Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are made up of a series of sounds. It is the ability to consciously hear and manipulate the sounds in words. Most children who develop this skill in the early stages of reading development will read more easily and effectively. Becoming aware of the relationships of sounds in the spoken language will ultimately enable children to use these sounds in reading and written language.

Phonemic awareness deals with sounds in spoken words. It is a precursor to Phonics. Phonics deals with learning sound- spelling relationships and is associated with print. Most phonemic awareness activities are oral.

Phonemic awareness begins with:

1. The ability to recognize the sounds in the environment.

Activity - The child recognizes the sound and can name or find the picture of the animal or object that made it.

2. The ability to recognize words as separate units.

Activities – Build a block house using one block for every word heard.

- Climb a rung of a ladder for each word heard.

- March to each word heard – i.e. trip, trap, trip, trap!

3. The ability to hear rhymes and alliterations.

Activities - The child can identify the rhymes in a nursery rhyme.

- Using the cloze technique the child supplies the missing rhyming word –

i.e.-Five loaves of bread cooling by the door, John took one and then there were__

- The child identifies the repetitive beginning sound: Six silly snakes sell sodas.

4. The ability to do oddity tasks.

Activity- Look at these pictures, sock, sun, man. Which picture name begins with a different sound?

Some easy beginning exercises:

• Sound hunts – find objects in the house beginning with the /t/ sound

find pictures in magazines beginning with the/t/

• Puppet food – Tacky can only eat foods that start with his /t / sound.

Can Tacky eat tuna? Tomatoes? Toast? Marshmallows?

• Sound snack – We can only eat foods that begin with Tacky’s /t/ sound.

We can tea and toast with Tacky. Can we have popcorn?

Other listening games:

• Music box hunt. – Hide the music box and have child follow its sound.
• Guess who called - Another child calls out his name
• First, middle, last – using animal sounds and pictures, or musical instruments the child sequences the sounds that he heard.