Before your child begins to read, he/she is learning about the way letters and sounds work together to form words. Phonemic awareness and phonics are the first steps a child makes in their journey to becoming readers. By listening to and playing around with the sounds in language, your child is building an important foundation for reading. These playful processes are a part of phonemic awareness, which research has found to be the best predictor of reading success in young children.
If your child has phonemic awareness, he or she understands that words are made up of sounds (phonemes) and that those sounds can be grouped together, moved, and changed. Throughout the day there are many opportunities to point out words that begin or end with the same sound. Just making your child aware of sounds in words is one of the first steps in reading. Click on the first picture below for an online game called Dog’s Letter Pit that your child can play to practice building phonemic awareness. Have fun!
