Our video lessons teach letter-sound correspondences. Before you can learn these sounds, your learner needs to know the letters (the names of the letters) and your learner needs to have phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is being aware of the distinct sounds in language. It’s not about reading or writing, it’s about hearing and speaking. It’s usually taught in Pre-K or Kindergarten, but should always be taught before letter-sound correspondences.

Many kids don’t need specific phonological awareness lessons, as they will pick it up by just being exposed to language and song. Rhyming, singing and word games all develop phonological awareness.

So, why teach it if many kids will learn it “naturally”? Well, because some kids don’t develop these skills, even in a language rich environment, and you won’t know which kids they are right away. So, to ensure that everyone has equal advantage and because all the activities are fun for everyone, start with phonological awareness before letter-sound correspondence.

link to activities (coming soon)

link to auditory test (coming soon)  
Are you wondering if your child is struggling with phonological awareness?

note: 

Phonological awareness refers to many aspects of oral language, such as words, syllables, rhymes and individual sounds. 

Phonemic awareness refers only to the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. So, phonemic awareness is included in (and is a large part of) phonological awareness. Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness deal with spoken language only (no reading or writing). They are not phonics, but are an essential foundation to phonics instruction.

Phonics is visual and auditory and deals with the relationship between letters and sounds (oral language, reading and writing).

In case your learner would like some pre-writing practice before you get started:

Phonological awareness includes the sounds of (just oral, not reading):

• alliteration
  beginning sounds  eg. big brown bear

• rhyming
  ending sounds  eg. cat sat mat

• blending sounds
  letters, or syllables    c  + a  +  t  ->  cat

• dividing sounds
  letters, syllables or words 
  eg. talk like a robot to discover syllables

• adding a sound
  nag -> snag

• subtracting a sound
  slip -> lip

• substituting a sound
  tiger -> take out the ‘g’ sound -> tire

• isolating a sound
  at the start is easiest: /n/  nod
  at the end is medium /p/ cup
  in the middle is the hardest /a/ dad