Phonemic Awareness

Why Phonological Awareness Is Important for Reading and Spelling

By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (2008)

Phonological awareness is critical for learning to read any alphabetic writing system. And research shows that difficulty with phoneme awareness and other phonological skills is a predictor of poor reading and spelling development.

Musical Training Helps Language Processing, Studies Show

By: Lisa Trei (2005)

In what will be music to the ears of arts advocates, researchers for the first time have shown that mastering a musical instrument improves the way the human brain processes parts of spoken language.

Phonemic Activities for the Preschool or Elementary Classroom

By: Marilyn J. Adams, Barbara Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, and Terri Beeler (2004)

Activities that stimulate phonemic awareness in preschool and elementary school children are one sure way to get a child ready for reading! Here are eight of them from expert Marilyn Jager Adams.

Phonemic Awareness: Watch & Learn

By: Reading Rockets (2004)

The following are four short video clips that offer you the chance to watch and learn effective phonemic awareness activities. The video clips are from Reading Rockets' PBS television series Launching Young Readers.

Speech Sounds: Watch & Learn

By: Reading Rockets (2004)

The following are four short video clips that offer you the chance to watch and learn effective speech sound activities. The video clips are from Reading Rockets' PBS television series Launching Young Readers.

Speech Sounds: An Introduction

By: Reading Rockets (2004)

The English alphabet has 26 letters that are used individually in various combinations to represent between 42 and 44 different speech sounds!

English Language Learners and the Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction

By: Beth Antunez (2002)

Find out how teachers can play to the strengths and shore up the weaknesses of English Language Learners in each of the Reading First content areas.

The Phive Phones of Reading

By: Sebastian Wren (2002)

Who can understand all the jargon that's being tossed around in education these days? Consider all the similar terms that have to do with the sounds of spoken words – phonics, phonetic spelling, phoneme awareness, phonological awareness, and phonology – all of them share the same "phon" root, so they are easy to confuse, but they are definitely different, and each, in its way, is very important in reading education.

The Alphabetic Principle

By: Texas Education Agency (2002)

Children's knowledge of letter names and shapes is a strong predictor of their success in learning to read. Knowing letter names is strongly related to children's ability to remember the forms of written words and their ability to treat words as sequences of letters.

Phonemic Awareness: An Introduction

By: Partnership for Reading (2001)

Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify, hear, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words. Manipulating the sounds in words includes blending, stretching, or otherwise changing words.

Literacy Milestones: Age 6

By: Andrea DeBruin-Parecki, Kathryn Perkinson, and Lance Ferderer (2000)

Identifying a reading problem is a challenge without a sense for what typical literacy development looks like. Find out what language accomplishments are typical for most children at age six.

Literacy Milestones: Age 5

By: Andrea DeBruin-Parecki, Kathryn Perkinson, and Lance Ferderer (2000)

Identifying a reading problem is a challenge without a sense for what typical literacy development looks like. Find out what language accomplishments are typical for most children at age five.

Phonemic Awareness Instruction

By: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000)

Alphabetics is a term for the letter-sound elements of learning to read, including phonemic awareness and phonics. In this summary, find out what practices for teaching alphabetics have been proven effective by research.

Teaching Phonemic Awareness, Letter Knowledge, and Concepts of Print

By: Learning First Alliance (2000)

Early skills in alphabetics serve as strong predictors of reading success, while later deficits in alphabetics is the main source of reading difficulties. This article argues the importance of developing shills in alphabetics, including phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and concepts of print.

Tuning In to the Sounds in Words

By: Bruce Murray (1999)

Thinking about the sounds in words is not natural, but it can be fun. Here are some games children can play to develop phonemic awareness, as well as a method for segmenting words that prevents children from distorting the pronunciation of the phonemes.

Making Friends With Phonemes

By: Bruce Murray (1999)

Phoneme awareness is the ability to identify phonemes, the vocal gestures from which words are constructed, when they are found in their natural context as spoken words. Children need phoneme awareness to learn to read because letters represent phonemes in words.

Teaching Alphabetics to Kids Who Struggle

By: Mary Fitzsimmons (1998)

This article describes two processes that are essential to teaching beginning reading to students with learning disabilities: phonological awareness and word recognition, and provides tips for teaching these processes to students.

What Kids Should Know Before Entering First Grade

By: Learning First Alliance (1998)

The foundations for reading success are formed long before a child reaches first grade.

Straight Talk About Reading

By: Susan Hall and Louisa Moats (1998)

Early experiences with sounds and letters help children learn to read. This article makes recommendations for teaching phonemic awareness, sound-spelling correspondences, and decoding, and includes activities for parents to support children's development of these skills.

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children

By: Marilyn J. Adams, Barbara Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, and Terri Beeler (1998)

Research shows that the very notion that spoken language is made up of sequences of little sounds does not come naturally or easily to human beings. The small units of speech that correspond to letters of an alphabetic writing system are called phonemes. Thus, the awareness that language is composed of these small sounds is termed phonemic awareness.