Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness Resources

Click on each link to see more information from amazon.com.

A Phonemic Awareness Overview:

Phonemic awareness is the ability
- to hear sounds that make up words
- to see relationships between sounds
- to alter and rearrange sounds to create new words.

Some of the most appropriate ways to do this with young children is through songs, rhymes and books.

Children first become aware of spoken words, then syllables, then onsets and rimes and finally individual sounds.

There is a difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness focuses on sound units (phonemes) while phonics focuses on the association to the written symbol. Phonemic awareness must come before phonics.

-from Phonemic Awareness : Playing With Sounds to Strengthen Begining Reading Skills

Phonemic Awareness : Playing With Sounds to Strengthen Begining Reading Skills

This book contains 5 levels of activities to introduce phonemic awareness. I plan to prepare the Level Cards and accompanying envelopes with materials so that my classroom assistants, high school helpers or parent volunteers can easily help a student once I signify the student's level. Blackline masters are included for many word and picture cards.

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children : A Classroom Curriculum

This book is a great research-based resource. There is a range of activities to use with the whole class-from simple listening games to more advanced sound manipulation exercises such as rhyming, alliteration, and segmentation. I plan to use these activities in the same way as Phonemic Awareness: Playing with Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading Skills - by having my classroom assistants use them with individual children. These are also possibilities for mini-lessons during small group guided reading activities.

Fall, Winter and Spring

Phonemic Awareness Songs and Rhymes

(No photo for Winter Book)

These 3 books have accompanying CD's with musical accompaniment for the many familiar tunes that their rhymes and songs go with. They are a great resource for poetry charts in a center, pocket charts and shared reading.

Available from Barnes and Noble (bn.com)

Phonemic Awareness Bibliography

Adams, M.J., Foorman, B.R., Lundberg, I., & Beeler, T. (1998). Phonemic awareness in young children: a classroom curriculum. Baltimore: Paul H. Brooks Publishing Co.

Carr, T., Davis, D., Durr, R., & Hagen, T. (1998). Improving reading readiness and language arts skills through the use of phonemic awareness. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service ED 420054)

Churchill, K., Durdel, J., & Kenney, M. (1998). Hear it, feel it, see it: improving early reading acquisition through a multisensory phonemic awareness approach. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED420049)

Fitzpatrick, J. (1997). Phonemic awareness: playing with sounds to strengthen beginning reading skills. Cypress, CA: Creative Teaching Press.

International Reading Association. (1998). IRA board issues position statement on phonemic awareness. Reading Today, 15(6), p. 26.

Jordano, K. & Callella, T. (1998). Fall phonemic awareness songs and rhymes. Cypress, CA: Creative Teaching Press.

Jordano, K. & Callella, T. (1998). Spring phonemic awareness songs and rhymes. Cypress, CA: Creative Teaching Press.

Jordano, K. & Callella, T. (1998). Winter phonemic awareness songs and rhymes. Cypress, CA: Creative Teaching Press.

Opitz, M.F. (1998). Children's books to develop phonemic awareness -- for you and parents, too! The Reading Teacher, 51(6), pp. 526- 527.

Reiner, K. (1998). Developing a kindergarten phonemic awareness program: An action research project. The Reading Teacher, 52(1), pp. 70-73.

Vernon, S.A. & Ferreiro, E. (1999). Writing development: a neglected variable in the consideration of phonological awareness. Harvard Educational Review, 69(4), pp. 395-415.

Wasik, B.A. (2001) Phonemic awareness and young children. Childhood Education, 77(3), pp. 128-133.

Yopp, H.K. (1995). A test for assessing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading Teacher, 49(1), pp. 20-25.

Yopp, H.K. (1992). Developing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading Teacher, 45(9), pp. 696-703.

Yopp, H.K. (1995). Read-aloud books for developing phonemic awareness: an annotated bibliography. The Reading Teacher, 48(6), pp. 538-542.

This page went online February 2002.