Why It Matters: Focus Sounds (Phonemic Awareness)
Focus Sounds
(Phonemic Awareness)
Discover, Play, and Explore the World of Sounds
GOAL: Daily face-to-face interactions through a wide variety of activities are the KEY.
It all begins with the spoken word one hears. Hearing the similarities and differences in the words spoken, lays the foundation for literacy learning. Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds (phonemes) in a spoken word (National Reading Panel, 2000). It is the auditory portion of our language, not yet connected to the physical letter shape (grapheme). Sounds (phonemes) are the smallest unit of spoken language that help create meaning. For instance, the spoken word “sun” contains three sounds (phonemes), /s/ /u/ /n/. The spoken word “snow” also contains three sounds (phonemes), /s/ /n/ /o/.
DETAILS:
At birth, children are already communicating through their babbling, cooing, and crying.
Repeating a child’s babbling and cooing are the beginning steps into building a strong literacy foundation.
Singing songs and rhyming words allows a child to hear the language in a fun and lyrical way. This offers another engaging method to strengthen their literacy foundation.
Focus Sounds will develop using active involvement through real-life hands-on activities, actual objects, pictures, stories, and/or songs. The KEY is to continue talking to and with your child.
IN THIS WEBSITE:
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 visual letter recognition.
The Alphabet Letters icon represents Phonics activities. At this level children are connecting the names of the letters to their corresponding sounds.
Levels of Focus Sounds
A child will progress through five sequential levels of Focus Sounds (Phonemic Awareness). These levels range from identifying similar word patterns (initial, ending, or rime sounds) to breaking down a word into its individual sounds to manipulating sounds (phonemes) in a word by adding or deleting a sound (phoneme). The beginning sounds are the first to acquire, followed by the ending sounds. The middle sounds are a higher level of understanding.
LEVEL 0 Talking
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.
LEVEL 0 Early Literacy Foundational Skills
Oral Communication
listen and understand that verbal interactions is one method of communicating thoughts, ideas, whats, needs, etc.
Sentence Meaning
listen and understand meaning of a sentence
Word Meaning
listen and understand meaning of a specific word
LEVEL 1 Rhythm & Rhyme
Level 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. Activities with the alphabet image include connecting the sound to letters, referred to as phonics.
LEVEL 1 Early Literacy Foundational Skills
Sound (Phoneme) Matching
listen & detect similar sounds at the beginning (onset) of a word
listen & detect similar sounds at the ending (rime) of a word
Syllable Counting
listen, detect, & count syllables (beats) within a word
Word Counting
listen, detect, & count words in a sentence or phrase
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. Activities with the alphabet image include connecting the sound to letters, referred to as phonics.
LEVEL 2 Early Literacy Foundational Skills
Syllable Splitting
listen, detect, & count syllables (beats) within a word
listen & detect similar sounds at the beginning (onset) of a word
listen & detect similar sounds at the ending (rime) of a word
Sound (Phoneme) Blending
listen & detect individual sounds (phonemes) in a word
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. Activities with the alphabet image include connecting the sound to letters, referred to as phonics.
LEVEL 3 Early Literacy Foundational Skills
Sounds (Phonemes) Isolation
listen & detect individual sounds at the beginning of a word
listen & detect individual sounds at the ending of a word
listen & detect individual sounds in the middle of a word
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.
LEVEL 4 Early Literacy Foundational Skills
Sound (Phoneme) Counting
listen & detect the number of sounds (phonemes) in a word
Sound (Phoneme) Segmentation
listen & detect individual sounds at the beginning of a word
listen & detect individual sounds at the ending of a word
listen & detect words that rhyme
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.
LEVEL 5 Early Literacy Foundational Skills
Sound (Phoneme) Substitution
identify and substitute beginning sound in a word
identify and substitute ending sound in a word
identify and substitute middle sounds in a word
Sound (Phoneme) Deletion
identify and omit beginning sound in a word
identify and omit ending sound in a word
identify and omit middle sounds in a word
Why it Matters
Phonemic Awareness is the foundational building block for reading and writing words. If an individual cannot hear that “bug” and “boat” begin with the same sound (phoneme) or hear that “cup” and “pop'“ end with the same sound (phoneme) or is unable to blend /ffffuuuunnnn/ into the word “fun”, he or she may struggle considerably to connect sounds with their written symbols (letters or graphemes) or blend sounds to make words.
Phonemic Awareness is a strong predictor of early reading success (Lyon, 1995; National Reading Panel, 2000; Scarborough, 2001; Snow, 1983; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). During these early stages of development, oral language is the main key, building a strong literacy foundation (Strickland, Ganske, & Monroe, 2002).
NOTE: The goal is to continue to talk to and with your child. The Leveled Activities offered on this website are developmentally appropriate for various ages as your child progresses and develops their foundational literacy abilities.