When I was in school, phonics was not a major emphasis. We perhaps learned a few rules but the teacher did not teach the dynamics of words. However many have now learned that teaching children to hear various sounds and see how they work together is very important.
Because many parents are unfamiliar with the teaching of phonics they are confused when they see words such as phonemic awareness and phoneme segmentation. A lot have trouble pronouncing the words much less defining them. If I was not a teacher, I would have the same troubles.
Phonemics awareness is the awareness of sounds in words. For example, a teacher may ask a student to identify the beginning, middle, or ending sound in a word such as cat.
Phoneme segmentation is when a word is broken into its individual sounds. Teachers use this on two different levels. A teacher may say the individual sounds and have the students put the word back together or the teacher may say the words and have the student pull it apart.
Teaching children to hear the sounds in words helps them realize how letters work together. They begin to see a pattern in words and can decode new words with the same patterns. Children learn that many words do not have to be memorized but can be read.
Phonics can be very helpful for children with speech problems. When a child is aware of and can hear individual sounds correctly, he/she is more likely to also say individual sounds correctly.
There are several activities that you can do to help your child increase phonemic awareness. Here are a few.
Play rhyming games. Say a word and ask your child to say a word that rhymes with it.
Say a word and have your child identify the beginning sound and other words with the same beginning sound. For example say dog. Have your child identify that dog begins with the sound /d/. Have your child say others words that begin with the sound /d/.
Stretch words apart and have your child put them back together.
Change the beginning sound of words and have your child say them. For example say hot. Ask your child what it would be if the /h/ was changed to /p/ (pot).
Say a word and ask your child to leave off the ending or beginning sound.