Teaching phonemic awareness is one of the most important tasks for teachers of early literacy classrooms. Most students, about 75 percent, will come into your kindergarten classroom phonemically aware. However, the other 25 percent will struggle. According to Read Naturally, children with phonemic awareness are far more likely to succeed as overall learners, regardless of socioeconomic background.
The National Institute of Health also reports that lack of phonemic awareness is the top cause (90 percent) of reading failure. When students fail to read at a proficient level by the end of the third grade, they are also four times less likely to graduate from high school. As a result, teaching phonemic awareness is a top priority.
However, it has its challenges. Because phonemic awareness is completely related to sound and sound recognition, students who are not in an environment that helps them tend to have a hard time. This includes students who:
- Speak English as a second language
- Have learning disorders
- Do not have exposure to reading or language
As teachers, it is vital that we dedicate time in the classroom to teaching phonemic awareness. Fortunately, it starts small. Phonemic awareness is rather large, but it can be broken down into smaller steps. These steps include word awareness, syllable awareness and rhyme awareness. The more practice your students have with these areas, the better they grow their overall phonemic awareness and abilities.
1. Word Awareness
Teaching phonemic awareness begins with word awareness. Since more children have experience speaking and hearing at least some words, generally, they easily recognize whole words.
Word awareness focuses on word identification. Can your students tell one word apart from the other? For example, take the sentence below.
My dog sat by me.
1 2 3 4 5
Children with word awareness understand and recognize five distinct words within that sentence. To build word awareness, have your students clap for each word they hear in the sentence as you say it aloud.
They also know how to put two words together to create new words. For example, they can identify that the words cat and nap are two separate words, but together they create one new word: catnap. In contrast, they can separate catnap into two words: cat, nap.
Cat + nap → catnap
Catnap → cat, nap
Catnap – nap → cat
Catnap – cat → nap
Once they can handle whole words comfortably, take a step further and introduce syllables.
2. Syllable awareness
Syllable awareness focuses on syllables. Can your students break and segment words into syllables or smaller units of sound? For example, take the word doctor. It has two distinct syllables: doc•tor.
Doctor → doc•tor
Helper → hel•per
Alongside segmenting words, we want students to practice deletion. Here, we ask students to say only one of two syllables in a word. For example, in doc•tor without -tor. Students should be able to say, “doc.” Likewise, if you ask them to delete the first syllable, they can say, “tor.”
Doctor → doc•tor
Doctor – tor → doc
Doctor – doc → tor
Syllable awareness helps students break words down into smaller pieces. In doing so, learning to read becomes an easier and more doable process. Teaching phonemic awareness does not yet deal with letters or print. However, when children do start making connections between sound and text, syllable awareness comes into play. When learning to read, students do so bit by bit, just about the size of a syllable.
3. Rhyme Awareness
With rhyme awareness, first we want our students to be able to identify if and when words sound alike. For example, do these two words rhyme?
land, sand
Yes, they do. Next, we want students to be able to find their own word that rhymes with a provided word. For example, if you say, “up,” students might say, “cup.”
Up → cup
We also want students to be able to think more critically when it comes to rhyming. In a group of words, students should be able to identify the word that does not belong. For example, can they tell when a word does not rhyme with the others?
Tap, Slap, Map, Ant
Awareness has as much to do with identification as it does with distinguishing. Because learning to read is a process of decoding symbols (graphemes) into sounds (phonemes), the more students know how different sounds work, the better they become as readers, writers and spellers.
4. Phonemic Awareness
Practicing and mastering these earlier skills all adds up to phonemic awareness. Here, we want students to get specific about identifying and isolating sounds. For example, take the word jam.
It has three separate phonemes. Can they tell you what they are?
Jam → /j/, /a/, /m/
Now, can they tell you what the beginning sound is? What about the ending sound? What is the sound in the middle?
How about recognizing the same sound in different words? In the word jam, starts with the /j/ phoneme. In the following words, what also starts with the same sound: joke, dance, bear.
Jam → joke, dance, bear
/j/→ jam, joke
Next, what word does not start with the same sound: jar, jet, jaw and plate.
Jam → jar, jet, jaw, plate
/j/→ jam, jar, jet, jaw
How about blending and segmenting phonemes? For example, if you provide the following phonemes, can they blend the sounds together to get the right word?
Phonemes: /b/, /a/, /g/
Blend: /b/ + /a/ + /g/ = bag
Likewise, when you provide a word, can they separate it into individual phonemes? For example:
Park → /p/, /a/, /r/, /k/
Blend: /p/ + /a/ + /r/ + /k/ = park
How about deleting phonemes? When you provide a word and ask to take away a sound, can they give you the correct answer?
Bank → /b/, /a/, /n/, /k/
Bank – /k/ = ban
Now, what about adding a different phoneme at the end? For example:
Bank → /b/, /a/, /n/, /k/
Bank – /k/ = ban
Finally, when you ask to substitute the beginning phoneme, can you give you the right word? For example:
Band – /b/ = and
/s/ + and = sand
When students can do all of these things, they are set up to be successful readers.
How does phonemic awareness play into learning to read? The process of decoding is linking sounds in words to symbols in text. When students have a better grasp on what words sound the same, those same words are likely spelled the same. As they blend, segment, delete and substitute phonemes, students become better decoders—or readers. In short, strong phonemic awareness accelerates the process of learning to read.
Teach Phonemic Awareness with Professor Pup
Teaching phonemic awareness is essential, but it does not have to be exhausting. In fact, there are several different ways to teach your students. At Professor Pup’s Academy, we have programs that are simple to implement in the classroom.
Professor Pup’s Phoneme Farm delivers over 40 unique lessons, each focusing on one phoneme. Students get lots of instruction, practice and encouragement to ensure that they develop strong phonemic awareness. Best of all, the lessons are planned for you. Teachers do not need any additional training, but we do provide resources for your convenience.
To make teaching phonemic awareness simple and effective, work with Professor Pup’s Academy. Please visit our site for teachers for your free 30-day trial.