Teaching Phonemic Awareness:
Phonemic Awareness benchmarks

Kindergarten

Students Should Demonstrate These Skills at the End of Kindergarten:

1. Sound and Word Discrimination
   • Tells whether words or sounds are the same or different (cat/cat = same; cat/car=different).
   • Identifies which word is different (e.g., sun, fun, sun).
   • Tells the difference between single speech sounds (e.g., Which one is different? s, s, k).
2. Rhyming
   • Identifies whether words rhyme (e.g., cat/mat; ring/sing).
   • Produces a word that rhymes with another (e.g., "A word that rhymes with rose is nose. Tell me another word that rhymes with rose.)
3. Blending
   • Orally blends syllables (mon-key) or onset-rimes (m-ilk) into a whole word.
   • Orally blends 2-3 separately spoken phonemes into one-syllable words (e.g., m-e: me; u-p: up; f-u-n: fun).
4. Segmentation
   • Claps or counts the words in a 3-5 word sentence (e.g., Sue can jump far).
   • Claps or counts the syllables in 1-, 2-, and 3-syllable words.
   • Says each syllable in 2- and 3-syllable words (di-no-saur).
   • Identifies the first sound in a one-syllable word (e.g., /m/ in man).
   • Segments individual sounds in 2- and 3-phoneme, one-syllable words (e.g., run: /r/ /u/ /n/; feet: /f/ /ee/ /t/).

Phonological Awareness Benchmarks for kindergarten:

• 25 first sounds per minute by mid-year
• 35 sound segments per minute by the end of kindergarten.