Last Updated on February 2, 2023 by Editorial Team
Phonemic awareness is the ability to establish the sequence of speech sounds that form a part of any spoken word or syllable. Any word is made of phenome, which is the smallest mental unit of sound that any alphabet or its group carries. Phonemic awareness allows the learners to have the ability to distinguish these phenomes and eventually learn the pronunciation and spelling of the words.
This awareness is conspicuously weak in children having the condition of dyslexia. Due to this condition, the children are not able to associate the sound of the letter with its physical form, making it difficult for them to read and write.
Thus, phonemic awareness building is an important teaching activity designed for building word-building intelligence in dyslexic children.
Importance of phonemic awareness in early learners
Phonemic awareness is useful for building word skills like reading, speaking (pronunciation), and writing in early learners. Some of the ways it helps beginners at word building are:
- It acts as a primer for building reading skills as children easily differentiate between the sounds of alphabetical sequence and read the words correctly
- It is also important for building spelling skills
- It helps understand the alphabetic principle that outlines how the letters are represented by the sequence of sounds
- Phonemic awareness is pure auditory and is related to building the capacity of recognizing words by the sequence of sounds and vice versa, which means it helps the students to break the words or syllables into underlying sounds or phenomes.
Role of apps in improving their phonemic awareness
Apps offer a playful way of inculcating speaking and reading skills in a child in the early learning stage. They offer an interesting way of developing pre-reading skills which comprise largely matching words or syllables with the sound. The apps may comprise of teaching guides and tips, or these can be in game form that helps steer away the fear of reading from the child’s mind. With the help of apps, the children can not only learn but also internalize the alphabetical principles by the way of activities, practice sets, and gamification.
So, listed below are the 10 best apps for phonemic awareness building that are available at Google Play Store and Apple Apps store; and they are absolutely free!
1. Sounds Beginnings
This app features 12 learning games that provide practice in reading and phonics. It is providing good help for learning the beginning, middle, and end sounds of the word. There are matching sets provided in the game. Whenever a child touches any letter, its corresponding sound comes out aloud and the picture of an object that starts with that letter is presented too. Simple UI, quick to understand, and easy to use, this app teaches word sounds through gamification.
App Link: Appstore
2. Phonemic Chart
It is a free android app that helps you hear and discern the sounds of vowels and consonants and the words on the whole. The user needs to click on the IPA symbol provided in the chart that appears in the interface of this app. The app is divided into three sections – vowels, diphthongs, and consonants. Very intelligently designed app, and it features words written in black or red to enable easy reading. Diphthongs are also arranged according to their second sound, while pure vowels are arranged according to mouth shape. It offers quite a practical way of enhancing phonemic awareness.
App Link: Appstore | Playstore
3. What’s changed
What’s Changed is a word-speaking and reading abilities builder app. With an aim to enhance phonemic awareness among children, the app helps build the ability to discern the sound of the word and the sequence of the sounds appearing in a word. The app uses segmentation and blending techniques to teach the child about different sounds that emerge due to replacing letters in the word. It offers a promising way of improving the reading abilities in the child. The app also offers the facility to assess the progress of the child through a scoring system.
App Link: Appstore
4. Phonemes – IPA Chart, transcription, and pronunciation
This app is useful in converting text to phonetic presentations. It is a very nicely-built, elaborate app that offers a look at the mouth movements too while uttering any sound through a comprehensive visual. It provides a look-up chart for vowels, non-pulmonic and pulmonic consonants. The app is also useful for transcription purposes as one can learn about accents, too, with its help. It is a features-enriched app that serves as starting guide for phonemic awareness building.
With the help of charts, visual support, and a word-phenome sound match tool, this app covers all aspects of phonemic learning, and thus, is of great help for the kids.
App Link: Playstore
5. Partners in Rhyme-Rhyming Game
Rhyming is an old and time-tested technique to inculcate Phonemic awareness in your child. And what better way to do that than with this fun Partners in Rhyme game app. It consists of four games that teach your child what rhymes and what does not and thus build a sense out of letters and words. A number of longitudinal theses confirm that rhyming improves the reading abilities of a child by immense bounds once they start school, and thus helps them bond with the books!
App Link: Appstore
6. Jolly Phonics Lessons
Jolly Phonics is awesome teaching support that comes with lots of resources and features to help teachers create phonemic awareness in young children. The app is using synthetic phonics approach to equip children with five basic skills they need to have for reading and writing. The main features of this app are:
- Jolly songs for each letter sound
- Animated letter formation
- Action image and related instructions
- Letter sounds audio for all types of sounds to develop phonemic awareness through auditory means
- The rich repertoire of words and flashcards
This phonemic awareness app is very simple in design and thus, quick to understand.
App Link: Appstore | Playstore
7. Phonogram Sounds
It is an app from the All About Reading program, an initiative designed to offer mastery in developing phonemic awareness in children. It helps develop essential pre-reading skills in children which they can use further for learning all five components of reading.
The way of teaching children the word’s sounds is very easy. The child just taps the letter and its corresponding sound emanates from the interface. The user can also swipe to see different views. This mastery-based phonemic awareness-building app offers ease of learning spelling rules. The app contains all 72 basic phonograms useful for building spelling and pronunciation skills.
App Link: Appstore | Playstore
8. Phonemic Awareness Bubbles
This app helps prepare children to develop phonemic awareness which can further be used to strengthen and enhance reading skills. Children can learn the primary sounds of the letters. They internalize alphabetic principles and develop spelling skills. The ability to break the words into phonemes or phonemic awareness becomes easy to develop with this app. Apart from the sounds, it is useful for teaching the functions of the letters too. The beginning sound of the letter becomes easier to discern for the children by using this app on a regular basis.
App Link: Appstore
9. Basic phonics 1 Lite
It is a feature-rich app useful for teaching beginners of reading. Reading sounds like s (/s/), a /æ/, t (/t/) and p (/p/) become easier with the guidance provided by this app. The app utilizes mnemonic techniques to teach the reading and writing of letters Aa to Zz. Visual tools enable easier picture-word association by building memory bridges helpful for children in retaining spelling and sound of letter principles in mind. Apart from building phonemic awareness, this app also offers support for blending, segmenting, and letter-sound associations.
App Link: Playstore
10. Wonster Words: ABC Phonics
Wonster Words is an engaging game where children put together words through interactive word puzzles. In fact, as the child drags a letter puzzle, the name of the letter and the phonic sound starts playing. Once a word is complete, the child gets to enjoy a video by silly, little wonsters. Thus, there is a double reinforcement of both the phonics and the vocabulary of the child! This app has won a multitude of awards and is a wonderful way to have fun with phonics!
App Link: Appstore | Playstore
So, install these apps to get rich teaching support for homeschooling dyslexic kids or to make reading hours more engaging for the kids at school by building their pre-reading skills.
Conclusion
Speaking skills have their foundations in phonemic awareness. And the world we live in today is all about presenting yourself on the platform. Thus, these apps will not only boost your child’s confidence in public speaking but will also help them express their personalities to the outer world in a more fearless manner!
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,