Hunter College Center for
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Communication Disorders April
What is Phonemic
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Dear families,
Printable Activities
Even though your children may not be old enough to read and write,
it’s time to start building the foundation for literacy. Enclosed is https://www.prekinders.com/cate
information about the importance of phonological awareness and gory/literacy/phonological-
phonemic awareness as foundational literacy skills and activities that awareness/
you can do at home to help foster your child’s learning. If you have
any questions or would like additional activities, please reach out.
Information about phonemic awareness
What is phonemic awareness?
Phonemic awareness is defined as the ability to isolate and manipulate individual sounds and
phonemes1. Phonemic awareness is a component of phonological awareness, which is defined as
the ability for children to identify and manipulate sounds and structures in spoken words compared
to written words2. Simply stated, this is a child’s ability to know that dog starts with a “d” sound. At
more advanced stages, this would be your child’s ability to put together the sounds “d-o-g” to
create the word dog. An even more advanced stage would be asking the child to think of other
words that start with “d.”
Who should be working on phonemic awareness skills?
If you have a child between the ages of four and six years, phonemic awareness skills are an
important part of your child’s development3. These skills are what will allow your child sound out
words and begin reading. Research suggests that children need a period of phonological
instruction, where they are explicitly taught the sounds of their language1. This instruction typically
occurs during preschool and kindergarten, with children reaching master by the end of
kindergarten2. However, if you notice that your child has any difficulties in this area or if you would
like to further promote their literacy skills, there are many activities you can complete.
Who says this is important?
The American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) is the governing board of Speech
1 Schuele, C. M., & Boudreau, D. (2008). Phonological awareness intervention: Beyond the basics. Language, Speech,
and Hearing Services in Schools
2 Bauman-Waengler, J. A. (2016). Articulation and phonology in speech sound disorders: A clinical focus. Pearson.
3 Shipley, K. G., & McAfee, J. G. (2015). Assessment in speech-language pathology: A resource manual. Nelson
Education.
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Language Pathologists. This means that they set standards for practice,
ethical guidelines, and guidelines for research, as well as the appropriate
means for prevention and intervention in communication disorders.
According to ASHA’s position statement on the prevention on
communication disorders, it is within the Speech Language Pathologist’s
(SLP’s) scope of practice to provide information about the prevention of
In the Community
communication disorders to the community and to provide intervention for
communication disorders4. New York Public Library
Evidence suggests that children who have deficits with phonological
and phonemic skills have increased difficulty learning to read because they The New York Public
Library offers a variety of
cannot sound out words1& 3. By third grade, most students’ literacy skills
story times, preschool
should be strong enough to make the transition from “learning to read” to play times, Word Bingo,
what professionals call “reading to learn.” This means that children have built and more! Listed below
a solid foundation for reading and can start to learn new information from are several options. For
the books they are reading. Evidence shows that children who struggle with more information visit:
https://www.nypl.org/eve
early phonemic skills often later struggle to learn to read4. Therefore, it is
nts/calendar
important to engage with your child to help foster early phonological and
phonetic skills through meaningful activities. These help create a foundation Family Story Time: Jerome
for literacy skills and help prevent later difficulties4. While these activities are Park Library April 5th at
important to your child’s phonological development, it is important to keep 11:00am
in mind that they will not always prevent a reading difficulty or other Itty Bitty Story Time: Kips
communication-related disorder from occurring. Bay Library April 8th at
3:30pm
What activities can you do at home?
Baby Brunch Story Time!:
Read books! Melrose Library, April 13th
Reading books is a great way to promote phonological and phonemic at 2:00pm
awareness in young children, while promoting other foundational literacy
skills5. For children of a young age, caregivers can read books such as Strand Book Store
Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance. While reading, caregivers should 828 Broadway at 12th
emphasize rhyming words by adding a slight pause elongating the rhyming Street, New York, NY
sounds to promote phonological awareness. This helps children recognize
Daniel Tiger Story Time,
that the two words share the same sounds and that sounds can be used in April 6th 11-12pm & 2-3pm
multiple contexts6. Additionally, caregivers can help build phonemic
awareness by labeling and emphasizing sounds in each word. For example, if Peppa Pig Story Time,
April 13th 2-3pm
a caregiver wanted to describe the picture on the front of Barnyard Dance,
4
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (1988). Prevention of communication disorders [Position
Statement]. Available from www.asha.org/policy.
5
Schuele, C. M., & Boudreau, D. (2008). Phonological awareness intervention: Beyond the basics. Language, Speech,
and Hearing Services in Schools.
6
Nice, M., & Leone, A. (2007). Bringing Letter Sounds to Life: Merging Phonemic Awareness and Phonics[Scholarly
project].
Page 2 of 3
they might say that there’s a “C-C-Cow, and that starts with the ‘c’ sound.”
Caregivers can also compare the cow with another animal beginning with the
D
same sound, such as “C-C-Cat.”
Lastly, books for older children include classics such as Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs
and Ham or One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. These books easily lend
themselves to increasing phonological awareness through emphasizing the
B
sounds in the rhymes. Readers can continue to emphasize rhyming words, offer
alternative rhyming suggestions, or compare words that start with the same
sounds. When offering additional rhyming words a reader might say something like
“Two and blue sound similar. Two, blue. What sounds do they share? What other
words have an “oo” sound? I know! ‘Who!’” This example is good for a number of
reasons. First, the reader is showing the child their mental process of identifying the
two words share a sound, comparing them, stating what they have in common,
and then thinking of another word that shares that feature. This provides children
with a model for how to think through these questions. The adult also asks the child
what sound they share, making the child isolate the targeted sound and compare
it to another word. Adults can ask children to provide their own suggestions as
well. Another way to promote phonemic awareness would be to ask children
questions about the sounds in the words you’re reading. For example, parents can
ask questions such as, “What sounds make up the word ‘cat’?” This task asks
children to isolate the phonemes of the word, which is one of the skills needed for
reading.
Letter-sound matching games
Letter-sound matching games foster phonemic skills that allow children to understand that
letters have a certain sound associated with them5. By learning the sounds that each letter can
make, children will begin to learn how to decode new words and build a strong foundation for
reading. In order to complete this activity, parents can print or draw pictures and corresponding
letters and ask children to match the letter to the word that starts with that letter or sound. For
example, someone might write a “D” and print a picture of a dog. The goal would be to have the
child match the two and explain that “Dog” starts with the ‘d’ sound.
Sound manipulation
One last way adults can foster phonemic awareness skills is by presenting children with letters
and asking them to change and replace the sounds in words5. For example, adults can write out
the word “mom” and have the child say each sound or sound it out with them. The parents can
then replace the first ‘m’ with a ‘t’ to make the name “Tom.” This helps foster phonemic awareness
because it teaches children how to manipulate sounds to generate new words. This can be done
to make silly words and names.
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