Fostering Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

When children reach the point where they are able to discern and manipulate individual phonemes (as opposed to just syllables and onsets and rimes), they are working on the level of phonemic awareness. Activities that focus on more general phonological awareness skills-working with rhyme and alliteration and blending and segmenting larger sound chunks-establish the ground for phonemic awareness to develop. Part of the responsibility of the early literacy teacher is to build in systematic and creative ways on both kinds of out-of-school experiences so that all children can develop the level of phonemic awareness necessary for successful decoding. While a great deal of attention is given to the initial sound in words, as a whole, the literature on phonological and phonemic awareness places relatively little emphasis on developing children&s;s awareness of ending sounds. According to Bear et al., "When literacy development has occurred in a balanced environment, phonemic awareness and the ability to invent a spelling go hand in hand".