Why Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is a child’s ability to notice, interpret, and manipulate the sounds in spoken language. This begins under the broader umbrella of phonological processing with skills such as identifying syllables and rhyming words. Next, it progresses to blending and segmenting sounds, and finally to dropping and substituting sounds. This is done entirely on the auditory level and does not involve looking at printed letters.

An example of a phonemic awareness drill, practicing changing the second sound in an initial blend, is as follows:

Tutor: Say “cloud”

Student: “Cloud”

Tutor: “Now say cloud, but instead of /l/, say /r/”

Student: “Crowd!”

Phonemic awareness is an essential foundational component to reading. Often kids with phonological or phonemic awareness difficulties skip sounds or syllables that are essential for accuracy and meaning. Without being able to correctly process all the sounds in words, reading and spelling errors occur.

The good news is that students can build their phonemic awareness skills through exercises that target paying attention to all the sounds in words. Color coded manipulatives are used to show sounds that are changed in order to add visual and kinesthetic support.

Engaged Minds incorporates phonemic awareness into tutoring sessions as a prerequisite skill to reading and spelling. It is often the missing ingredient absent in other phonics programs. Boosting phonemic awareness skills makes a tremendous difference in students’ long term literacy achievement.

A girl with brown hair, wearing a light purple shirt, is sitting at a table with stuffed animal toys, including a white bunny with purple ears, a cream-colored dog with a pink collar, and other plush animals. She is looking down at the toys in front of her.

Three glass marbles on a wooden surface, with a person's fingers visible in the foreground.

This student reinforces the difference between /g/ and /j/, by tracing those letters on stuffed animals while repeating the sounds.

Close-up of a young girl with red hair, blue eyes, and freckles, wearing a green shirt with white polka dots. She is resting her chin on her hand, looking directly at the camera with a soft expression, outdoors with a blurred background.

This child develops their phonemic awareness skills by removing a bead to show dropping the first syllable in the word “October,” changing it to “tober.”

By placing a hand under the chin, students can feel the mouth open at the start of each syllable.

A person is placing a photograph of a women's basketball team on a blue carpeted surface. Next to the photograph, there are illustrated images of a yellow tent, a teddy bear, and art supplies including a paper clip, a paintbrush, and a painter's palette with colorful paint.

Sorting words according to initial sound builds phonological awareness and prepares students for reading.