Learning how to generate rhyme and recognizing rhyming patterns in language is an essential skill for emergent readers. This lesson supports the goal of helping young students to recognize and generate rhymes through songs, poems, and games. Students create rhyming lyrics to known songs, provide rhyming words for keywords in poems, and interact with their peers to find rhyming pairs. Although links to materials are provided at the website, teachers may wish to create their own rhyme cards using pictures of objects that are familiar to students. (author/ncl)

This lesson focuses students’ attention on alliteration, or repeated beginning word sounds, found in picture books. After exploring alliteration in various texts, students compose a class book and apply the technique in their own writing. Sample activity sheets and templates, recommended texts with alliterative writing, and ideas for extending the lesson are also provided. (author/ncl)

Singing and songwriting can support early literacy instruction.  This lesson makes use of the song "A-Hunting We Will Go" to teach rhyming.  The lesson first uses the original verses of the song and students are asked to identify the two words in each verse that rhyme.  Students then brainstorm and create their own rhyming words and additional verses to the song.  In the next session, the students use an online site called "Sing a Song" and listen to other popular songs and identify the rhyming words in those songs.  Finally students use an interactive tool called "Construct-a-Word" to create their own lists of rhyming words and new verses for other rhyming songs.  Ideas for extensions and assessments are available.  (author/jlkrause)

This article defines phonological awareness and discusses historic and contemporary research findings regarding its relation to early reading. Common misconceptions about phonological awareness are addressed. Research-based guidelines for teaching phonological awareness and phonemic awareness to all children are described. Additional instructional design guidelines are offered for teaching children with learning disabilities who are experiencing difficulties with early reading. Considerations for assessing children's phonological awareness are discussed, and descriptions of available measures are provided. (author/ncl)

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy development. This website provides free access to all of the K-3 literacy assessment tasks. These assessments are short fluency measures, used to monitor the development of early reading skills. Free registration is required to download and use materials. (author/ncl)

This resource, supported by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, features a video demonstration of the Yopp-Singer Test of Phonemic Segmentation. The video provides a step-by-step model for administering the Yopp-Singer Test. Designated a best practice, this resource draws upon research in the area of phonemic awareness conducted by Hallie Kay Yopp. Also included with this resource are written directions and a downloadable test sheet necessary for use with students. QuickTime is needed to view the video clip. Directions for a free download of QuickTime are available on the site. Users not wishing to download QuickTime may access text only directions. (author/ncl)

This assessment resource for phonemic awareness includes four assessments designed to be used by classroom teachers.  The assessments include: 1) Recognizing Rhyme, 2) Isolating Beginning Sounds, 3) Isolating Final Sounds, and 4) Phoneme Blending.  All assessments include easy-to-follow teacher directions.  The Recognizing Rhyme Assessment and the Phoneme Blending Assessment  also include a QuickTime video clip of a demonstration of the assessment with children.  These assessments are designed for use with children individually and throughout the school year to inform teachers using the assess-plan-teach cycle.  (author/jlkrause)

This resource offers examples of seven informal reading assessments that are designed for one-on-one administration with young children in the classroom.  The brief assessments include: concepts of print, rhyming, identifying initial sounds, blending words, phoneme segmentation, phoneme manipulation, and phoneme deletion.   Six of the seven assessments are tasks that assess phonemic awareness.  Teacher directions and assessment forms are also included. (author/jlkrause)

This resource, supported by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, features a video demonstration of the Yopp-Singer Test of Phonemic Segmentation. The video provides a step-by-step model for administering the Yopp-Singer Test. Designated a best practice, this resource draws upon research in the area of phonemic awareness conducted by Hallie Kay Yopp. Also included with this resource are written directions and a downloadable test sheet necessary for use with students. QuickTime is needed to view the video clip. Directions for a free download of QuickTime are available on the site. Users not wishing to download QuickTime may access text only directions. (author/ncl)

It can be challenging for some children to develop phonemic awareness.  In this brief video, a Carnegie Mellon researcher uses a spectrogram to demonstrate why it can be difficult for children to isolate phonemes in words. (author/jlkrause)

In this brief video Dr. Louisa Moats and kindergarten teacher Virginia Campbell practice a phonemic awareness activity focusing on substituting letters within words.

In this video, Sacramento kindergarten teacher Mr. Lee uses puppetry and play to instruct his second language learners in phonemic awareness and phonics.  Ongoing progress monitoring is also encouraged as a necessary component in a responsive assess-plan-teach cycle.  (author/jlkrause)

The Lab School in Washington, D.C. serves children with learning disabilities.  This video shows master teacher Pam Knudsen as she demonstrates one-on-one tutoring to help a child develop phonemic awareness.  Highlighted is an activity for phonemic blending. (author/jlkrause)

Dr. Louisa Moats explains a technique to a Washington D.C. kindergarten teacher to help her students identify individual sounds in words.  The technique instructs children to hear the sounds and push chips into boxes, or "say it and move it".  Later the chips are pushed out by letters, teaching the children letter/sound association, thus making a connection between phonemic awareness and phonics.  (author/jlkrause)

Children's invented spelling reveals much about their phonemic awareness and understanding of letter-sound relationships.  In Connecticut, first grade teacher Carol Spinello uses literature as a springboard to a writing activity.  As the children respond to their task through writing their ideas, the teacher analyzes their invented spelling.  This provides many teachable moments and allows the teacher to assess where the children are with their understandings.  The activity also highlights the recursive relationship between reading and writing. (author/jlkrause)

A position statement adopted by the International Reading Association, this professional resource was developed in response to recent public attention to the role of phonemic awareness in beginning reading instruction. The statement discusses key issues related to research, policy, and classroom practice. Written by well known researchers in the area of early reading instruction, the position statement is organized in a question discussion format and addresses many issues, including how phonemic awareness facilitates reading acquisition and how phonemic awareness can be taught. This site provides a PDF version of the printed brochure. To view this document, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free, downloadable software program available from www.adobe.com. (author/ncl)

Children who master phonemic awareness have a sense of the "architecture" of their language.  They also become more comfortable and familiar with their language.  This understanding paves the way for children to understand the alphabetic principle and letter-sound associations.  This professional article provides a sequence of activities that help children become aware of the structure of their language. The authors emphasize the importance of direct instruction in phonemic awareness.  They also acknowledge the challenges with guiding children toward these understandings due to differences with the co-articulation of phonemes, and differences that occur across words, regions, dialects, and individuals.  This article provides access to a sequence of eight phonemic awareness activities. (author/jlkrause)

In this article, the authors discuss phonemic awareness and try to clear up the confusion with other terms such as, auditory discrimination, phonetics and phonics by offering definitions and examples of each.  They advise that phonemic awareness instruction should be: 1) child appropriate, 2) deliberate and purposeful, and 3) only one part of a broader program of literacy.  Charts are provided listing the sequence for phonemic awareness instruction along with examples of various sound manipulations and specific activities to use.  The article concludes with comments and cautions that phonemic awareness instruction be offered within a linguistically rich environment where language can be explored and examined. (author/jlkrause)

Phonemic awareness is the understanding and ability to recognize that spoken words are made up of sounds.  This article from The National Institute for Literacy highlights the most compelling findings of evidence-based research on phonemic awareness.  There are eight major findings that inform teachers about the most effective practices to help students acquire phonemic awareness and learn to read.  (author/jlkrause) 

Research indicates that understanding that spoken language consists of individual sounds is the best predictor of ease with early reading acquisition for young children.  In this article, author Robert Sensenbaugh explains the concepts of phonological and phonemic awareness as well as the importance of these concepts.  Levels of phonemic awareness and recommendations for instruction from noted researchers are also included.  A link is provided to an additional article that highlights phonemic awareness for children with learning disabilities and ELL children. (author/jlkrause) 

This professional development presentation from the Early Reading First meeting in Puerto Rico (2004), explains the sequential learning path from phonological awareness to phonemic awareness.   Author D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D. outlines the sequence and the progressive difficulty of tasks on this learning path.   A description of the necessary elements for explicit lessons is listed, along with examples of activities for use in the classroom.  Suggestions for pacing, grouping and daily routines are also included.  (author/jlkrause)

This article defines phonological awareness and discusses historic and contemporary research findings regarding its relation to early reading. Common misconceptions about phonological awareness are addressed. Research-based guidelines for teaching phonological awareness and phonemic awareness to all children are described. Additional instructional design guidelines are offered for teaching children with learning disabilities who are experiencing difficulties with early reading. Considerations for assessing children's phonological awareness are discussed, and descriptions of available measures are provided. (author/ncl)

Understanding educational jargon can be confusing, especially when considering all the terms related to the sounds of spoken words.  These terms are phonics, phonetic spelling or reading, phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, and phonology.  Each of these terms is related, but all have distinct meanings.  This article explains these terms and the relationships among them.  Examples are provided for each term. (author/jlkrause)

Research indicates a strong relationship between early phoneme awareness and later reading success, and it links some reading failure to insufficiently developed phoneme awareness skills. The intent of this article is to present a collection of phoneme awareness activities at different developmental levels that can be used in primary classrooms. Skillful implementation of these activities assumes the integration of phonemic awareness activities in meaningful contexts and in conjunction with the reading approach being used in the classroom. The activities described are designed to fit within the context of ongoing classroom instruction. (author/ncl)

This resource provides practical ideas for using the alphabet song and ABC books as a source for teaching letter recognition and letter-sound correspondence. These activities may be used to develop complete lesson plans or integrated into daily literacy routines. (author/ncl)

This article describes how to create a word family chart with a whole class or small group.  The list of words generated can be simple or expanded, as necessary, up to two and three syllable words.  Creating this list helps children hear and say the sounds, not the letters.  The activity also begins to develop the important alphabetic awareness that words that sound alike at the end also look alike at the end.  Extension ideas are provided that allow children to play with words through games, songs, and drawings to better understand the way the word families are connected. (author/jlkrause)