Phonemic awareness skill enables children to use letter-sound correspondences to read
and spell words. For example, children segment the phonemes of a word to invent a
spelling by assigning letters to represent its sounds. Children have to blend sounds
together when they use letter-sound correspondences to read words they have never
before seen. However, phonemic awareness is not synonymous with phonics. It is not
learning spelling-to-sound correspondences, and it is not sounding out words. It is an
understanding of the structure of spoken language. In fact, it is unlikely that children
lacking phonemic awareness can benefit fully from phonics instruction (Juel, Griffith, &
Gough, 1986) since they do not understand what letters and spellings are supposed to
represent.