Phonemic Awareness

What Is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness (PA) is the ability to hear and manipulate the different sounds in our language. Basically that means that kids should be able to hear, put together, and separate the sounds in spoken words.
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Phonics

You may have memories of learning phonics in school and being continuously drilled on letter sounds and spelling rules until you thought you would explode. Or you may be a product of whole language instruction (like me) and have very little knowledge of the intricate workings of our written language - you know how to read and write, but you’re not sure how it all works. It just depends on when and where you went to school. So which way is best? Recent research has shown that along with phonemic awareness instruction, both phonics and whole language instruction is best. You can read more about the differences between the two and why they should work together in this article. Either way, phonics instruction has come a long way since we were in school and there are ways to make it fun! So let’s get started on what you need to know to teach your child phonics.
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Fluency

Fluency … the great bridge. Fluency acts as the bridge between decoding words and comprehending what they mean. But what does fluency mean? Here’s the National Reading Panel’s official definition:

Fluency: The ability to read text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression.

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Vocabulary

Words, words, words! The more words your child knows, the better reader he or she will become. The great news is that you don’t have to wait until your child is of reading age to start building the vocabulary they will need in order to be great readers. This is because there are four different kinds of vocabulary that we use in our lives: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Studies show that children with larger listening and speaking vocabularies experience greater comprehension, therefore success as readers than children with a more limited listening and speaking word bank. This is because a child can know the meanings of thousands of words without having to know what they look like or how to spell them. Once they know the meaning of a word or a concept, they can just attach that knowledge to the visual representations (the words) later on as they are exposed to them in reading and writing. This large listening/speaking word bank helps them be more efficient readers because they don’t have to spend time learning to read the word and the meaning, they just have to learn to attach a known meaning to a new word.
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I’m No Rocket Scientist . . . Yet

Unless you’re like my sister (an aerospace engineer at NASA), chances are that you are not a rocket scientist. Yet according to Louisa Moats, one of the leading researchers on the process of learning to read, teaching reading is rocket science. Huh? How is teaching a child the ABC’s and picture books rocket science?
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7 Common Myths About Reading

Myths run rampant in almost every part of our lives - especially when it comes to parenting and education. Things that have “always been done” may not necessarily be what’s right, and vice versa. It’s important to be able to tell good and true information apart from faulty misconceptions. In regards to reading there are many of these myths. As parents who aren’t “formal” educators, you may not know how to tell whether certain practices are useful or not. So here’s a list of common myths that I’ve come across while working with teachers and parents.
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Rhyme Toss - Lesson Idea #13

You can play this with 2 or more people, but the more the better. So get some friends, siblings, or dad involved and have fun!

1. Sit or stand with players in a circle and have something ready to toss (bean bag, ball, etc.)
2. Say a word like “cat”, and toss the bag to the next person who has to say a word that rhymes like “hat”, then toss to the next person and so on. Switch to a new word when players run out.
3. Sample word lists you can use: (ball, wall, tall, hall, mall, call, fall, all); ( blue, shoe, two, new, who, boo, flew, drew, etc.); (pit, bit, hit, fit, lit, mitt, sit, kit), etc.

• You can make this more challenging for older kids by making the words harder. Sample words: (plate, eight, freight, berate, date, mate, bait, gate, hate, etc.).

Short or Long? - Lesson Idea #12

1. Choose some short words (one syllable) and long words(multi syllable) that show up in books, poems, or songs that your child is familiar with.
2. As you read each word, ask your child if it is a short word or long word. Keep track of what they say.
3. Then write each word and ask them again. Show them the differences between the short ones and long ones. Talk about how the ones that sound longer usually look longer too because they have more sounds to write. Check if they were right on their guesses.

• This activity helps kids with early concepts of print as well as developing their oral language skills. You’ll be surprised by how good they become at this and how it will help them in the future when working with words!

Spell Anything! - Lesson Idea #11

1. Write a word on a white board or other erasable surface and have your child read it aloud.
2. Erase and change the first letter/last letter/middle letter - depending on what letters/sounds you are working with. Ask your child what the new word is.
3. Repeat and repeat until you have a decent list of new words that you created just by changing certain letters.
4. Have your child read the whole list - blending if necessary and then repeating them quickly to practice fluency. You can extend this activity by having them make up sentences using some or all of the words.
5. Sample list:

• start with the word “cup”
• change the “p” to a “t” for the word “cut”
• change the ” u” to an “a” for the word “cat”
• change the “c” to an “h” for the word “hat
• change the “h” to an “m” for the word “mat”
• change the “m” to an “f” for the word “fat”
• add an “s” to make the word “fast”

• You can see how you can keep going and going with this. You can make this as easy or as hard as you’d like depending on what your child can do. Have fun with it!

Stretch It - Lesson Idea #10

1. Tell your child that you are going to say a sentence and that they have to help you stretch it by adding a word to it to make it longer.
2. Then you add another word and continue to take turns adding words until you have a long sentence (that still makes sense).
3. For example: You say ” The kitten played.” Then it can become ” The white kitten played”, “The white kitten played outside.”, “The white kitten played outside with a ball.”, “The white kitten and the dog played outside with a ball.”, etc.

• This game can be adapted for many different ages. You can leave it like it is for younger kids (and keep the sentences shorter) or you can add some requirements to make it harder for older kids. Add things like: “Now you have to add a noun, adjective, pronoun, adverb, etc.” or you can have them write out the sentence when finished. this is a great game for developing vocabulary and practicing extending sentences so that they are more detailed!