Introduction
Phonemic Awareness: Read Me First
Meet Marta
This is Marta. Marta has struggled with reading since childhood. She specifically has trouble understanding the connection between sounds and letters in print. Marta also finds it difficult to perceive similar sounds in different words.
Paragraph 2
People who aren’t phonemically aware can perceive the words but aren’t aware of the individual phonemes (the smallest units of sound in spoken language) that make up words. They don’t understand questions like “What sound does this word begin with?” or “What vowel sound do you hear in the middle of the word?” because they don’t perceive the individual sounds in a word.
Paragraph 6
It’s important for you and your learner to know that the reason to develop phonemic awareness is because it’s a necessary step for using phonics to decode words when she’s reading and to encode words when she’s spelling. Being phonemically aware allows learners to successfully engage in phonics activities, which is an important way to identify words they don’t recognize.
Phonemic Awareness: Tutoring Tips
When you’re working with your learner on phonemic awareness, keep these important tips in mind:
Focus on 1 or 2 types of phonemic awareness tasks at a time. Practicing more than two at a time can be overwhelming and confusing for a learner.
Pay special attention to segmenting and blending. These are the phonemic awareness tasks your learner needs to read (decode) and spell (encode).
Phonemic Awareness: How can I know if my learner needs phonemic awareness practice?
More Examples of the Six Phonemic Awareness Tasks for Assessment and Instruction
2. Phoneme Identity Tell me the sound that is the same in pat, pin and pup. (/p/) Tell me the sound that is the same in fog, fun and fit. (/f/)
Phonemic Awareness: How can I start teaching my learner phonemic awareness?
Blending is listening to a sequence of separately spoken sounds and combining them to form a recognizable word. This is the skill your learner will use to read or decode words.
Segmenting is breaking a word into its individual sounds by tapping out or counting the sounds or by pronouncing and positioning a colored marker (like different colored blocks or pens) for each sound. This is the skill your learner will use to spell or encode words.
Six Phonemic Awareness Tasks
The Six Phonemic Awareness Tasks Video
Recognizing the /s/ Sound Video
Phonemic Awareness: How can I help my learner perceive the different sounds that make up a word?
Paragraph 4
Research tells us that it can also be effective to teach phonemic awareness using letters to reinforce the relationship between the letter names and the sounds they make. You can do this using Scrabble tiles (without the board), letter cards, or plastic letters from a teacher supply store. If your learner is a tactile learner, manipulating the letters with her hands on a table will help her take in, process and remember the skills she’s practicing. Hands on activities are always a great way to reinforce the learning that’s happening visually and auditorily. Click on the second Resource below for a text example of using letter cards with your learner, or click on the third Resource to see a video example.
Demonstration Video
Watch a tutor and student will practice the phonemic awareness task of Phoneme Isolation: recognizing individual sounds in words (Part 1 of 6 parts).
Practicing Phonemic: Isolation Using Colors [PDF]
This activity will help your learner perceive that there are three individual sounds that join together to form the three-letter word pod. You can continue with this type of letter and word play and mixing and matching a variety of different sounds by changing the beginning, middle and end sounds. As your learner improves her skills, you can introduce increasingly challenging sounds and words.
Phonemic Isolation: Using Letter Cards [PDF]
Last paragraph
Tutor: Right! Here’s the last one. What is the middle sound in tot? Learner: tot /o/ Tutor: Very good! We’ll keep practicing until you can tell me the sounds in each word without even thinking about it.
Phonemic Awareness: How can I help my learner recognize the same sound in different words?
Paragraph 4
Research tells us that it can also be effective to teach phonemic awareness using letters to reinforce the relationship between the letter names and the sounds they make. You can do this using Scrabble tiles (without the board), letter cards, or plastic letters from a teacher supply store. If your learner is a tactile learner, manipulating the letters with her hands on a table will help her take in, process and remember the skills she’s practicing. Hands on activities are always a great way to reinforce the learning that’s happening visually and auditorily.
Demonstration Video
Watch a tutor and student practice the phonemic awareness task of Phoneme Identity: recognizing the common sound in different words (Part 2 of 6 parts).
Practicing Phoneme Identity Using Colors [PDF]
Practicing Phoneme Identity Using Letter Cards [PDF]
Phonemic Awareness: How can I help my learner recognize a pattern in order to identify which word doesn't belong in a list of words?
Paragraph 4
Research tells us that it can also be effective to teach phonemic awareness using letters to reinforce the relationship between the letter names and the sounds they make. You can do this using Scrabble tiles (without the board), letter cards, or plastic letters from a teacher supply store. If your learner is a tactile learner, manipulating the letters with her hands on a table will help her take in, process and remember the skills she’s practicing. Hands on activities are always a great way to reinforce the learning that’s happening visually and auditorily.
Demonstration Video
Watch a tutor and student practice the phonemic awareness task of Phoneme Categorization: recognizing the word with the odd sound in a sequence of three or four words (Part 3 of 6 parts).
Practicing Phonemic Categorization: Using Colors [PDF]
To show that the word mop doesn’t belong with two words that begin with the /s/ sound (sit and sag), you can use a red marker to represent the sound /s/, a green marker to represent the sound /p/, a turquoise one to represent /m/, an orange one to represent /t/, and a purple one to represent /g/. You can also use a blue marker to represent /i/, yellow to represent /a/ and black to represent /o/. As you say each sound in each word, lay a colored marker on the table to show your learner that it is represented by a specified color. Be sure that only one letter in each word is the same!
This activity will help your learner perceive that the first two words (sit and sag) belong in the sequence because both words have the red marker representing their common first sound /s/.
Practicing Phonemic Categorization: Using Letter Cards [PDF]
Phonemic Awareness: How can I help my learner put sounds together to make words?
Fourth Paragraph
Research tells us that it can also be effective to teach phonemic awareness using letters to reinforce the relationship between the letter names and the sounds they make. You can do this using Scrabble tiles (without the board), letter cards, or plastic letters from a teacher supply store. If your learner is a tactile learner, manipulating the letters with her hands on a table will help her take in, process and remember the skills she’s practicing. Hands on activities are always a great way to reinforce the learning that’s happening visually and auditorily. Click on the second Resource below for a text example of using letter cards with your learner, or click on the third Resource to see a video example.
Practicing Phoneme Blending: Using Colors [PDF]
Practicing Phoneme Blending: Using Letter Cards [PDF]
Learner: /p/ /o/ /d/ pod Tutor: Great! Please take away the d and replace it with a t. Sound it out. What word do you have?
Phonemic Awareness: How can I help my learner break down words into individual sounds?
Paragraph 1
Your learner has particular trouble with the task of phoneme segmentation or breaking a word into its individual sounds. This is done by tapping out or counting the sounds or by pronouncing and positioning a marker for each sound. Your learner may have trouble telling you how many sounds are in the word pet. She perceives the word pet as a whole, but doesn’t perceive that the individual sounds that pet is made from are /p/ /e/ /t/. The ability to break down words into individual sounds is an important aspect of phonemic awareness that is required for using phonics to decode words.
Paragraph 4
Research tells us that it can also be effective to teach phonemic awareness using letters to reinforce the relationship between the letter names and the sounds they make. You can do this using Scrabble tiles (without the board), letter cards, or plastic letters from a teacher supply store. If your learner is a tactile learner, manipulating the letters with her hands on a table will help her take in, process and remember the skills she’s practicing. Hands on activities are always a great way to reinforce the learning that’s happening visually and auditorily. Click on the second Resource below for a text example of using letter cards with your learner, or click on the third Resource to see a video example.
