What is phonemic awareness? You hear the term used frequently during parent-teacher conferences when discussing your child’s progress in Pre-K, Kindergarten and First Grade.  You are told how important it is for the development of strong reading skills. But what IS phonemic awareness? Phonemic awareness refers to the child’s ability to hear, identify and manipulate, or ‘move around’,’ the sounds of spoken language.

Phonemic awareness refers to to the child’s understanding that words are made up of sequences or strings of phonemes (sounds). A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can make a difference in the meaning of words. Students with developed phonemic awareness skills can judge whether two words rhyme, for example, and are able to  isolate and substitute the beginning, middle and end sounds of a word.  For example, if you ask a child to name a word that rhymes with ‘cat,’ he/she will be able to isolate the ‘k’ sound with the ‘at’ ending, and substitute another sound such as ‘b’. This makes the rhyming word ‘bat.’ Children with underdeveloped phonemic awareness skills cannot figure out that to change ‘cat’ into a rhyming word they need to take off the ‘k’ sound and put in another while maintaining the ‘at’ ending for the rhyme.

Since phonemic awareness skills are part of the foundation  for reading, children who are underdeveloped in this area are not ready to learn skills that build on phonemic awareness  – skills such as reading, spelling and writing. So it’s very important to make sure children are off to a strong start with their phonemic awareness skills.

FAQ: How can I help my child with his phonemic awareness skills?

Response: It’s easier than you may think! Playing rhyming games in the car, for instance, is an effective way to strengthen phonemic awareness skills. Play a ’round robin’ game with everyone in the car..ask “What rhymes with ‘bat?’ and have the kids answer in a turn-taking fashion. In addition to working on phonemic awareness skills, you’re also working on: 1) turn taking  2) improving listening skills (no rhyming words can be repeated so everyone has to listen to each other’s responses)  3) vocabulary  AND it makes the trip in the car go by more quickly.

FAQ: My child can say the alphabet really fast but cannot seem to get what letters go with what sounds. Is this phonemic awareness?

Response: Saying the alphabet is using something we call ‘rote memory.’ It means that the child has been able to memorize 26 letter names that make up our alphabet. This may be useful for learning to alphabetize words, looking up words in the dictionary (when a computer isn’t available!), and singing the alphabet song in its entirety during circle time. It does not mean that the child has an understanding of the the sounds that letters make, identify words that have the same patterns of sounds (as in rhyming words), or ‘move the sounds around’ to make new words. So, while knowing all the letters in the alphabet is certainly a good skill, be careful not to assume that knowing the alphabet letter names automatically goes with the child’s ability to hear, identify and manipulate the sounds of letters.

If this sounds like your child, in Pre-K, Kindergarten or even in the later grades, call CTA for more information on programs that can help your child develop his/her phonemic awareness skills to begin moving forward for success in reading, spelling and writing!