To help principals share important literacy information with parents and caregivers, we’ve prepared ready-to-use content that can be easily copied and pasted into a school newsletter. These short, engaging pieces are designed to communicate key ideas about literacy and reading development, offering practical tips and insights that will support families in fostering strong reading habits at home.
Feel free to use the content as-is or adapt it to fit your school’s unique needs.
Newsletter #1: Phonemic Awareness – What is it and why does it matter?
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and work with the phonemes, or sounds, of language. It is a key focus in the curriculum for kindergarten and grade one, as this skill is critical for building strong reading foundations. We teach children to:
- Identify the sounds they hear in words: “What is the first sound you hear in the word sun?”
- Blend individual sounds together to make a word: “My sounds are /l/ /i/ /p/ – push them together, and what is the word?”
- Split a word into its individual sounds: “What are the sounds you hear in the word truck?”
Research on how children learn to read shows that phonemic awareness is incredibly important in predicting which students will learn to read easily, and which will have difficulty.
Parents can help develop phonemic awareness at home with simple activities, such as:
- Playing “I Spy” with sounds: “I spy something that starts with the sound /m/.”
- Segmenting sounds: Say a word like “dog” and ask your child to tell you the sounds they hear (/d/ /o/ /g/).
- Sound blending: Say individual sounds like /s/ /u/ /n/ and ask your child to blend them together to make a word (sun).
These fun, everyday activities can support what children are learning in school and help make reading more enjoyable.
