Building the Foundation for Reading Through Sound Skills

What Is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds—called phonemes—in spoken words. It’s a critical subset of phonological awareness, and research consistently shows it’s one of the most important predictors of reading and spelling success.

EBLI focuses explicitly on three core phonemic awareness skills:

Blending: combining separate sounds into a full word (e.g., /b/ /æ/ /t/ → bat)
Segmenting: breaking a word into its sounds (e.g., climb → /c/ /l/ /i/ /m/)
Phoneme manipulation: adding, deleting, or changing sounds (e.g., coat without /k/ → "oat")

Why It’s Essential for Reading Success

Since the 1940s, reading scientists have recognized that phonemic awareness is essential for learning to decode and spell words efficiently. The National Reading Panel found that teaching phonemic awareness leads to significant gains in reading fluency and comprehension—a must for struggling readers.

In EBLI, phonemic awareness and phonics go hand in hand—ensuring that students not only hear sounds but link them to letters and spelling patterns to read and write accurately.

Fun & Easy Phoneme Activities You Can Do at Home 🎵

Here are some engaging ways to build phonemic awareness:

Blending sounds: Say individual sounds with a half second pause in between and have your child blend them into the full word (s...u...n → sun).
Segmenting practice: Say a word and ask your child to break it into sounds (flop → /f/ /l/ /o/ /p/).
Phoneme manipulation: Say a word without its first sound—what does coat become without /k/? (“oat”).
Pig Latin fun: Take a word like “cat” → “at-cay.” This playful game builds sound swapping and manipulation skills.

📌 Tip: These games can be done anywhere—car rides, snack time, or bedtime—with no prep required.

When to Worry—and What to Do

Children usually begin showing phonemic awareness in preschool or kindergarten, progressing from syllables to individual sounds. But if your child struggles with these games past 6–7 years old, it could be a warning sign.

That’s why targeted phonemic awareness instruction matters—it isolates and strengthens these sound skills using structured, explicit activities like EBLI’s “segment-blend-manipulate” routine.

Next Step: Structured Practice + Tutoring

Phonemic awareness is a skill that gets better with guided practice. If your child needs additional help, consider working with a literacy specialist trained in EBLI who can:

Assess their phonemic awareness and decoding skills
Provide structured, multisensory lessons
Track and build on their progress each session

At Growing Oaks, we weave phonemic awareness directly into reading and spelling lessons—no guesswork, just results.

Let’s Start Strong

If your child is struggling to hear the sounds in words—or you want them to have a strong reading foundation—phonemic awareness is where to begin.
👉 Schedule a free consultation at growingoaks.us/appointments

Sources:

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching Children to Read – Phonemic Awareness Section.
Moats, L.C. (2020). Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers (2nd ed.). Brookes Publishing.
EBLI. Phonemic Awareness in EBLI Instruction. https://eblireads.com/phonemic-awareness-instruction-accelerate-the-teaching-and-learning-of-phonemic-awareness/

What Is Phonemic Awareness—and Why Does It Matter?