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Phonemic Awareness
Although phonemic awareness is a widely used term in reading, it is often misunderstood. One misunderstanding is that phonemic awareness and phonics are the same thing. Phonemic awareness is not phonics.
The Lab School in Washington, D.C. shows how one-on-one tutoring helps struggling readers achieve phonemic awareness.
Phonemic awareness is the understanding that the sounds of spoken language work together to make words. Phonics is the understanding that there is a relationship between letters and sounds through written language.
If children are to benefit from phonics instruction, they need phonemic awareness. This is because children who cannot hear and work with the phonemes of spoken words will have a difficult time learning how to relate these phonemes to letters when they see them in written words.
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