The First Grade students have been working to develop their phonemic awareness and phonics skills. Phonemic Awareness focuses on the sound units (phonemes) used to form spoken words. Phonics associates sounds to written symbols (letters of the alphabet). Together, both of these approaches help children develop critical word recognition skills. Children can then apply the sound/symbol relationship to read printed words.When the students reach the highest level of phonemic awareness, they begin manipulating sounds within words. We have been focusing on beginning, middle and ending sounds. We are also looking for patterns in words. The children are doing a wonderful job and are demonstrating their understanding more and more each day!