Phonemic awareness is the ability to focus on and manipulate phonemes, which are the smallest units of spoken language.  It is an essential skill that often requires explicit teaching as it is considered the foundation for decoding and spelling.  Students without strong phonemic awareness will not benefit from reading instruction (Allor, Gansle, & Denny, 2006) and often struggle with more advanced reading skills in later grades. 

Typically, much of the work around phonemic awareness happens orally and auditorily and it was thought to happen prior to phonics instruction.  However, the research tells us that we can teach at the phoneme or individual sound early without waiting for other concepts like rhyme and syllables to be fully mastered and that it is beneficial to start incorporating letters in phonemic awareness instruction.  Phonemic awareness instruction can happen concurrently with the teaching of phonics.

Phonemic Awareness Assessment:

Phonemic Awareness Sample Activities:

  • Sound picture match games
  • Sound/Phoneme Wall
  • Sound changing games
  • Drive Through Blending game
  • More advanced activities:
    • Word chains
    • Rasinski’s Word Ladders
    • Word Work from UFLI Foundations program

Phonemic Awareness Resources:

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