Phonemic awareness is primarily an auditory skill that lays the foundation for competency in reading skills. Before children can learn to read, they need to have awareness that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes, which are the smallest parts of sound in spoken words.
Foundational skills in phonemic awareness include the ability to blend (combine sounds to form words), segment (break words into individual sounds), and manipulate (add, delete, or substitute sounds to form new words). Strong phonemic awareness skills are linked to good reading fluency, and overall, better literacy outcomes.
At the start of the 2025-2026 school year, my granddaughter, Nova, entered her kindergarten year of school. Aside from several developmental speech sound errors, she presented no other speech-language concerns. Her receptive, oral language, and vocabulary skills were well-developed. She enjoyed interacting with books and having them read to her. Because of these strengths, I assumed she would pick up reading fairly easily. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Her first progress report indicated she was not progressing on letter identification, recall of letter sounds, and sight word recall. She was being assigned to a remedial reading class. For me, panic kicked in pretty quickly because I understood the implications of Nova’s problems. I also felt anxiety related to the reality that I was a SLP who had no experience teaching reading. Nova was going to need a lot of help at home, so I could only start with what I knew well: explicit phonemic awareness instruction which is important for young students.
During the summer prior to the opening of school, I had completed a series of courses on structured literacy. The courses presented helpful information, mostly on application of principles. After reviewing some of the information again, I developed this plan of action for home intervention:
- I completed the Test of Phonological Awareness Screening Test (PAST) by David A. Kilpatrick, Ph.D. This gave me baseline information on where to begin phonemic awareness instruction.
- Super Duper’s Hearbuilder software was used once or twice weekly to support phonemic awareness, memory, and listening skills.
- Although there is some debate about his theories, I used David Kilpatrick’s One-Minute Drills daily (to build phonemic proficiency).
- We did daily reviews of letters and their sounds. For ones that she consistently missed, we used hand signs, actions, or a verbal cue to aid recall.
- Once her recognition of letters and letter sounds became consistent, we began blending and segmenting CVC words, initially in unison, then moved to independent blending and segmenting practice.
- As she began to show greater fluency in word recognition, I retrieved an old Dick and Jane book that was first published in 1930. (Dick and Jane books were a part of my reading resources in elementary school many, many, many years ago!). The books required Nova to do some decoding but amazingly presented heavy repetition of sight words she was learning, along with other unfamiliar words. I think the book was beneficial for improving automaticity.
This was our routine for about 21 weeks (approximately 2 ½ grading periods), 30-60 minutes per session, for 3-4 sessions weekly. During many of the early sessions, Nova cried a lot because some of the tasks were hard for her. She also showed some attention and high activity issues during instruction. However, by the end of the third grading period of the school year, Nova was dismissed from the remedial reading class. Her final report card of the year indicated she was reading above grade level! She now reads with confidence and automaticity, and she readily attempts to read unfamiliar words (and sometimes reads them correctly!). As an additional positive, her attention and activity levels improved.
I began the process with uncertainty and a fair amount of anxiety about how to help Nova, but she and I weathered the process to good avail. My original intent was to focus on improving her phonemic awareness skills, but at the time, I didn’t realize I was doing an important thing by including phonics instruction. In hindsight, I now remember learning that phonemic awareness instruction should be taught alongside phonics instruction to help students learn to read faster and with greater confidence. I believe the outcomes of this experience supports this tenet, as evidenced by Nova’s significant and quick progress.
My thoughts now turn to how I can use a similar plan to support the struggling readers on my caseload. I anticipate obstacles (e.g. scheduling), but I will definitely begin dialogue with persons who may be able to help me figure some things out.
Author: Colleen Williams, SLP.D, CCC-SLP
