Developing Phonemic Awareness

Developing Phonemic Awareness 

Phonemic awareness (the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in words)  and alphabet recognition are two important predictors of early reading success.  A summary of the five stages of phonemic awareness follows.  In addition, you will find suggested activities on the following pages that you can use with your child.  Just pick and choose the activities you like.  Have fun sharing them with your child!
 
 
Stage 1: Rhyming and Alliteration
The focus is on helping children hear and appreciate rhymes (fat cat or silly Billy) and alliterations (i.e. sad Sally or little Lauren).
        
Stage 2: Word Parts
Children begin to listen to sound units within words.  They identify some words that end or begin with a specific letter (i.e. What are some words that end with “b”?  What are some words that begin with “t”?). They learn to listen and identify how many syllables a word has.  They clap their hands for each syllable.  For example, they clap once for play and twice for baby.
 
Stage 3: Sound Positions
Children are exposed to the positional nature of individual sounds within a word, that is what sound comes at the beginning of a word, what sound comes in the middle of a word, and what sound comes at the end of a word.  For example, what sound do you hear at the beginning of bear?  What sound do you hear at the middle of hat?  What sound do you hear at the end of cap?
 
Stage 4: Sound Separation
This is the opposite of Stage 2.  In this stage, individual sounds within a word are identified.  Children are required to separate the sounds in a word.  First they engage in activities that provide opportunities to count the number of sounds within a word.  For example, ask your child the number of sounds he hears in my (2) or leg (3) or home (3). Then ask your child to find a word with two or three sounds.
 
Stage 5:  Sound Manipulation
Children are provided with numerous opportunities to manipulate, rearrange, resequence, and reconfigure sounds. They can add sounds to words, delete sounds from other words, rearrange sounds in some words to create new words and move sounds around to invent new formations.  For example, say the following works without the “c” cat, cap, Vic. Add “h” to at and you get “hat”.  Or take the “s” from smile and you get mile.
 
It is not necessary for a child to master one stage before being introduced to the next.  However, some degree of familiarity is needed before progressing to the next stage.  
 
 
(Chall & Popp, 1996; Beck & Juel, 1995; Stanovich, 1992; and Adams, 1990)