How to Teach Phonemic Awareness

By Shawna Audet

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in syllables or words. It is important, because it forms the base of the reading pyramid. We can't move up the reading pyramid to master decoding until we have first mastered phonemic awareness. There are several activities that are effective at developing phonemic awareness skills.

The Dyslexia Training Institute, which runs out of the University of San Diego, created the Phonemic Awareness Drill. I use this drill to teach phonemic awareness to all of my reading remediation students. This drill incorporates the various activities that are proven to develop phonemic awareness. In the following video, I will explain how to do the drill.