PHONEMIC AWARENESS is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds/phonemes in spoken words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds or phonemes. Through our activities, the students will hopefully get a strong understanding of the spoken language and how words are made up of sounds.
Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills
- Sound and Word discrimination: What word doesn't belong with the others: "cat", "mat", "bat", "ran"? "ran"
- Rhyming: What word rhymes with "cat"? bat
- Syllable splitting: The onset of "cat" is /k/, the rime is /at/
- Blending: What word is made up of the sounds /k/ /a/ /t/? "cat"
- Phonemic segmentation: What are the sounds in "cat"? /k/ /a/ /t/
- Phoneme deletion: What is "cat" without the /k/? "at"
- Phoneme manipulation: What word would you have if you changed the /t/ in cat to an /n/? "can"