Focus Sound Activities

(Phonemic Awareness)

It all begins with the spoken word one hears. Hearing the similarities and differences in the words spoken, lays the foundation for literacy learning.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

  • Focus Sounds (phonemic awareness) is arranged by the LEVEL of difficulty, not by age level. Each reader needs to progress from Level 0 through Level 5 for optimal literacy.

  • The beginning sounds are the first to acquire, followed by the ending sounds. The middle sounds are a higher level of understanding.

  • The Speech Bubbles icon represents Focus Sound (Phonemic Awareness) activities. At this level children do not have to know the names of the alphabet letters to master this skill. The emphasis is on listening, not letter recognition.

Quick Links

Level 0

The Beginning - Let’s Talk

Level 0 Activities help a child develop an “ear” for the spoken language as one vocalizes a variety of sounds. Surrounded with oral talk, while actively engaged in a wide variety of activities, sets the very early foundational building block for reading & writing.

Speech Bubbles icons are for Focus Sounds (Phonemic Awareness) activities.

Level 1

Rhythm & Rhyme

LLevel 1 Activities help a child develop an “ear” for the spoken language. When surrounded with oral talk, the hearing, identifying, and matching similar word patterns flourishes. This is the foundational building block for reading.

Speech Bubbles icons are for Focus Sounds (Phonemic Awareness) activities.

Level 2

Parts of a Word

Level 2 Activities help develop an “ear” for individual sounds within a spoken word. By playing with the sounds in a word, children discover that a word can be broken into “sound units”; words to syllables, syllables to beginnings (onsets) & endings (rimes), and beginnings (onsets) & endings (rimes) to individual sounds (phonemes).

They then begin to explore the blending of sounds (phonemes) together to form spoken words. This skill is referred to as oral synthesis or decoding, and is one of the key foundational literacy skills for reading.

Speech Bubbles icons are for Focus Sounds (Phonemic Awareness) activities.

Level 3

Sequence of Sound

Level 3 Activities focus on the sequence of sounds in a word. Attention is directed to specific positions of sounds within a word. This is the foundational base for segmenting sounds independently. When recognition of beginning, ending, and middle sounds is acquired, emergent readers are better equipped to isolate sounds and hear them separately.

Speech Bubbles icons are for Focus Sounds (Phonemic Awareness) activities.

 Level 4

Separation of Sound

Level 4 Activities focus on the separation of sounds in a word. Children ready for this Level 4, have a good sense of focus sounds (phonemic awareness) and are ready to acoustically divide words into their individual focus sounds.

This skill is reverse of sound (phoneme) blending, where “sound units” are combined (Level 2). While separation of sounds (phoneme segmentation) appears to be a simple exercise, many children, even older ones, struggle with this skill. They may be able to identify isolated sounds (recognition), but cannot break a word into separate sound (phonemic) components.

Speech Bubbles icons are for Focus Sounds (Phonemic Awareness) activities.

Level 5

Manipulation of Sounds

Level 5 Activities are the highest level of phonemic awareness. The focus is to manipulate sounds (phonemes) within words; adding, exchanging, deleting, or transposing sounds (phonemes) to form new words. Children ready for Level 5, have solid knowledge of how language works before attempting this level. Children need to be able to mentally blend sounds (phonemes), modify words, and segment sounds (phonemes) in order to make the sound (phonemic) transference. The ability to manipulate sounds (phonemes) strongly correlates with beginning reading acquisition.

Speech Bubbles icons are for Focus Sounds (Phonemic Awareness) activities.