Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in words. Phonemic awareness skills are necessary building blocks for early reading.

In this section, you will find tips and resources to help your child develop phonemic awareness.

Additional Phonemic Awareness Information from the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum

Phonemic Awareness for Parents

When children struggle with word reading, or decoding, their understanding of text can be limited. It is important that children develop a list of strategies to use when they come to a word they do not know. The following strategies can be used to help children decode words and make sense of what they are reading.

In this section, you will find tips and resources to help your child decode words.

Fluency is the ability to read text smoothly, accurately and at an appropriate pace while understanding what you are reading . Fluency develops gradually over time through practice.

In this section, you will find tips and tricks to help your child read fluently at home.

Comprehension is the main goal of reading. It is a person's ability use active reading strategies to understand what they read. Here are some useful tips to and resources to use when helping your child if they are not understanding what they are reading at home.

Building vocabulary is a key to reading success. Having knowledge of vocabulary helps children make sense of what they are reading.

In this section, you will find tips and tricks on incorporating strategies to build vocabulary at home.

7 Activities When Creating Your Child's Vocabulary Journal
Encourage your little learner to keep a journal of newly discovered words and watch her vocabulary grow.

Building Your Child's Vocabulary
Talking to and reading with your child are two terrific ways to help them hear and read new words. Conversations and questions about interesting words are easy, non-threatening ways to get new words into everyday talk. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Sight words, often also called high-frequency words, are words that your child should learn to memorize by sight. Often times, these words cannot be easily sounded out, or decoded.

In this section, you find various additional resources that can be of help in supporting your child's reading journey.

• Home Reading Helper: Children's Reading Resource Pre-K - 3rd Grade

• 9 Creative Ways to Read as a Family

• How To Read an E-Book With Your Child

• Book Lists By Age

• Grades K-1 Student Activities

• Grades 2-3 Student Activities

• Grades 4-5 Student Activities

• Tips for Reading Aloud

• Choosing a "Just Right" Book