Phonemic Awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken word. This is done strictly "through the ear," not sound/letter associations.
1. Avoid utilizing more than two instructional strategies in the same day.
2. Small group instruction is most effective.
3. Avoid inconsistent or incorrect pronunciation when doing segmentation (say “t” instead of “tuh”).
Effective phonemic awareness instruction teaches children to notice, think about, and work with (manipulate) sounds in spoken language. Teachers use many activities to build phonemic awareness, including:
1. Isolate Phonemes (Early readers)
Children recognize individual sounds in a word.
Teacher: What is the first sound in man?
Children: The first sound in van is /m/.
2. Identify Phonemes (Early readers)
Children recognize the same sounds in different words.
Teacher: What sound is the same in mix, man, and move?
Children: The first sound is /m/.
3. Categorize phonemes (Early readers)
Children recognize the word in a set of three or four words that has the "odd" sound.
Teacher: Which word doesn't belong? car, cat, mat. Children: Mat does not belong.
4. Blend phonemes (Early readers)
Children listen to a sequence of separately spoken phonemes, and then combine the phonemes to form a word. Then they write and read the word.
Teacher: What word is /c/ /a/ /n/?
Children: /c/ /a/ /n/ is can.
5. Segment phonemes (Early readers)
Children break apart words into its separate sounds, saying each sound as they tap out or count it. Then they write and read the word.
Teacher: How many sounds are in park?
Children: /p/ /a/ /r/ /k/. Four sounds.
6. Delete phonemes (Early and Transitional readers)
Children recognize the word that remains when a phoneme is removed from another word.
Teacher: What is smile without the /s/?
Children: Smile without the /s/ is mile.
7. Add phonemes (Early and Transitional Readers)
Children make a new word by adding a phoneme to an existing word.
Teacher: What word do you have if you add /s/ to the beginning of park?
Children: Spark.
8. Substitute phonemes (Early and Transitional readers)
Children substitute one phoneme for another to make a new word.
Teacher: The word is rug. Change /g/ to /n/. What's the new word?
Children: Run.
9. Rhyming (All readers)