Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum is an activity-based program that has proved immensely popular with early reading teachers for its ease of use and effectiveness in developing phonemic awareness. The goal of this research-based, field-tested program is to develop children’s phonemic awareness in a way that cognitively prepares them for learning to read and write. Though originally developed for use with kindergarten students, with minor adjustments for pace and complexity, it can be used in first grade and special education settings.

The Phonemic Awareness program consists of more than 40 activities in the form of games that teachers use for 15–20 minutes daily with their classes. The activities are designed and sequenced to help children develop an awareness of the sameness, difference, number, and order of speech sounds. The introductory chapter clearly lays out for teachers the nature and importance of phonemic awareness in the acquisition of early reading skills, and prefaces to each chapter explain explicitly how the chapter’s activities build systematic improvement. Teachers are given guidance throughout, including suggestions on how to adjust pacing to accommodate various ability levels.

The book also includes additional resources to help ensure the success of instruction:

• a list of phonetic symbols and classifications of consonants and vowels
• a suggested kindergarten schedule
• a suggested first-grade schedule
• a list of accompanying materials and resources for the classroom
• advanced language games
• an annotated bibliography of rhyming stories
• poems, fingerplays, jingles, and chants
• assessment procedures and forms for group screening of phonological awareness

Requiring a minimal amount of instructional time, Phonemic Awareness in Young Children has been proven to be particularly effective as a supplementary program to teach the essential skills of phonemic awareness.