Phonemic awareness is the conscious awareness that spoken words consist of sounds.  It also includes the ability to manipulate sounds or phonemes. Young readers must understand that words are made of sounds in order for phonics instruction to make any sense at all to them. 

Lack of phonemic awareness can cause children to have difficulty connecting sounds with written symbols or blending sounds to make a word.  Thus, phonemic awareness is essential in learning to read. Hearing and singing songs, playing word games, doing finger plays, listening to and reciting rhymes, and listening to stories fosters the natural development of phonemic awareness.

Orson and his friends on the farm offer engaging, academically-sound activities at each level that will give children the opportunity to practice phonemic awareness tasks in a fun way.

Please refer to the downloadable PDF Teacher’s Guide for suggested ways to use the curricula in Orson’s Farm.

Click here to visit Orson's Farm.

Level 1: Rhyming and Sound Matching - Meet the Gang
Level 2: Oddity Task- The Chicken Coop
Lesson Plans -- Chicken Coop
Level 3: Phoneme Blending - Orson's Waller
Level 4: Phoneme Blending - The Hayloft
Level 5: Phoneme Manipulation - Lanolin's Greenhouse
Level 5: Phoneme Manipulation - The Pumpkin Patch

Note, we will be continually adding new content to this section of Professor Garfield, so be sure to check back often. Games for each level of Phonemic Awareness will be coming soon.

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