Phonemic Awareness Explained: What It Is & How to Teach It At Home

Phonemic awareness is an essential emergent literacy skill that all children must develop. But what is phonemic awareness, and how can you teach this skill at home? Whether you’re new to this topic or just want to learn more, we’re here to help!


In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about phonemic awareness, including what it is, why it’s important, and how it differs from commonly confused terms like phonological awareness and phonics. Our education experts will also explain how to teach phonemic awareness at home and share five tips for success. Whether you have a toddler, preschooler, kindergartener, first grader, or older child, this guide will help you boost your child’s emergent literacy and language skills.


So, let’s get into it! Here’s everything you need to know about phoneme awareness.

What is phonemic awareness?

First things first, what is phoneme awareness, exactly? Here’s a quick and simple definition.


Phonemic Awareness Definition

Phonemic awareness is the ability to perceive, understand, and manipulate the individual sounds (known as phonemes) in spoken words.


To help make this definition more clear, let’s look at some specific examples that demonstrate this skill.


Phonemic Awareness Examples

  • Recognizing the three individual sounds (phonemes) in the word ‘hat’ as /h/ /a/ /t/.
  • Manipulating the phonemes in a word to create a new word. For example, changing the /h/ in ‘hat’ to /m/ to make the word ‘mat.’
  • Identifying words that start or end with the same sound. For example, recognizing that ‘hat’ and ‘ham’ both begin with /h/ and that ‘hat’ and ‘cat’ both end with /t/.

Phonemic Awareness Skills

There are six essential phonemic awareness skills that your child must master to become a proficient reader.


  1. Isolation - the ability to identify particular sounds in a word. For example, recognizing that the first sound in the word ‘bug’ is /b/.
  2. Blending - the ability to hear individual sounds (phonemes) and blend them to create a word. For instance, recognizing that /k/ /a/ /t/ = ‘cat’
  3. Segmentation - being able to separate a word into individual sounds. For example, separating ‘mat’ into /m/ /a/ /t/.
  4. Addition - the ability to add phonemes to a word to create a new word. For example, adding /b/ to the beginning of the word ‘end’ to make the word ‘bend.’
  5. Deletion - the ability to remove phonemes from a word to create a new word. For instance, eliminating /l/ from the word ‘clap’ to create the word ‘cap’.
  6. Substitution - being able to swap out one phoneme (individual sound) for another to create a new word. For example, swapping out the /b/ in ‘bag’ for /t/ to make the word ‘tag.’


Before we move on to the importance of these skills and how to teach them at home, let’s discuss some crucial distinctions between other common literacy terms.

Parents learning about phonemic awareness using Booka’s reading resources

Phonological Awareness vs Phonemic Awareness

If you’ve previously encountered the term “phonological awareness,” you may wonder - what is the difference between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness? This is a very common question, as these two terms are often confused. Here’s what you need to know.


As explained by Heggerty, the term phonological awareness is an umbrella term. It refers to the ability to understand various parts of spoken words, including rhymes, alliteration, larger word segments, such as syllables, onsets, and rimes, and individual spoken sounds (phonemes). On the other hand, phonemic awareness is the specific ability to identify and manipulate the individual sounds (i.e., phonemes) in spoken words. Thus, phoneme awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness.


For example, a child who can identify the beginning sound of the word ‘tag’ as /t/ has phonemic awareness. A child who can break the word ‘buffalo’ into the syllables buf-fa-lo is demonstrating phonological awareness.


Here’s a summary of the similarities and differences between phonemic and phonological awareness.


Similarities:


  • Involve understanding and manipulating parts of spoken language.
  • Critical for developing reading and writing skills.
  • Focus on spoken language (i.e., the sounds in words) rather than written words.


Differences:


  • Phonological awareness is a broad skill set that involves understanding various levels of speech. In contrast, phonemic awareness is a specific skill that focuses on a single level of sound awareness (i.e., individual sounds).


  • Phonological awareness includes understanding words, syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes, while phonemic awareness focuses on phonemes only.



IMPORTANT TO NOTE: when teaching sound awareness, start with phonological awareness. That is, begin by focusing on the larger parts of speech, such as words and syllables.

What about phonics vs phonemic awareness?

Phonics is another term that is often confused with phonemic awareness. However, there is a significant distinction between the two. 


Phonics primarily focuses on the relationship between letters and sounds in written language. In contrast, phonemic awareness focuses on individual sounds in spoken words. Unlike phonics, phonemic awareness does not involve print (i.e., written words).


Here’s an overview of the similarities and differences between phonics vs phonemic awareness.


Similarities:


  • Involve an auditory aspect.
  • Essential to the development of early literacy skills, including decoding, reading fluency, and comprehension.


Differences:


  • Phonics incorporates print (i.e., written words), while phonemic awareness focuses on spoken language.
  • Phonics involves auditory and visual skills, while phonemic awareness involves auditory and oral skills.



Want to learn more about phonics? Check out our guide to Teaching Phonics at Home. Then, explore the 14 phonics rules your child should know. 



Now that you know what phonemic awareness is and how it differs from phonological awareness and phonics, let’s discuss why it’s important.

Why is phonemic awareness important?

Why teach phonemic awareness at home? Well, because phonemic awareness is an essential pre-reading and pre-writing skill. In fact, according to several studies, including a longitudinal study by Clayton, West, Sears, Hulme, and LervÄg, phonemic awareness is one of the strongest independent predictors of reading development and success.


Children must learn how the sounds in words work (how to identify and manipulate them) before they can read. Written words correspond to spoken words; thus, individual sound awareness helps promote written word recognition, strengthen decoding skills, and improve reading comprehension. As a result, strong phonemic awareness often leads to long-term reading success. On the other hand, children who struggle with this skill frequently experience reading difficulty.


So, how can you teach phonemic awareness? Here’s what our education experts have to say.

Child learning phonemic awareness using picture cards with letters

How to Teach Phonemic Awareness - A Step-by-Step Guide

Teaching phonemic awareness may seem challenging, but with these simple steps, you can easily introduce this skill at home.


When teaching phonemic awareness, it’s important to start with the most straightforward aspects and progress to more complex skills. Here’s a step-by-step roadmap to help you.


1. Start with phoneme isolation.

The easiest individual sound awareness skill to master is phoneme isolation. Start by teaching your child to separate words into individual sounds. The goal is for your child to be able to identify the beginning, middle, and final sounds of a word. 


For example, they should ultimately be able to identify the first sound in ‘hat’ as /h/, the middle sound as /a/, and the final sound as /t/.


2. Practice phoneme identification.

Once your child can isolate the individual sounds in a word, focus on their ability to recognize these phonemes in other words. 


For example, can they tell you a word that starts with the same sound as the word ‘bat’?


3. Master categorization.

Next, strengthen your child’s phonemic awareness by having them practice phoneme categorization. The goal of this teaching step is for your child to distinguish and group individual sounds. 


For example, can they tell you what word doesn’t belong in the following list - ‘bug,’ ‘ball,’ ‘let’?


4. Practice blending phonemes.

Once your child can recognize individual sounds in spoken words, it’s time to teach them how these sounds blend together to form words. A great way to teach blending is to say a word slowly, pronouncing each sound. Then, have your child tell you what word you said. 


For example, ask them, “What word am I saying - /h/-/a/-/t/?”


According to educators, including our literacy experts, blending is best taught in three steps:


  1. Separate words into two parts - the initial sound and the rest of the word. Then, have your child practice blending these two parts together. For example, ask your child what word they get if they blend /tr/ with /unk/.
  2. Separate words into syllables and practice blending the syllables together. For example, practice blending el-e-phant to make the word ‘elephant.’
  3. Finally, separate a word into its individual sounds (phonemes) and practice blending these phonemes to make a word. For instance, ask your child what word they get when they blend /p/ /i/ /g/.

5. Focus on segmentation.

Now, it’s time to focus on phoneme segmentation, or the ability to break a word into its individual sounds. The phonemic awareness goal here is for your child to be able to tell you how many sounds are in a word and what those sounds are. 


For example, ask them, “How many sounds are in the word ‘map’? What are the sounds in the word ‘map’?


6. Introduce phoneme manipulation skills.

Once your child can hear and identify the individual sounds in words, it’s time to teach them how to manipulate these phonemes. There are three phoneme manipulation skills - addition, deletion, and substitution. 


The best (and easiest) skill to start with is phoneme deletion. You can teach your child about phoneme deletion by asking them to say a word and then say the same word but without a particular phoneme. For example, ask your child to say the word ‘brake’ and then to say the word ‘brake’ but without the /b/.


The next best phoneme manipulation skill to teach is addition. Once your child masters this skill, they should be able to add a phoneme to a word to create a new word. Start by asking them to say a word, then to say the word with an additional sound. For example, ask your child to say the word ‘ram’ and then to say the word again but with a /p/ at the end. Eventually, you should be able to ask your child to create a new word (on their own) by adding a different sound to a given word.


The most challenging phonemic awareness skill is substitution. Therefore, you’ll want to teach this last. To do so, have your child practice substituting one sound for another in a given word. For example, ask them, “What word do you get if you change the /u/ in ‘bug’ to /a/?” Eventually, your child should be able to swap out the phonemes in a word independently, creating new words.

5 Phonemic Awareness Tips for Parents and Caregivers

Ready to start teaching phonemic awareness at home? Here are some simple tips to make your job easier (and more fun).


1. Start Early

It’s never too early to start teaching phonemic awareness skills! In fact, even children as young as two to three can begin to understand and produce rhyming words. Recognizing rhyming words demonstrates an understanding that words are made up of different sounds - a basic level of phonemic awareness. That said, structured lessons should typically begin in preschool (pre-k) or kindergarten and continue into grade one and beyond.


2. Practice Regularly (Every Day, If Possible)

When it comes to teaching phoneme awareness, regular practice is a must. While you don’t need to spend hours each day teaching these skills (in fact, this is not advisable), spending 10 to 15 minutes daily is recommended.


3. Make It Fun

It’s also important to make lessons fun! To maximize each lesson, incorporate games, songs, read-alouds, and other phonemic awareness activities.


Here are some ways you can make learning these skills fun.


  • Incorporate sound awareness into storytime. For example, while reading a story out loud to your child:

- Pause and ask them to identify a word's beginning, middle, or final sound.


- Reread a sentence but substitute one phoneme for another and ask your child to identify the change. For instance, if you read the sentence “the bat was wearing a hat,” repeat it as “the cat was wearing a hat.” Now, ask your child what word and sound have changed.


- Point out words that start with the same sound or belong in the same word family, and ask your child to come up with additional words that fit the pattern.


PRO TEACHING TIP: For optimal learning, look for read-aloud books that use repetitive language, rhyming words, alliteration, or word families. Not sure where to find books like this? Check out the Booka reading app for kids for a wide selection of books perfect for teaching phonemic awareness.


4. Use Visual and Tactile Teaching Tools

You can reinforce sound awareness skills by providing your child with tactile tools like objects and pictures that represent the words they’re examining. Visual aids like this will allow your child to connect the sounds and words they’re learning to their knowledge of the real world, making it easier to understand and retain what they learn.


Phoneme counting tokens can also be helpful as a visual aid, with each token representing a phoneme (or individual sound). This can be useful for helping your child count, segment, and manipulate individual sounds.


5. Keep It Short

Sound awareness lessons shouldn’t be too long! Limit lessons and practice to 10 to 15 minutes per day for optimal focus.

Start Teaching Phonemic Awareness with Booka

To start teaching phonemic awareness at home, you’ll need access to lots of age-appropriate reading materials. Luckily, Booka offers hundreds of stories at the touch of a button!


In addition to Booka's vast collection of children's stories, Booka showcases phonemically rich books that are perfect for teaching sound awareness. This includes stories that contain repetitive and rhyming words and books that focus on individual phonemes. As a result, Booka is the ultimate tool for teaching phonemic awareness at home.


But don’t take it from us! Try Booka today for free.

To improve the operation of the service and its interaction with users, we use cookies. By continuing to use the service, you agree to the use of cookies.