1. Phonemic Awareness Phonemic Awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with individual sounds in spoken words. It is not a visual process– it is aural.

2. Phonemic awareness is the conscious awareness of sounds in spoken words. • Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of success in learning to read. (Bryant, Bradley, Maclean, and Crossland, 1989; National Reading Panel, 2000b)

3. Phonemic awareness is more likely to transfer to future decoding ability than to later word recognition and oral reading fluency abilities. (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1995)

4. Continuum of Skills • Rhyme (pre k - k) • Identifying words within a sentence (pre k - k) • Blending and segmenting compound words (pre k - k) • Blending and segmenting syllables (pre k - k) • Onset-rime segmentation (pre k - k) • Sound isolation (First – last) (k – 1) • Phoneme blending (k – 1) • Phoneme segmentation (k – 1) • Phoneme manipulation (k – 1)

5. How is Phonemic Awareness supported through Balanced Literacy? Read Aloud and Shared Reading Students have the opportunity to learn about sounds by: • Learning nursery rhymes • Learning songs • Reading text with repetitive language • Reading text with rhyme • Playing with words.

6. Phonemic Awareness continued Word Work Through word play which includes songs, chants, rhymes and riddles, students are taught: • How to segment • How to blend • Letter-sound relationships • To identify onsets and rhymes B-A-T

7. Phonemic Awareness Writing Components • Letters, sounds and words are manipulated to create text through a gradual release of responsibility from teacher to student. Immersion -- Demonstration – Approximation – Employment Student Responsibility Teacher Responsibility Write to/for – Write with – Guided writing – Write by

8. Teachers and students are engaged in encoding by breaking words apart and segmenting sounds. Ss-cc-rr-aa-mm

9. Word play • By replacing sounds to make new words What word would you have if… • “Say it Fast Game” (Blending) • “Say it Slow Game” (Segmenting)

10. What Research Says… • Explicit instruction – be intentional • Small groups – achievement grouped • Focus on one to two tasks at a time no more than 10 – 15 minutes per day • Component of balanced, integrated reading program • Phonemic awareness and letter knowledge are the two best school entry predictors of how well children will learn to read during the first two years of instruction