1. Reading and Writing 101
Phonemic Awareness

2. Learning Objectives

To learn how to use the Phoneme Charts.

To understand the 44 vowel and consonant
sounds in English.

3. Introduction

You can easily read and spell when you are
familiar with letter sounds.

As proof, do you face any of the following
when you read and spell:
1) Slow down when you face bigger words
2) Say out a big word when you spell
3) Confused between letter sounds, such as 'en' or
'on' , 'ir' or 'er', 'tion' or 'sion', when you spell

If you do, that's because you are relying on
your knowledge of letter sounds!

4. Letter Sounds

Therefore, to function effectively in reading
and spelling, letter sounds must be mastered.

Letter sounds are called Phonemes.

A Phoneme is the smallest sound unit
produced when you read a word.

These words all have 3 sounds.
1)'cat' - /c/ /a/ /t/
2)'tad' - /t/ /a/ /d/
3)'con' - /c/ /o/ /n/

5. Phonemes

In English, there is a total of 44 phonemes from
26 alphabets – 5 vowels and 21 consonants.

5 vowels – 20 phonemes

21 consonants – 24 phonemes

These 44 phonemes represent 95% of all
English words as they are spoken. For example,
for the letter 'a', these are different phonemes:

/a/ nt ban /a/ na sw /a/ n

b /a/ by zebr /a/ b /a/ ll

6. Phoneme Chart

We have organised vowel phonemes into a
convenient chart for you to refer.

This chart serves as a 'dictionary of sounds'.

Refer to your chart in your Learning Guide.

You will see it organised in alphabetical
order, boxes and colours.

We will explain this in further detail.

7. Phoneme Chart – alphabetical order

Alphabetical order is as follows:

a,e,i,o,u

The chart will show the phonemes produced by
these 5 vowels from the first - /a/ as in 'ant' – to
the last - /u/ as in 'bus'.

From this, you can see that:
1) One vowel has many sounds

Q: Underline the six phonemes with the letter 'a'.

8. Phoneme Chart – boxes

The letters inside the boxes produce the same
phoneme – the letters are called graphemes.

The first sound, /a/ as in 'ant', is represented by
'a' but the /er/ sound is represented by:
/ar/, /or/ , /ure/ , etc.

From this, you know:
1) Some phonemes have more graphemes.
2) The first grapheme is the most common for that
particular phoneme.

Q: Which phoneme has the most graphemes?

9. Vowel Phoneme Chart – colours

The colours show 3 types of sounds.
1) Red – Short Monophthong (SM)
2) Orange – Long Monophthong (LM)
3) Yellow – Dipthong (D)

SM – a phoneme that is a short burst; tongue
remains same position.

LM – a phoneme that is of a greater duration;
tongue is moving.

D – a phoneme where there's volume change;
tongue is moving

10. Vowel Phoneme Chart – colours

SM – a phoneme that is a short burst; tongue
remains same position.

LM – a phoneme that is of a greater duration;
tongue is moving.

D – a phoneme where there's volume change;
tongue is moving.

Q: Read each type of vowel phonemes – SM,
LM, D – from A to U. Can you hear the
difference in the length of time you say it and
its volume?

11. Consonant Phoneme Chart - colours

The colours show 6 types of sounds.
1) Red – Plosive
2) Orange – Liquid
3) Yellow – Affricate
4) Green – Nasal
5) Blue – semi-vowel
6) Violet – Fricative

These show the 7 colours of the rainbow
(except for indigo)!

12. Consonant Phoneme Chart - colours

Plosive – a consonant phoneme made by
stopping the air completely then suddenly
letting it out (like an explosion).

Liquid – a consonant phoneme made by closing
the mouth passage but allowing the air to
escape without friction (like water flowing).

Fricative – a consonant phoneme made by
forcing the air out through a narrow opening
(like rubbing where there's friction).

Affricate – a consonant phoneme consisting of
a plosive and a fricative (combine explosion
and friction).

13. Consonant Phoneme Chart - colours

Nasal -a consonant phoneme made by closing
the mouth passage and forcing the air through
the nose.

Semi-vowel – a consonant phoneme made in
the same way as a vowel but not producing a
beat/syllable.

Q: Read each type of consonant phoneme –
SM, LM, D – from B to Z. Can you feel the
closing of your mouth or throat? Note: Vowels
do not need to close mouth or throat; they are
created using the tongue (open passage).

14. Learning Activity

Group yourself into teams.

Play the games on your Learning Guide. You
may start from Game 1 and complete the list up
to Game 4.

Each 'win' is a point.

The team with the highest score wins.

15. Discussion

What are phonemes?

What are graphemes?

Why is it important to learn phonemes and
graphemes?

How do we apply this knowledge?

16. In Summary

Phonemes are letter sounds or sounds made by
letter/s.

Graphemes are the letters representing the
sounds. For example, for phoneme /f/, /ph/ is
another grapheme for the same phoneme.

Being familiar with phonemes will help us
greatly in spelling and reading.

With this knowledge, we know the right
grapheme when spelling and we know the right
phoneme when reading.