Phonemic Awareness
What is Phonemic Awareness?
Students need to have a strong understanding of spoken language before they can understand written language. Children need to be able to hear sounds, know their positions, and understand the role they play within a word. The path to phonemic awareness is sequential. As students progress through different phonemic awareness levels, they become proficient at listening for and reproducing sounds they hear, or listening "inside" words. Phonemic awareness instruction helps children understand, use and apply oral language.
The Five Levels of Phonemic Awareness
1. Rhythm and Rhyme
Children at this stage hear, identify , and match similar word patterns.
2. Parts of a Word
Children at this stage begin listening to individual sounds and blending them back together.
3. Sequence of Sounds
Children at this stage focus on specific positions of sounds within a word.
4. Separation of Sounds
Children at this stage focus on segmenting words into individual sounds.
5. Manipulation of Sounds
Children at this stage focus on manipulating sounds within words to form new words.