Writing and reading is a code humans invented to represent speech sounds. Kids have to crack that code to become readers. The first step to cracking the code is to hear and manipulate the sounds (phonemic awareness). The second step is connecting those sounds to letters. Our video lessons teach these sound-letter correspondences. Before you can learn these sounds, your learner needs to know the letters (the names of the letters) and your learner needs to have phonological awareness. Phonological awareness includes word awareness, phonemic awareness (individual sounds), and syllable awareness. It’s not about reading or writing, it’s about hearing and speaking. It’s usually taught in Pre-K or Kindergarten, but should be taught before letter-sound correspondences.

Many kids don’t need specific phonological awareness lessons, as they will pick it up by just being exposed to language and song. Rhyming, singing and word games all develop phonological awareness.

So, why teach it if many kids will learn it “naturally”? Well, because some kids don’t develop these skills, even in a language rich environment, and you won’t know which kids they are right away. So, to ensure that everyone has equal advantage and because all the activities are fun for everyone, start with phonological awareness before letter-sound correspondence, and continue to practice it as you progress into encoding and decoding letter-sounds.

link to activities (coming soon)

link to auditory test (coming soon)  
Are you wondering if your child is struggling with phonological awareness?

note: 

Phonological awareness refers to many aspects of oral language, such as words, syllables, rhymes and individual sounds. 

Phonemic awareness refers only to the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. So, phonemic awareness is included in (and is a large part of) phonological awareness. Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness deal with spoken language only (no reading or writing). They are not phonics, but are an essential foundation to phonics instruction.

The first step to phonemic awareness is recognizing the sound (hear it).
The second step is to generate the sound (say it).

Phonics is visual and auditory and deals with the relationship between letters and sounds (oral language, reading and writing).

In case your learner would like some pre-writing practice before you get started:

Phonological awareness includes words, syllables and phonemes. Phonemic awareness includes just the phonemes (individual sounds) of language. Both are aural/oral skills — about hearing and speaking only (preceding reading or writing):

• isolate words

  eg. “She went fishing” 3 words

• isolating a sound

  at the start is easiest: /n/  nod
  at the end is medium /p/ cup
  in the middle is the hardest /a/ dad

• alliteration

  beginning sounds  eg. big brown bear

• rhyming

  ending sounds  eg. cat sat mat

• segmenting sounds or syllables

  sounds: cat -> /c/ + /a/ + /t/

  syllables: forgetful -> for get ful

• blending sounds or syllables

  sounds: c  + a  +  t  ->  cat

  syllables: for get fun -> forgetful

• manipulating sounds

  adding a sound: nag -> snag

  subtracting a sound: slip -> lip

  substituting a sound: tiger -> take out the ‘g’ sound -> tire