As an educator, you’ve heard it one million times: phonemic awareness is important! But why? Why is phonemic awareness important? It feels like it’s “all the rage” right now. But things that are “all the rage” have a tendency to be a fad and eventually fade into the shadows. I’ll let you in on a little secret: phonemic awareness and its importance is actually backed by years of scientific research. And friends, I’m happy to report that it’s here to stay.

What Is Phonemic Awareness and Why Is it Important?

Phonemic awareness falls under the phonological awareness umbrella and is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in words. Phonemic awareness covers blending, segmenting, and addition/deletion/substitution. And it’s a vital skill all readers need to have in their back pocket. In fact, the phoneme unit is the most important skill for kids to know in order to become readers. Yep - those little guys pack a big punch!

A solid understanding of phonemic awareness is one of the most important skills we can equip our students with as they navigate their reading journey. Studies show that a solid foundation of phonemic awareness is directly correlated to future reading success. In fact, David Kilpatrick states that “The most common source of reading difficulties is poor phonemic awareness.” Sounds pretty important, right? But exactly how we teach phonemic awareness and for how long matters greatly.

5 Tips on How to Teach Phonemic Awareness

No need to wait. You don’t have to wait for kids to be masters of phonological awareness (rhymes, sentence segmentation, syllables, etc.) in order to move on to phonemic awareness. In fact, as soon as kids know a handful of letter sounds and have the general gist of phonological awareness, you’re good to go and can move on to focusing on phonemic awareness.
Focus on blending and segmenting. Since blending and segmenting are so important to reading, we need to hang out here as long as it takes for our students to understand these concepts. There’s no need to rush this portion of their reading journey. Students must know how to blend and segment in order to be successful readers. This leads me to number three.
Apply to print ASAP. As teachers, we must apply phonemic awareness to print as soon as possible and as often as possible. It’s wonderful to practice phonemic awareness orally while standing in line, during transitions, and to fill in small gaps throughout your day (read on for some more ideas!). But the true growth comes when we connect phonemic awareness to phonics. So, whenever possible, connect phonemic awareness to phonics. If you’re working on the long /ō/ sound, blend and segment words with that sound. Make your lessons work for you!
Don’t overdo it. Focus on one or two phonemic awareness skills at a time - starting too large has proven to not be as effective. In fact, the National Reading Panel evidence says children had larger success with phonemic awareness when they “received focused and explicit instruction on one or two PA skills.”
Remember the goal: to get our students to be good readers!

So, keeping these tips in mind, let’s take a look at some fun activities that can help us incorporate that ever-so-important phonemic awareness into our everyday classroom routine!

5 Fun Ways to Incorporate Phonemic Awareness Into the Classroom

#1: Add Movement. Movement is one of the best mediums through which you can teach concepts to young kids. They love to move their bodies and work together. When they do this, we provide really concrete examples for them.

Focus: Segmenting words orally
Materials: Moving bodies!
Play:

Have students stand in a line and step out of the line for each segmented sound in the word.
Teacher: “The word is ‘cat.’”
Student #1 steps out and says “/c/”, student #2 steps out and says “/ă/”, and student #3 steps out and says “/t/.”
All the students step back into the line together and say, “Cat!” to blend the word.
Fun bonus: This can also be done with hula hoops (or even colored pieces of paper) on the floor. Students hop into the hula hoops for each sound they hear, and all hop back out to blend the word.

#2: Transition Times. There are countless transitions in a day within a classroom - line up at the door, come to the carpet, make a lunch choice. In this activity, students are listening for the segmented sounds that are being said so that they can blend the words together.

Focus: Blending
Materials: None!
Play:

Teacher: “If you’re wearing /r/ /ĕ/ /d/, please come to the carpet.”
Teacher: “If you’re wearing /b/ /l/ /ă/ /k/, please line up.”
This can be done with names, table numbers, group names, etc.
Fun bonus: If you’re a reading specialist transitioning a small group of students from one place to another, practice blending on the way to another classroom:

Teacher: “The word is ‘dog.’”
As students walk in a line, the first student in line says, “/d/” and goes to the back of the line.
The second student says “/ŏ/” and goes to the back of the line.
The third student says, “/g/” and moves to the back of the line.

#3: Morning Meeting. These set the stage for the rest of the day. Morning meetings provide structure, routine, and consistency for students before the day starts. You may choose to read a book, talk about the day, discuss anything fun over the weekend, and of course, practice phonemic awareness!

Focus: Blending
Materials: A brown bag and some cards pictures on them
Play:

Teacher: “I’m going to pull a picture out of my mystery bag. I want you to listen carefully as I say a word slowly. Then, I want you to repeat it back to me fast.” Then, dramatically (kids love this) say, “/B/ /ŭ/ /g/. Raise your hand if you know that word.”
Students: “Bug!”
Teacher: Flip the card around to let them know they got it correctly.

#4 Snowman. This is perfect for just a few minutes before lunch, recess, or any time you have a couple of extra minutes to fill. It’s played exactly like the game hangman, but you get to choose which object to draw based on the time of year. “Snowman” is perfect for the winter, while “flower” or “ice cream sundae” is perfect for summer.

Focus: Blending
Materials: Whiteboard and a dry-erase marker
Play:

Teacher: “I’m going to draw a snowman. He’ll have ten parts to him. You’ll have to guess the word before I’m done drawing his ten parts.” Think of your word, and then draw the number of lines for each sound in the word. Then, write a small bank of sounds for your students to choose from.
Students: Students guess sounds until they get the word filled in. For sounds they get correct, fill in the sound. For sounds they don’t get, draw a part of the snowman.
Once students get the word, practice blending and segmenting it several times.

#5 Blending Drills These are the perfect way to practice phonemic awareness and phonics. To boot, they’re quick and easy.

Focus: Blending
Materials: whiteboard and dry-erase marker
Play:

Teacher: Write a letter (“s”, for example) on the whiteboard and show it to your students. Ask, “What sound is this?”
Students: “/s/.”
Teacher: Write the letter “a” and then ask, “What sound is this?”
Students: “/ă/.”
Teacher: “Let’s put these together. /S/ /ă/…now I’m going to add another sound: /t/. What does it say now?”
Students: “Sat!”

It’s clear that phonemic awareness should be a vital part of your lessons each day. Explicit, direct instruction in phonemic awareness has endless benefits for students. It’s my hope that this post can serve as a guiding light and inspiration for you as you continue to be your students’ guide on their reading journey. Happy reading!