Phonemic awareness is the ability to distinguish sounds in spoken language, important for early literacy. It precedes phonics and helps children identify sounds represented by letters. Exercises like rhyming words and sound identification can help increase awareness, which is taught and assessed in kindergarten and primary classes. Early learning of letter names and sounds can improve reading skills.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to distinguish sounds, or phonemes, in spoken language in relation to written language. Phonemic awareness is not the same as phonics, but rather a precursor to understanding phonics, which is like a code for learning to spell written words. This awareness is considered extremely important in the early stages of literacy and has been studied closely as it applies to early childhood education and the development of literacy skills.
Researchers determined that this awareness is important because it prompts readers to become aware of the sounds represented by the letters and helps beginning readers better identify with the alphabet. The English alphabet consists of 26 letters, but there are well over 26 sounds in the English language, each represented in print by a single letter or group of letters. Phonemic awareness is the auditory process of identifying sounds so that printed letters can later be matched to their correct sounds.
In the kindergarten and primary classes of many schools, phonemic awareness is taught and assessed as part of the learning to read process. To teach this awareness, children are introduced to the individual sounds of many different words before being introduced to syllables. In other words, even though the word “hat” has only one syllable, it has three different sounds: /h/ /a/ (short) /t/. Children who are taught to listen and can hear different sounds early on have been shown to become stronger readers.
There are many different exercises that can be done to help increase phonemic awareness. Working with rhyming words like “hat” and “cat” and words that start with the same sound like “cat” and “car” can help children identify auditory differences and similarities. Awareness assessment usually begins in kindergarten, but sometimes as early as kindergarten. Teachers often present children with individual letters to see if they know the sound or sounds the letter makes.
To help your child learn to read better, help him increase his phonemic awareness early on. Many children as young as two can begin learning the names and sounds of the letters. Even though a child can pronounce the sounds, the sounds themselves and their association with the letters must be taught. The earlier a child gets started, the better their chances are of becoming strong readers later in life.
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