Phonemic awareness is the understanding that speech is composed of a series of individual sounds (called phonemes) that make up spoken words; the awareness of phonemes, discrete individual sounds, that correspond to individual letters. This understanding is essential to learning to read an alphabetic language. In teaching phonemic awareness, the focus of all activities is on the sounds of words not on spelling.

One reason why the Student Services Team is so interested in phonemic awareness is that research indicates that it is the best predictor of the ease of early reading acquisition, better even than IQ, vocabulary or listening comprehension. Once beginning readers have some awareness of phonemes and their corresponding graphic representations, research shows that further reading instruction heightens their awareness of language. Phonemic awareness is both a prerequisite for and a consequence of learning to read.

The Student Services team does daily activities that support phonemic awareness development. Activities such as:

Here are some activities that you can do at home to reinforce what is happening in your child’s classroom. We hope this is a positive and fun time with your child. These activities are intended to be done orally and for short periods of time (5 minutes). For example, while you in the car, in the bathtub, waiting in line at Park N Shop, etc.

Have your child close his/her eyes and listen for three sounds you make. For example, you clap your hands, snap fingers, and stomp feet. Tell your child to open his/her eyes and ask, “First you heard _____, in the middle you heard ______, and last you heard______.”

 Continue the listening game using animal sounds (moo, oink, quack), color words, sounds of alphabet “b-a-t”.

Play “Word Clap” with your child. You say “sailboat”. Your child says (while clapping) “sail …..boat” clap two times for the two parts. Other words you could try: playground, sandbox, crayons, classroom, bedroom, kitchen, paper, etc. Once your child has mastered two syllable part words, try three syllables.

Play a sound guessing game with consonants. (g, d, f, b, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, z).

Questions? Please contact the Student Services Center.
Last updated: December 08, 2000.