Resources for Teaching Phonemic Awareness
by Dr. Kimberly Tyson
 Books
Phonemic Awareness: Playing with Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading
Skills.
Fitzpatrick, Jo. (1997). Creative Press.
A teacher-friendly book filled with many game-like classroom activities and
blackline masters. It also includes an easy-to-administer Phonemic Awareness
Inventory. I also like that it levels the activities so that the teacher knows the
difficulty level of the activities.
Phonics from A to Z: A Practical Guide.
Blevins, Wiley. (1998). Scholastic.
Another teacher-friendly book that includes a bit more background and
explanation related to phonics. It also includes a good list of Alphabet Books for
oral reading in the classroom. This book includes some classroom game-like
activities as well as lot of word lists. **I particularly like his chapter about Meeting
Individual Needs. It’s sort of a question-answer format and he includes good
explanations of common reading errors and difficulties.
Phonemic Awareness Activities.
Blevins, Wiley. (1997).
A less comprehensive book than Phonics from A to Z but one that focuses
specifically on phonemic awareness activities. This book includes reproducibles
for teachers and many simple game-like activities for use with K and 1 children.
The Phonological Awareness Handbook for Kindergarten and Primary Teachers.
Ericson, Lita & Juliebo, M.F. (1998). International Reading Association.
A bit less teacher-friendly (less reproducibles) but includes really good information
about the importance of phonological awareness with emerging readers. I
personally like this book for its’ complete explanation of the importance of
teaching phonological awareness and how to do it in the classroom. The authors
includes many suggestions of implementation in the classroom. **This could be
paired nicely with one of the books with more reproducibles for easy use.
Phonemic Awareness in Young Children.
Adams, Marilyn Jager & Foorman, B.R., Lundberg, I., and Beeler, T.
A similar book to Phonemic Awareness: Playing with Sounds…. This book
includes many activities to use with emerging readers. The activities are suitable
for whole group instruction as well as small groups such as Title I children.
www.learningunlimitedllc.com
317.846.7344
ktyson@learningunlimitedllc.com
The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists: Third Edition (comes with a CD with
printable lists)
Fry, Edward B., Kress, J.E. & Fountoukidis, DL. (1993). Prentice Hall.
This book contains the most comprehensive book of lists available which can be
used for teaching discreet reading skills. The section for Phonics includes:
phonograms (word families), phonics example words (vowels sounds and
combinations), blends, sound clusters, etc. Not a curriculum, per se, but a useful
collection of targeted words. Useful as a resource for I.A.’s, Title I staff, resource
personnel, classroom teachers.
 Testing
The Phonological Awareness Test. (1995).
Robertson, Caroline & Salter, Wanda. LinguiSystems, Inc.
www.linguisystems.com
This could serve as a nice resource for further determining the specific reading
issues of the lowest readers. There are 8 skills assessed and each skill has
subtests. The skills include: rhyming, segmentation, isolation of sounds, deletion
of sounds, substitution, blending, graphemes, decoding, and invented spelling.
**There is also a shorter version of the test (it is, however, non-standardized)
called the Phonological Awareness Profile.
Yopp, H.K. (1995). A test for assessing phonemic awareness in young children.
The Reading Teacher, 49 (1), pp. 20-25.
This is a simple-to-administer awareness profile that I teach in my workshops so
that a teacher or I.A. can administer on the spot to determine, perhaps, if further
testing is necessary.
www.learningunlimitedllc.com
317.846.7344
ktyson@learningunlimitedllc.com