When children begin to recognize that speech is a series of individual sounds, they are becoming aware of phonemes, the smallest units of sound.  Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, isolate, and manipulate sounds in words and sentences.  When children notice that two words rhyme and make up a word to rhyme with them, they are developing an awareness of phonemes.  When kindergarten students are able to clap out the syllables in the word “bumblebee”, they are noticing and attending to the larger sound chunks that make up words.  Finally, when first-graders can state that the word “dog” has three sounds, /d/ /o/ /g/, they are demonstrating phonemic awareness in the ability to segment spoken words into their distinct sounds.

The Importance of Alphabetic Principle Video

Phonemic awareness falls under the broader umbrella of phonological awareness.  Children begin to notice the larger chunks of sound in oral language before narrowing their attention to the phoneme level of the smallest individual sounds in words.  A child will be able to count words in sentences, notice when two words rhyme, discover a series of words may start with the same sound (alliteration), or be able to break a word into syllables before they will be able to blend and segment and eventually substitute individual phonemes. 

Letters vs. Phonemes Video

Phonemic awareness may be the biggest predictor of future success with reading and writing, so it is critical that K-2 teachers help children to develop all of the skills, such as blending and segmenting, that go into a solid awareness of phonemes.  If a child can easily discern and manipulate the sounds they hear in words, it follows that they will have more ease with decoding the sounds of letters when trying to read and encoding the sounds of letters when writing.

What is Phonemic Awareness? Reading Lessons

Important Phonemic Awareness Terms and Assessment

To demonstrate phonemic awareness, a child does not even need to know the letters of the alphabet, but often they develop alphabet knowledge at the same time they are exploring the sounds of letters and words.  Teachers need to know a few key terms to have a full knowledge of what phonemic awareness is.

Assessing Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness researcher, Hallie K. Yopp (1995) created an assessment for teachers to assess young children’s phonemic awareness.  This test can be used with Kindergarten children to determine what level of phonemic awareness development they have reached.  It is not for use with children who are already reading, but first-grade teachers may use it at the beginning of the school year to gather baseline data.  It can also be used with students who are struggling with reading, as there is a direct connection between phonemic awareness and success with beginning reading.  The assessment instrument and detailed information about how to administer it and interpret the results can be found in the article listed in the text box above.

Activities to Build Phonemic Awareness

Critical components of phonemic awareness include blending, segmenting, isolating, identifying, and manipulating phonemes. Blending is the ability to put sounds back together to form words.  Teachers could play a guessing game with children where the teacher stretches a word by slowly saying the sounds and then ask them to guess the word by blending the sounds back together.  For example,

a teacher could say the sounds /t/-/ee/-/ch/ and ask students to blend the sounds and say the word, “teach”.  Segmenting is the ability to separate a word into its component sounds. This is more difficult than blending.  Phoneme isolation is the ability to isolate a single phoneme from within a word (i.e., Can you tell me the sound in the middle of “cat”?  Answer: /a/). Identifying phonemes is the ability to know when words begin or end with the same sound. Phoneme manipulation is the ability to modify, change, or move the individual sounds in a word. For example: “Say the word “mop” without the /m/ sound.” This calls for removing the initial sound, or onset, making the response ‘op’.

Nursery rhymes, tongue twisters, and children’s songs like “Willaby Wollaby” offer great opportunities to help children focus on sounds.  For example, teach children the song, “Row Your Boat”, and then sing variations where you substitute a new ending or beginning sound on “row”.  Reading aloud children’s books that feature alliteration and rhyme is another terrific way to enhance phonological and phonemic awareness.

Review and Questions to Ponder

Questions to Ponder

1. Why do some children have difficulty identifying phonemes, isolating sounds, blending, segmenting, and substituting sounds in words?
2. What are the features of children’s books that enhance phonemic awareness?  Which books should I add to my classroom library and read aloud routine?
3. Is there a connection between phonemic awareness and reading disabilities?

References

Elish-Piper, L., Johns J.L., & Davis-Lenski, S. (2006). Teaching reading pre-k-grade 3 (3rd ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Yopp, H.K. (1992). Developing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading Teacher, 49, 20-29.

Yopp, H.K. (1995). A test for assessing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading Teacher, 45, 696-703.