What is Phonemic Awareness?
Have you heard of “phonemic awareness” or perhaps “phonological awareness?” Maybe your child’s teacher has mentioned it.
Have you been looking for ideas for your struggling reader? Have you been told to “go back to the basics?”
Before a child learns to read, there are certain prerequisite skills he must master. Here are a few helpful terms defined:
“phoneme”—the smallest unit of sound (for example, a /c/ sound—even though it might be represented using a “c” , a “k”, a “ck” or even “ch”)
“grapheme”—the smallest functioning unit of a writing system like a “ck” “k” or “c” would be 3 different graphemes that make the same phoneme sound. Even “ch” can make the /c/ sound.
“phonological awareness”—identifying and manipulating parts of oral language including syllables and rhymes, like Which word rhymes with cat: fat or car?”
“phonemic awareness”—the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds within words: like the /b/ /a/ /t/ making up the word “bat,” and changing the “b” to an “s” and the word becomes “sat.”
Your child learns SO MUCH by just listening to you read and talk with him, singing and experimenting with words in conversation. Maybe you look at those rhyming books for kids and think they’re silly and only exist for entertaining purposes, but they actually DO HELP! Your child learns more than you realize and you might have taught your child some of these skills already, just through your interaction and play!
Some children, however, need FOCUSED PRACTICE time on these “prerequisite skills.”
How do you know what skills YOUR child needs to work on? Try a phonological awareness screener!
You can access a download of a Phonological Awareness Screener here. All the instructions INCLUDING EXAMPLES AND A SCRIPT are easy for you to follow and implement. Just know that when you hit a “snag,” stop the assessment. It means you have found an area in which your child needs practice. You can always pick up where you left off and do NOT need to finish it in one sitting.
Look at some examples from the screener. There are 10 categories, and I’m including 1 example from each category.
WORD DISCRIMINATION (Can your child determine if two words are the same or different?)
“Are these words the same or different?” CRY MY
2. RHYME RECOGNITION (Can your child choose which words rhyme?)
“Which word rhymes with ‘sun’?” CLOUD FUN
3. RHYME PRODUCTION (Can your child make a rhyming word to go with a given word?)
“Tell me a word that rhymes with ‘band.’”
4. SYLLABLE BLENDING (Can your child hear syllables of a word that are spread apart from one
another and push them together to make a word?)
“Put these two words together to make a word.” HEAD ACHE
5. SYLLABLE SEGMENTATION (Can your child break a word into syllables?)
“Break this word into parts.” SUNSHINE
6. SYLLABLE DELETION (Can your child take away a syllable of a word to make a new word?)
“Can you say ‘softly’ without the ‘ly’?”
7. PHONEME RECOGNITION (Can your child say a word that starts with the same sound as the
given word?)
“Tell me a word that starts with the same sound as “dog.”
8. PHONEME BLENDING (Can your child make a word after hearing each sound in the word
individually?)
“What word is this? Blend the sounds together to find out. "/sh/………./e/………./d/
9. PHONEME SEGMENTATION (Can your child change a given word and spread it apart into its
individual sounds?)
“What sounds make the word KITE?”
10. PHONEME DELETION (Can your child leave out a single sound from a word to make a new
word?)
“Say HEAT without the /h/ sound.”
Believe it or not, these types of listening activities can be portrayed to your child as a listening GAME. Be enthusiastic! Give stickers and high-fives!
Remember, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ALL THE SECTIONS IN ONE SITTING. When your child misses 3 in a section, that’s a clue that you need to work on that activity more and practice that skill. You can always set this screener aside and ask the questions in 3-4 weeks until you’ve practiced. Word manipulation (as demonstrated in the screener) is what really helped my children in their reading skills.
You can get this Phonological Awareness Screener below. I’d love to hear how your child did. Maybe you will discover something NEW to work on!
These exercises included in the screener are much more effective than having a child struggle word after word on a book that is too difficult for him. Practice for a few weeks and come back to a book that is a better fit. You can read more about “good fit” books here.
Remember, YOU are your child’s most influential teacher.