Episode 4: Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic Awareness: An Introduction
What is it?: Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in words.
What is it not?: Phonemic awareness is not phonics. Phonics refers to how letters and sounds correspond and how we decode those words.
Why is it important?: Phonemic awareness is important for students to understand phonics. Phonemic awareness helps kids make the leap from sounds → letters → decoding.
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Phonemic Awareness
A students’ ability to manipulate individual sounds in words is a strong predictor of later reading success. Phonemic awareness also aids in vocabulary and fluency. The National Reading Panel found that “students who had a solid foundation in phonemic awareness had improved ability to read and spell in the long run.”
The Scoop:
There are four main categories of phonemic awareness:
Isolation
Blending
Segmenting
Manipulation (adding, deleting, and substituting phonemes)
Phoneme Isolation
Example:
Teacher: “My word is ‘cat.’ What sound do you hear first?
Students: “/c/.”
Teacher: “Cat. Where do you hear the /t/ sound?”
Students: “At the end.”
Teacher: “Cat. What sound do you hear in the middle?”
Students: “/ă/.”
Phoneme Blending
Example:
Teacher: “I’m going to say a word slowly. Let’s see if you can guess what word I’m saying. The word is /b/ /ŭ/ /g/. What word is it?”
Students: “Bug!”
Phoneme Segmenting
Example:
Teacher: “I’m going to say a word and I’d like for you to tap out the sounds you hear and how many. The word is ‘bug.’”
Students: “/B/ /ŭ/ /g/. There are three sounds.”
Phoneme Manipulation
Example of Addition:
Teacher: “Say the word ‘park.’”
Students: “Park.”
Teacher: “Now say the word with a /p/ in front of it.”
Students: “Spark!”
Example of Deletion:
Teacher: “Say the word ‘stop.’”
Students: “Stop.”
Teacher: “Now say it again without the /s/.”
Students: “Top!”
Example of Substitution:
Teacher: “Say the word ‘tank.’”
Students: “Tank.”
Teacher: “Now say it again but instead of saying /t/, say /s/.”
Students: “Sank!”
Phonemic Awareness FAQ’s:
Do students have to master early phonological awareness skills before introducing phonemic awareness?
Nope! Phonological awareness skills (rhyming, syllable segmenting, etc.) is not a prerequisite to teaching phonemic awareness and don’t have to be fully mastered. Blending and segmenting are crucial to decoding and encoding words and therefore should be taught as soon as possible. The sooner these skills can be applied to print, the better.
What does it mean to be “good” at phonemic awareness?
Phonemic awareness is simply the support we give students so that they’re ready for phonics as they decode and encode words. Phonemic awareness is not the end game, but rather, the foundation of reading.
How often and for how long do we focus on oral success?
Oral phonemic awareness is a bit like “primping the pump.” It’s best to view oral practice as a way to introduce students to what they will eventually learn in their phonics instruction. A lesson may go like this:
First, spend a few minutes doing an oral phonemic awareness warm-up such as tapping out sounds, blending, segmenting, etc.
Second, focus on their phonics skill and apply them to print by:
Word chaining
Blending and segmenting words
Substituting
Phoneme grapheme mapping
When is it appropriate to spend more time on oral phonemic awareness?
If you’re transitioning from one reading component to the next, you’ll want to introduce a new concept orally. We do this so that kids can understand a concept orally before moving on to print. Look at it as scaffold instruction.
Example: moving from CVC words to blends
Give students four manipulatives.
Teacher: “Let’s sound out the word ‘glad.’ /g/ /l/ /ă/ /d/.”
Students: For each sound, they pull down one manipulative with your guidance.
Teacher: “Sound out the word ‘brag.’ /b/ /r/ /ă/ /g/.” Then, ask them to look at their four chips and change one sound to make a new word: “Drag.” “Where does the change take place?”
Students: As they pull down a manipulative for each sound, they’ll see the change is at the beginning of the word. Students swap out another color manipulative for the change at the beginning.
Repeat as necessary and do it until students understand it - then apply it to print ASAP.
Additional Resources & References:
Resources:
Phoneme Grapheme Mapping Literacy Center
References:
What Does Phonemic Awareness Mean?
Making the Most of Phonemic Awareness
My Top 5 Phonemic Awareness Activities
**Did you miss signing up for my podcast email sequence? When you opt-in, you get an email each day a podcast is released, plus a portion of an intervention e-book that corresponds to and compliments each podcast’s subject.**
