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What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify,
think about, and work with the phonemes.

Phonemic awareness is the basis for learning phonics.
Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that work

together to make up words. For example, separating
the word BUS requires the phonemic awareness of

knowing the three distinct phonemes, which are /B/,
/U/, and /S/. Changing anyone of these phonemes

also changes the word. For example, changing the
last phoneme /S/ to /T/ changes the word BUS to

BUT. As you probably know by now, a letter enclosed
between the two slashes shows the phoneme, or the

sound that the letter represents, and not the name of
the letter itself.

According to the National Reading Panel, phonemic

awareness improves children's word reading and
reading comprehension, and it also helps children

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