When we think of teaching a child to read, most parents and many teachers probably think of letter activities, flash cards, and lots of books. Yet, the first step in a child's journey to becoming a reader begins with sounds not letters. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, differentiate, and manipulate sounds in words. And this skill is one of the best predictors of a child's ability to read fluently. That's why we were so excited to explore strategies for building phonemic awareness with Tami Morrison, an expert educator and reading guru! Listen to the interview below and read on for key takeaways.
Key Takeaways
Phonemic awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness. Whereas the former relates to knowledge of words and word parts, phonemic awareness is all about sounds. Phonemic awareness is the ability to understand that spoken words are made up of individual sounds called phonemes, and it’s one of the best early predictors for reading success. Building phonemic awareness involves learning to isolate, blend, segment, add, remove, and change the sounds (aka phonemes) in words.
Building phonemic awareness is the first step in a child’s journey to becoming a reader. Our brains aren’t hardwired to read, but they are programmed to pick up on sounds and language. With this in mind, if we can teach students to better understand the sounds in words, we are setting them up to successfully make the connection to letters so they can master the written code of language (aka phonics).
It’s never too early to help kids build phonemic awareness. Games that focus on rhyming and beginning sounds are a great way to help young children become more aware of the sounds in words.
There are endless possibilities for how to work phonemic awareness practice into the fabric of the day for kids. It can be done sitting in the car, waiting in line, or walking down the street. It can fit into morning meetings or classroom breaks. And best of all, it can be paired with movement to make practice fun for kids. Tami’s students especially love the frog jump and roller coaster to highlight medial sounds, the cheerleader punch to point out rhymes, and chopping tools to segment sounds. This combination of listening and movement makes for a powerful (and fun!) learning experience.
Some basic exercises to promote phonemic awareness include the following:
Word chains - Manipulate the first sound in a word, i.e. change the first sound in "bar” to “f” —> “far”, then change the beginning sound in “far” to “j” —> “jar".”
Onset - Identify the beginning sound in a word, i.e. for the word “star,” kids would say, “st.”
Medial sounds - Identify the sound in the middle of a word, i.e. for the word “top,” children would say, “o.”
Ending sounds - Identify the ending sounds in a single word, i.e. for the word “said,” kids would say, “d.” Or children might also identify the ending sound in a group of words like “church, birch, search,” kids would say “ch.”
Blending - Kids have to blend sounds together to make a word, i.e. if they hear “c-a-t,” children would say, “cat.”
Segmenting - Kids have to segment the sounds in a word to identify each phoneme, i.e. for the word “black” kids would say, “b-l-a-ck.”
While there are many resources out there for building phonemic awareness, Tami’s two favorites are Heggerty and Kilpatrick’s Equipped for Reading Success. Both offer a multi-sensory, systematic approach for building phonemic awareness in students and include a range of quick and simple activities that can easily be woven into the fabric of any day inside or outside of the classroom!