Teaching Phonemic Awareness:
Phonemic Awareness benchmarks

First Grade

Students Should Demonstrate These Skills by the Middle of First Grade:

1. Sound Isolation
   • Identifies initial sounds in one-syllable words.
   • Identifies final sounds in one-syllable words.
   • Identifies medial sounds in one-syllable words.
2. Sound Blending
   • Blends 3-4 phonemes into a whole word (e.g., /m/ /a/ /n/: man; /s/ /k/ /i/ /p/: skip).
3. Sound Segmentation
   • Segments 3- and 4-phoneme, one-syllable words (e.g., m-a-n; s-k-i-p).

Phonological Awareness Benchmark for first grade:
35-45 first sounds per minute by mid-year.

Extensions of Segmenting

By the end of grades 1 and 2, students should be able to demonstrate the following skills:

1. Substituting
   Example: "Nap. What word do we get when we change the /n/ to /c/?" (as in rhyming or word family practice).
2. Deleting
   Example: "Flake. What word do we get when we take away /l/ from flake?"
3. Adding
   Example: "Mile. What word do we get when we add /s/ to the front of mile?"