Concepts of Phonemic Awareness

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Phonemic awareness encompasses the following concepts. These concepts should be the focus of your instruction.

Rhyming
This is one of the first concepts of phonemic awareness that students easily learn. Rhyming is the ability to hear two words that end the same way. Listening to and saying nursery rhymes or repetitive rhyming refrains helps students hear rhyme. At later stages, they are able to produce the rhyming word.

Books that promote rhyming:

Brown, Margaret Wise. 1994. Four Fur Feet. New York: Hyperion.

Fox, Mem. 1986. Zoo Looking. New York: Scholastic.

Galdone, Paul. 1986. Three Little Kittens. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Guarino, Deborah. 1989. Is Your Mama a Llama? New York: Scholastic.

Lewison, Wendy. 1992. Buzz Said the Bee. New York: Scholastic.

Martin, Bill, J. and Archambault, John. 1989. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. New York: Scholastic.

Matching sounds
Students are able to listen for words that start with the same beginning sound. This is called alliteration. Bee and buzz start the same way but monkey and bat do not.

Books that support alliteration:

Obligado, Lilian. 1983. Faint Frogs Feeling Feverish and Other Terrifically Tantalizing Tongue Twisters. New York: Viking.

Kirk, David. 1998. Miss Spider's ABC. New York: Scholastic.

Sendak, Maurice. 1990. Alligators All Around: An Alphabet. New York: Harper Trophy.

Seuss, Dr. 1963. Dr. Seuss's ABC. New York: Random House

Shaw, Nancy. 1989. Sheep on a Ship. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Segmenting sounds in words
This occurs when students are to separate the sounds they hear by phonemes (mom into /m/o/m/), syllables (robin into rob-in), or onsets and rimes (like into /l/ike/). Children who are able to segment sounds can begin to learn to write the letters for the sounds they hear.

Books that support phoneme segmentation:

Martin, Bill, Jr. 1974. Sounds of a Powwow. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

Showers, Paul. 1991. The Listening Walk. New York: HarperTrophy.

Blending sounds to make words
Blending requires that students put speech sounds together to make a word. An example of this is blending the phonemes /d/a/d to make dad or blending the onset and rime /h/op/ to make hop.

Books that support blending/sound manipulation:

Cowley, Joy. 1996. Annabel. Bothell, WA: Wright Group.

Plater, I. 1998. Jolly Olly. Crystal Lake, IL: Rigby.

Prelutsky, Jack. 1982. The Baby Uggs Are Hatching. New York: Mulberry.

Seuss, Dr. 1965. Fox in Socks. New York: Random House.

Wood, Audrey. 1992. Silly Sally. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace.

Substituting phonemes
Students are able to change one phoneme to another to make a new word. For examplem, the p in pig can be changed to a w to make the new word wig.

Books that support phoneme substitution:

Martin, Bill, Jr. 1991. The Happy Hippopotami. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace.

Martin, Bill, Jr. and Archambault, John. 1988. Listen to the Rain. New York: Holt.

Most, Bernard. 1996. Cock-a-Doodle-Moo. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace.

Seuss, Dr. 1974. There's a Wocket in My Pocket. New York: Random House.

Slepian, Jan. and Seidler. 1967. The Hungry Thing. New York: Scholastic.

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