareness skills

Once students have developed basic phonemic awareness skills, the following tools can help you to teach phonemic awareness using more complex words. For more information about how each app teaches phonemic awareness, please click on the links:

Digraphs, Trigraphs & Endings

Phonemic Awareness Definition

Easily teach the links between letter patterns and speech sounds for reading and spelling with phonics.

Phonemic awareness activities

Phonemic Awareness Games

The Phonics Teaching Tool

Teach students about the relationship between speech sounds and spelling.