Phonemic Awareness Vs Phonics

Learning how to read can seem daunting for beginners. There is a lot of information and terminology that can be confusing.

Two key concepts that often cause confusion are phonemic awareness and phonics. These are crucial skills that help students become proficient readers. Phonemic awareness includes skills like rhyme, alliteration, and blending and segmenting syllables and phonemes.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice and think about individual sounds in spoken words. It’s the first step in reading, before children know their alphabet letters. The English language has 44 phonemes, which are the smallest units of sound that make up words. The most basic phonemic awareness skills include rhyme and alliteration (words that start with the same initial sound, such as cat and rat), blending and segmenting syllables, and adding or substituting one sound for another in words, like changing /k/ to /m/ in the word top.

While some students develop phonemic awareness naturally while playing with their parents or siblings, it’s important to explicitly teach these skills to all learners. Teachers usually begin with rhyming games and songs, which help children build their understanding of the sounds in their spoken language.

Students who don’t develop a strong foundation of phonemic awareness will have a more difficult time when it comes to learning to read and write. Without it, they’ll never be able to recognize and manipulate the sounds in written words, which is critical for decoding printed text. As David and Meredith Liben note in their book, Know Better, Do Better: The Science of Reading, without proficient phonemic awareness, students can’t transfer their knowledge of sound-spelling relationships to print to become skilled readers.

How Does Phonemic Awareness Work?

Phonemic awareness is an important pre-reading skill that children develop naturally by listening to the sounds of spoken language. It improves their word reading and spelling. As children grow older, they can expand their phonemic awareness skills by learning the corresponding alphabet letters and sound-symbol relationships. Phonological awareness involves hearing and manipulating the sound structure of language at a word, syllable, or phoneme level.

In general, it’s best to teach phonemic awareness skills through a small group of learners (ideally 3-4 kids per teacher) and in short, structured lessons. This way children will not be overwhelmed with too many activities and are more likely to retain this knowledge. Fun and easy phonemic awareness activities include rhyming games, counting the number of sounds in words (or syllables), and sound sorting games. Children can also learn to manipulate the sounds of words by deleting or adding them (e.g., stop without the /s/ or bark with the /r/).

Having strong phonological awareness is a key predictor of reading and spelling success. Students who are poor readers often have low phonological processing abilities. Providing early and basic instruction in phonemic awareness is an important part of a comprehensive literacy program to ensure all learners are on a successful path to reading proficiency.

What is Phonics?

Teaching children to read can be confusing. The terminology that teachers use to describe different aspects of reading instruction can be difficult to understand, too. For example, there are many differences between phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonics refers to the relationship between written letters and their spoken sounds, and it is used for decoding (reading) words. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made up of individual sounds, and it is used for oral comprehension.

Most phonics instruction is explicit, meaning that students are taught the sound-spelling relationships in a systematic manner. It can be analytic, which teaches children to look for patterns in word families such as the -at family, or synthetic, which teaches children to blend individual letter sounds together to form words like ‘cat’. A contemporary approach that combines both approaches is called word study.

It is important to note that children need to develop their phonemic awareness before they can start learning about phonics. Although some children may progress more quickly than others in the area of phonemic awareness, it is recommended that phonics instruction begin by the end of kindergarten or first grade. This ensures that all children have a strong foundation in the skills necessary to move on to phonics-based reading. Without this instruction, children may struggle to learn phonics and may have difficulty reading later on in their academic careers.

How Does Phonics Work?

Phonics is the mapping of letters (graphemes) to sounds (phonemes). Essentially, it’s the connection between oral language and written language. In phonics instruction, students learn that each letter in the alphabet corresponds with a unique sound and that those letters can be put together to form words. Students then practice blending, segmenting, and manipulating these sounds to read and spell.

Students are taught that the English language has 44 phonemes, which are grouped into categories of initial and final sounds, vowels, and syllables. They are taught that words can be broken down into individual phonemes and that these phonemes are able to change meaning. Students are also taught to recognize that a word’s meaning can be changed by adding, deleting or substituting phonemes. Examples of this include:

One of the earliest activities children are often exposed to in early childhood education is rhyming. This is a great way for students to begin developing their phonemic awareness skills. However, many children do not enter school with these skills well developed and often need specific and systematic phonemic awareness instruction. This is especially true for English language learners who may have not been exposed to phonics or whole reading instruction at home. For these students, incorporating phonics into their literacy instruction is the best approach. Research has shown that students who receive this type of instruction are more likely to be successful readers and writers than those who are taught using a whole word approach.