Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is an essential reading skill for beginning readers or struggling readers to develop. Many people don’t realize why phonemic awareness is important, but it is one of the biggest predictors of future reading success.

What is phonemic awareness?

 

Phonemic awareness definition: the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes, or the sounds in words.

Basically, it’s being able to listen to a word and hear all of the sounds it is made up of.

If you are a visual learner, here is a video explaining what it is, along with the other Big 5 reading areas.

 

If you need help knowing which students are struggling in phonemic awareness and how to help them, I have this epic FREE Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet you can download that will make your intervention time SO much easier!

Phonemic Awareness vs phonological awareness

Sometimes phonemic awareness is mixed up with phonological awareness. The two reading skills are very similar, but there is a difference.

 

Think of phonological awareness like a big umbrella category. It includes being able to hear sounds in all forms, including sentences, rhymes, and word parts. Phonemic awareness is a category within phonological awareness, and is only dealing with the sounds that make up individual words.

 

Here is a visual example of the difference.

There are different sizes of “building blocks” that you can use sounds in. It starts out big with sentences, then gets smaller with words, and finally gets to the smallest building block which is phonemes (the sounds that make up words). Phonological awareness deals with all of those building blocks, but phonemic awareness is specifically dealing with just those phonemes.

 

You can be practicing phonemic awareness and still be practicing phonological awareness, but just because you’re practicing phonological awareness, doesn’t mean you’re practicing phonemic awareness. Confusing right?! Kind of like a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t always a square.

 

Phonemic Awareness vs Phonics

Phonics definition: the ability to connect phonemes (sounds) to written letters.

 

The main difference between phonemic awareness and phonics is that phonemic awareness is only dealing with the sounds, no decoding. Phonics is looking at letters and figuring out (or decoding) what they say. A phonemic awareness activity has students listening to and saying sounds, while a phonics activity has students reading sounds. If you’re looking for phonics reading intervention strategies, I have an awesome list of 13 Phonics Strategies You Need to Try.

 

Phonemic awareness is the first skill in the Big 5 Areas of Reading determined by the National Reading Panel to be essential for student success. If you’re curious,  here is a blog post that explains all about the Big 5 Reading Skills and why you need them in your reading instruction. Now, it is important to note that the National Reading Panel that founded the Big 5 Reading Areas, suggested that phonemic awareness is best learned with the support of letters.

 

That sounds a lot like phonics! However, the main difference is that there should be no decoding (trying to sound out the word). Instead, students should listen to the words being said, and just use letters as a SUPPORT, or visual manipulative.

 

For example:

• If you are working on segmenting, you can have a picture of a cat and 3 dots underneath it.
• If students are able to segment the word (say /c/ – /a/- /t/) with just those dots, then great!
• But if that is too abstract for them, you can try writing the letters “c, a, t” under each dot (or use letter tiles).

This gives them a visual cue to help them see the different sounds!

For ideas on how to strengthen phonemic awareness, check out this list of phonemic awareness strategies and activities to use in your classroom.

Why Phonemic Awareness is Important

In one of the studies that the National Reading Panel looked at, they tested Kindergarteners in different reading skills, and then followed them for 11 years. They found that the number one predictor for success in later in their education was how well the kindergartners performed in phonemic awareness.

 

This shows that it’s a crucial skill when laying the foundation for reading success. They noted that it was phonemic awareness specifically (not necessarily phonological awareness–listening to sentences, syllables, rhymes, etc.) that seemed to matter the most. However, if a student is struggling in phonemic awareness, it can help to start with the lower phonological skills using bigger chunks of sound, and then word your way up.

If a child is struggling in phonemic awareness, or they just fall through the cracks unnoticed, you can attempt to move on to other reading skills, but they will most likely struggle in every other area. Being able to hear the sounds in words, take them apart, and put them together is the basis for reading.

 

The study also found that students need different amounts of phonemic awareness instruction. Some students pick it up naturally without much help, while other students needed direct explicit instruction in it. How much practice they get at home made a big difference in how quickly they picked up the skills as well. This is why differentiated instruction is important, to make sure the students are all getting the instruction they need. Tier 2 intervention (small groups) would be ideal for really honing in on phonemic awareness for the students still struggling in it. Keep in mind though, brief whole class practice is still very valuable for all of the students, so don’t skip that!

Phonemic Awareness Skills

Here is a break down of phonemic awareness skills. If you need a more visual chart, here is a free download that breaks down skills in all of the reading areas.

 

Remember, phonemic awareness is the understanding of phonemes, the smallest unit of sounds in words. It deals with each individual sound you hear in a word.

Skill #1: Identifying Beginning, Middle, and Ending Sounds

• The first skill is being able to say the beginning sound in words you hear. It is hearing what sound words start with.

 

• The next natural progression is being able to hear the medial sound in a word (usually CVC words, or consonant vowel consonant words). This one is very important, because it focuses on the vowel sound. Vowel sounds are all very similar, so it is important for students to be able to hear the difference in words.

 

• The last part of this skill is identifying the ending sound. This skill can be tricky for some students as they have a tendency to hang onto the first sound they hear. Say the word slowly for them and emphasize the last sound.

 

Skill #2: Blending and Segmenting

• Blending and segmenting are using sounds together to actually make words. These skills are crucial for sounding out words and spelling later down the road.

 

• • Blending is hearing separate sounds said in a row, and being able to put them together into the word they make. So the teacher would say each sound in a word, and the student would say what word they make.

 

• • Segmenting is the opposite skill. It is hearing a word said, and then being able to provide each of the sounds the word is made up of. So the teacher would say a word, and the student would say all of the sounds they hear in the word.

 

Skill #3: Phoneme Manipulation (Addition, Deletion, Substitution)

• The last skill is being able to hear a word and change the sounds in it. There are 3 different changes you can make to a word: phoneme addition, phoneme deletion, and phoneme substitution.

 

• • Phoneme addition is adding a sound into a word. The teacher says a word and asks the students to add a sound somewhere in the word.

 

• • Phoneme deletion is taking away a sound in a word. The teacher says a word and asks the students to say the word without one of the sounds.

 

• • Phoneme substitution is changing one of the sounds in a word. The teacher says a word and asks students to change one of the sounds to a different sound to make a new word.

 

Phonemic Awareness Examples

Example #1: Identifying Beginning, Middle, and Ending Sounds

Teacher: “What is the first sound you hear in the word ‘hen’?”

Student: “/h/”

 

Teacher: “What sound do you hear in the middle of the word ‘jog’?”

Student: “/o/”

 

Teacher: “What is the very last sound you hear in the word “bed”?

Student: “/d/”

 

#2: Blending Sounds to Make Words

Teacher: “Blend these sounds together to make a word. /r/-/u/-/n/”

Student: “run”

 

Example #3: Segmenting Words into Sounds

Teacher: “Say all of the sounds you hear in the word ‘glass’.”

Student: “/g/-/l/-/a/-/s/”

 

Example #4: Phoneme Addition

Teacher: “What is the word ‘pan’ with a /t/ added at the end?”

Student: “pant”

 

#5: Phoneme Deletion

Teacher: “What is the word “steal” without the /t/”

Student: “seal”

 

#6: Phoneme Substitution

Teacher: “Listen to the word: ‘bag’. Change the /a/ to an /u/.”

Student: “bug”

 

I hope the concept of phonemic awareness is clear to you now, and that you have plenty of ideas you can use to guide your reading instruction! If you have students struggling with these skills, you’re going to want to check out my Phonemic Awareness Intervention Binder, which has tons of activities that help build this foundational skill.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with how to help your readers in so many different areas, do yourself a favor and go read this post on The Key to Stress-Free Reading Intervention to simplify your life and make reading intervention easier.

 

And as always, happy teaching and happy reading!