Most people know about phonics, and what it is; however, far fewer people know what phonemic awareness is.

In short, phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and work with the phonemes.

For example, /d/, /o/, and /g/, are the individual sounds of the word “dog”. Please note, the letters enclosed in the slashes denotes the sound of the letter, and not the name of the letter.

Phonemes are the smallest units of individual sounds that form a word.

Phonemic awareness is not something you’re born with, and it is an ability that’s gained through repeated exposure to listening, speaking, and reading.

As parents, there are many different strategies you can use to help your children develop phonemic awareness such as playing simple word segmentation or oral blending games.

Helping young children develop phonemic awareness early on is one of the keys for children to develop exceptional reading and writing skills once they begin attending schools.

Did you know that studies have indicated that phonemic awareness is the single best predictor of reading success for young children once they begin school?

In fact, studies have found that phonemic awareness is far better than IQ at predicting the reading and spelling abilities of young children.