What is Phonemic Awareness?
Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate the individual sounds, or phonemes, in spoken words. A phoneme is the smallest part of sound in a spoken word. This can be one letter or multiple letters that make up one sound. Phonemic awareness and phonics are not the same thing. However, phonemic awareness sets the foundation for phonics, because children who cannot recognize phonemes will struggle to relate these phonemes to letters in written words.
Research tells us that all students can benefit from phonemic awareness, from young students who are just beginning to learn to read to older students that struggle to read. Phonemic awareness should be taught through systematic and explicit instruction based on scientifically proven methods. Strategies that can be used to develop phonemic awareness include identifying phonemes, categorizing phonemes, blending phonemes, segmenting phonemes, adding or deleting phonemes from words to form new words, and substituting phonemes in words to form new words. Research says that focusing on one or two of these strategies is more effective than using several of them at once. The Dubard Association Method used in dyslexia therapy meets the criteria that has been set by the National Reading Panel for instruction in phonemic awareness.
The following video from Jack Hartmann shows an example of identifying the beginning phonemes in words.