By Marilyn Jager Adams, Ph.D., Barbara R. Foorman, Ph.D., Ingvar Lundberg, Ph.D., & Terri Beeler, Ed.D.

• One of the most popular programs available — more than 200,000 copies sold
  
  
• Easy and fun activities that take only 15-20 minutes a day
  
  
• Includes a flexible assessment test that allows group screening
  
  
• Meets new federal requirements for scientifically based reading research
  
  
• Developed by leading experts in reading instruction

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children complements any prereading program. From simple listening games to more advanced exercises in rhyming, alliteration, and segmentation, this best-selling curriculum helps boost young learners’ preliteracy skills in just 15-20 minutes a day. Specifically targeting phonemic awareness — now known to be an important step to a child’s early reading acquisition — this research-based program helps young children learn to distinguish individual sounds that make up words and affect their meanings.

With a developmental sequence of activities that follows a school year calendar, teachers can chose from a range of activities for their preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade classrooms. Plus, the curriculum includes an easy-to-use assessment test for screening up to 15 children at a time. This assessment not only helps to objectively estimate the general skill level of the class and identify children who may need additional testing but may also be repeated every 1-2 months to monitor progress. All children benefit because the curriculum accommodates individualized learning and teaching styles.

Here is everything a teacher needs:

• Teaching objectives
  
  
• Lesson plans and sample scripts
  
  
• Activity adaptations
  
  
• Troubleshooting guidelines
  
  
• Suggested kindergarten and first-grade schedules
  
  
• Informal, group screening
  
  
• Guidelines for interpreting assessment test results
  
  
• Recommendations for further assessment
  
  
• An appendix of advanced language games

Educators will welcome this playful curricular supplement as an effective way to improve listening skills and foster essential preliteracy skills.

1. The Nature and Importance of Phonemic Awareness
   What Research Says About Phonemic Awareness
   About the Structure of Language
   Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum
   
   Notes to the Special Education Teacher
   The Structure of the Program
   

   
   

2. The Language Games
   About the Use of the Language Games
   Overview of the Program
   Brief Description of the Games in Practice
   
   Chapter 3: Listening Games
   Chapter 4: Rhyming
   Chapter 5: Words and Sentences
   Chapter 6: Awareness of Syllables
   Chapter 7: Initial and Final Sounds
   Chapter 8: Phonemes
   Chapter 9: Introducing Letters and Spellings

   
   

3. Listening Games
   The first set of activities has two purposes: The first purpose is to familiarize the children with the basic terms and dynamic of the activities before moving them into the more difficult language games that follow; the second prupose is to introduce them to challenge of listening attentively.
   
   
   1. Listening to Sounds
   2. Listening to Sequences of Sounds
   3. Jacob, Where Are You?
   4. Hiding the Alarm Clock
   5. Who Says What?
   6. Whisper Your Name
   7. Nonsense
   8. Whispering Game
   9. Do You Remember?

   
   

4. Rhyming
   These activities use rhyme to introduce children to the sounds of words. As rhyme play directs children's attention to the sound-structure of words, it seeds their awareness that launguage has not only meaning and message but also form.
   
   
   1. Poetry, Songs, and Jingles
   2. Rhyme Stories
   3. Emphasizing Rhyme Through Movement
   4. Word Rhyming
   5. Can You Rhyme?
   6. The Ship is Loaded With
   7. Action Rhymes
   8. Rhyme Book

   
   

5. Words and Sentences
   The activities help children to understand that language consists of sentences of different lengths and that these sentences, in turn, consist of words that also are of different lengths. This is the first step on the road to discovering that oral language is made up of layers of smaller and smaller linguistic units.
   
   
   1. Introducing the Idea of Sentences
   2. Introducing the Idea of a Word
   3. Hearing Words in Sentences
   4. Exercises with Short and Long Words
   5. Words in Context and Out

   
   

6. Awareness of Syllables
   The activities in this chapter go one step further, leading children to discover that some words cane be divided into smaller bits—syllables. They'll learn to devlop the ability to analyze words into syllables and to develop the ability to synthesize words from a string of separate syllables.
   
   
   1. Clapping Names
   2. Take One Thing from the Box
   3. The King's/Queen's Successor
   4. Listening First, Looking After
   5. Troll Talk I: Syllables

   
   

7. Initial and Final Sounds
   The activities in this chapter actually show children that words contain phonemes, and the children discover how phonemes sounds and feel when spoken in isolation and make new words by mixing and matching initial and final sounds.
   
   
   1. Guess Who
   2. Different Words, Same Initial Phoneme
   3. Finding Things: Initial Phonemes
   4. I'm Thinking of Something
   5. Word Pairs I: Take a Sound Away (Analysis)
   6. Word Pairs II: Add a Sound (Synthesis)
   7. Different Words, Same Final Phoneme
   8. Finding Things: Final Phonemes
   9. Spider's Web
      With Word Pair I
      With Word Pair II

   
   

8. Phonemes
   By asking children to deconstruct and analyze words into separate phonemes, these activities teach children to take words completely apart -- and to put them back together again.
   
   
   1. Two-Sound Words
   2. Basic Three-Sound Words
      Analysis to Synthesis
      Synthesis to Analysis
      Analysis and Synthesis
   3. Consonant Blends: Adding and Subtracting Initial Sounds
      Analysis to Synthesis
      Synthesis to Analysis
      Analysis and Synthesis
   4. Consonant Blends: Inserting and Removing Internal Sounds
      Analysis to Synthesis
      Synthesis to Analysis
      Analysis and Synthesis
   5. Building Four-Sound Words
   6. Guess a Word
   7. Troll Talk II: Phonemes

   
   

9. Introducing Letters and Spellings
   The activities in this chapter lead the children to use their phonemic awareness to build an understanding of how the alphabetic principle works. In other words, these activities help children to put it all together.
   
   
   1. Guess Who: Introducing Sounds and Letters
   2. Picture Names: Initial Sounds and Letters
   3. I'm Thinking of Something: Initial Sounds and Letters
   4. Picture Names: Final Sounds and Letters
   5. Picture Search: Initial or Final Consonants
   6. Introduction to How Words are Spelled: Add a Letter
   7. Swap a Letter
   8. Sounding Words

   
   

10. Assessing Phonological Awareness
    The Assessment Test
    Materials
    The Testing Procedure
    Detecting Rhymes
    Description
    Administration
    Scoring

    Counting Syllables

    Description
    Administration
    Scoring

    Matching Initial Sounds

    Description
    Administration
    Scoring

    Counting Phonemes

    Description
    Administration
    Scoring

    Comparing Word Lengths

    Description
    Administration
    Scoring

    Representing Phonemes with Letters

    Description
    Administration
    Scoring

    Interpreting the Results
    

Appendix A: Phonetic Symbols and Classifications of American English Consonants and Vowels
Appendix B: Suggested Kindergarten Schedule
Appendix C: Suggested First-Grade Schedule
Appendix D: Accompanying Materials and Resources
Appendix E: Advanced Language Games
Appendix F: Annotated Bibliography of Rhyming Stories
Appendix G: Poems, Fingerplays, Jingles, and Chants

Index