MACTE-ServeMinnesota Early Literacy Teacher Development Initiative

Phonemic Awareness

These classroom videos and lesson materials offer examples of instruction that develops the phonological and phonemic awareness of children in grades K-2. These are real teachers using the Bridge2Read curriculum. These are not meant to be examples of "perfect lessons" nor are they meant to offer examples for all components of reading instruction. We encourage faculty and teacher candidates to review the components and scope and sequence of the Bridge2Read curriculum prior to working with the materials on this page.

Bridge2Read Phonemic Awareness Classroom Videos and Lesson Materials
(Videos are password protected. Please click here for information about obtaining the password.)

Video: Compound Words (Lesson 1) Common Starting Lesson in Kindergarten Whole Class Tier 1

This video demonstrates the Bridge2Read phonemic awareness Lesson 1. The lesson helps students identify and manipulate the smaller words that are components of compound words. Students practice blending, segmenting, deleting and replacing.

Video: Two Phoneme Words (Lesson 31) Common Starting Lesson in Grade 1 Whole Class Tier 1. 

This video demonstrates the Bridge2Read phonemic awareness Lesson 31. This video demonstrates a Bridge2Read lesson focused on blending, segmenting, deleting, and substituting phonemes in two phoneme words.

Video: Three Phoneme Words (Lesson 61) Common Starting Lesson in Grade 2 & 3 Small Group Tier 2

This video demonstrates the Bridge2Read phonemic awareness Lesson 61. This video also demonstrates a Bridge2Read lesson focused on blending, segmenting, deleting, and substituting.  However, in this lesson, the words contain three phonemes.

Video: More than Three Phoneme Words (Lesson 123) Lesson taught in Grades 1, 2, and 3

This video demonstrates the Bridge2Read phonemic awareness Lesson 123. This lesson asks students to practice blending, segmenting, deleting, and substituting phonemes in words with more than three phonemes.

The materials for these phonemic awareness lessons can be found in this Bridge2Read Phonemic Awareness Lesson Booklet.

DELETION PENDING

***Archived Materials (original project materials):  Bridge2Read has been updated, and these materials are no longer current.  These materials will be available through fall sester 2025. Beginning in January 2026, these links will no longer be active. Please update all course materials to include the videos and lessons available above. ***

Video: Grade 1 Phonemic Awareness (Lesson 39)

This video demonstrates the Bridge2Read phonological awareness Lesson 39.  The lesson helps the students to identify words that rhyme.

Video: Grade 1 Sounds Awareness (Lesson 78)

This video demonstrates the Bridge2Read phonemic awareness Lesson 78. The lesson focuses on two phoneme words. It includes activities that ask students to blend phonemes into words, segment words in phonemes, delete the final sound of a word, and substitute the final sound of a word with a different sound to make a new word. 

Video: Grade 1 Phonemic Awareness (Lesson 120 - with modeling)   
Video: Grade 1 Phonemic Awareness (Lesson 120 - with no modeling)

These videos demonstrate the Bridge2Read phonemic awareness Lesson 120 and show different levels of modeling by the teacher.  This lesson focuses on three phoneme words and includes activities that ask students to blend, segment, delete, and substitute.    

Video: Grade 2 Phonemic Awareness

This video also demonstrates a Bridge2Read lesson focusing on blending, segmenting, deleting, and subsituting.  However, in this second grade lesson, the words are now more than three phonemes.

Suggested Readings and Resources

Moats, L., Tolman, C. (n.d) Why phonological awareness is important for reading and spelling. (Reading Rockets)

University of Oregon, Big Ideas in Teaching Reading: Phonemic Awareness

Stages of phonemic awareness

Other Phonological Awareness Strategies and Examples 

Elkonin Boxes (Reading Rockets)

Phonological Awareness Strategy Videos (Reading Rockets)

Helpful resources for developing knoweldge about the phonemes of the English language. (PELSB Standard 3.C.2.a)

The 44 phonemes in English

Suggested Assessments to Meet PELSB Standards

To meet the PELB standards related to phonological and phonemic awareness listed below, MACTE recommends that teacher candidates:
1.) Read about and participate in class presentations and discussions to build foundational knowledge in phonological and phonemic awareness. This knowledge can later be assessed via quiz/test, dicussion forum, or another written assignment;
2.) Review the Bridge2Read curricular materials for the phonemic awareness lessons, connecting each piece of the lesson to the foundational knowledge acquired from readings and class discussion.
3.) View the Bridge2Read phonemic awareness videos and discuss.
4.) Practice using/teaching the Bridge2Read phonemic awareness curriculum with classmates. 
5.)  Write a lesson plan that includes the elements in standard 3.D.1.b.
MACTE recommends that all elementary teacher candidates complete a clincial experience in an early literacy setting.  In course work connected to this setting, candidates should reflect on the implicit and explict attention to sound awareness given in the clinical classroom.  Ideally candidates will lead a small or large group phonemic awareness lesson.

Related PELSB standards for elementary and special education:
3.C. A teacher of children in kindergarten through grade 6 must have knowledge of the foundations of reading processes, development, and instruction, including:
3.C.2. phonological and phonemic awareness, including:
3.C.2.b : - the ways in which reading achievement is related to phonological and phonemic awareness, including the ability to recognize word boundaries, to rhyme, and to blend, segment, substitute, and delete sounds in words;
3.C.2.c : - the instructional progression of phonological awareness, for example, words, syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes;
3.D. A teacher of children in kindergarten through grade 6 must have knowledge of and ability to use a wide range of instructional practices, approaches, methods, and curriculum materials to support reading instruction, including:
3.D.1. appropriate, motivating instruction, both explicit and implicit, in

3.D.1.b : - auditory awareness, discrimination of sounds, phonemic awareness, and word awareness;

In addition, standard 3.C.2.a requires that candidates demonstrate knowledge of the phonemes that make up the English language;  We recommend exploring this linguistic concepts prior to working on the standards/activities above.