Should Phonemic Awareness Be Done in the Dark? What the Research Really Says

If you have spent any time in science of reading circles, you have probably heard someone say that phonemic awareness should be done “in the dark.”

Yet this message has created a tremendous amount of confusion for teachers. Some educators wonder whether they should avoid using letter tiles during phonemic awareness instruction. Others question whether activities like word chains still count as phonemic awareness because they involve print.

The truth is that the research paints a much more nuanced picture.

Quick Answer: Should Phonemic Awareness Be Done in the Dark?

Sometimes.

When assessing phonemic awareness, students should work with sounds only and should not see letters or words. This allows teachers to determine whether students can hear, identify, blend, segment, and manipulate sounds independently of print.

Instruction, however, is different.

Once students begin learning letter-sound correspondences, research supports helping them connect the sounds they hear to the letters that represent those sounds.

The ultimate goal is not simply for students to manipulate sounds orally. The goal is to help students become successful readers and spellers.

What Does “Phonemic Awareness in the Dark” Mean?

When educators talk about phonemic awareness “in the dark,” they are referring to phonemic awareness tasks that occur entirely without print.

Students do not see letters.

Students do not see words.

Students work only with spoken language.

For example, a teacher might ask:

• What word do you get when you blend the sounds /m/ /a/ /p/?
• What is the first sound in the word sun?
• Say cat. Now say it again without /k/.
• Change the /m/ in mat to /s/. What new word do you have?

In each example, students are working exclusively with phonemes (the individual sounds within a word).

There is certainly a place for these activities. In fact, they are essential when assessing a student’s phonemic awareness skills. However, problems arise when educators assume that all phonemic awareness instruction must remain disconnected from print indefinitely.

What Does the Research Say About Using Letters During Phonemic Awareness Instruction?

One of the most common misconceptions in literacy education is that phonemic awareness instruction should always be separated from print.

While oral phonemic awareness activities certainly have value, a growing body of research suggests that phonemic awareness instruction becomes more effective when students connect sounds to letters.

Think about the ultimate goal of literacy instruction.

We are not teaching students to manipulate sounds simply for the sake of manipulating sounds. We are helping them become readers and spellers.

Reading requires students to blend together the sounds represented by graphemes. Spelling requires students to segment the phonemes in a word and connect those phonemes to the correct graphemes. If we want students to build these connections, it makes sense that instruction should eventually help bridge spoken language and print.

In her review of the research, Marianne Rice highlights an important distinction between assessing phonemic awareness and teaching phonemic awareness. While assessment tasks are typically administered orally, research-supported instructional practices often integrate letters as students develop phonemic awareness skills.

This does not mean every phonemic awareness activity must include letters.

Students still benefit from oral practice with blending, segmenting, deleting, and substituting sounds. However, once students begin learning letter-sound correspondences, opportunities to connect sounds to print can strengthen both phonemic awareness and early reading development.

The question is not whether phonemic awareness should ever be taught without letters.

The better question is:

How can we use letters strategically to help students connect the sounds they hear to the print they see?

What I See in My Work With Struggling Readers

Over the years, I have worked with many students who could perform phonemic awareness tasks orally but struggled to apply those skills while reading and spelling.

For example, a student may be able to tell me that the sounds in map are /m/ /a/ /p/. However, that same student may struggle to decode the written word on the page.

What often helps these students is not more oral practice alone. Instead, they benefit from opportunities to connect sounds and print simultaneously. Paring PA tasks with the graphemes that represent those sounds helps build the foundation for correctly orthographically mapping the words.

6 Research-Aligned Ways to Connect Phonemic Awareness and Print

The good news is that connecting phonemic awareness and print does not require complicated lessons. In fact, many activities teachers already use can strengthen both phonemic awareness and phonics when implemented intentionally.

1. Use Word Chains

Word chains require students to change one sound and one letter at a time.

For example:

map → mop → top → tap

Students must analyze the sounds in each word while seeing how those sound changes are reflected in print.

2. Incorporate Letter Tiles or Magnetic Letters

As students blend, segment, or manipulate sounds, have them move letter tiles to represent each phoneme or grapheme.

The tiles help students connect the sounds they hear to the letters they see.

3. Use Whiteboards

After students blend, segment, or manipulate sounds orally, have them write the word on a whiteboard.

This simple step helps bridge spoken language and print. Plus, it is a great informal assessment for you. This can be done whole class, in small groups, or 1:1 with students in intervention settings.

4. Use Elkonin Boxes With Letters

Instead of moving counters into boxes, have students write the graphemes into each box or pull letter tiles into each box.

Students are still segmenting sounds, but they are also strengthening their understanding of sound-symbol relationships.

5. Include Sound Dictation

Sound dictation is a powerful way to connect phonemic awareness and phonics.

When students hear a sound and write the corresponding grapheme, they must analyze the sound before connecting it to print.

In an Orton-Gillingham lesson, this occurs during the Auditory Drill, where students hear sounds and write the letters or letter combinations that represent them.

6. Prioritize Encoding Activities

Spelling naturally strengthens phonemic awareness because students must segment and analyze each sound before representing it with letters. When they spell it and read it back, they blend all the sounds together.

Every time students spell a word, they are practicing the connection between sounds and print.

The beauty of all six of these activities is that they move students beyond simply hearing sounds. They help students build the connections between sounds and letters that support successful reading and spelling.

What I See Teachers Get Wrong Most Often

As I train teachers and work with struggling readers, I frequently see the same misconceptions about phonemic awareness.

Mistake #1: Keeping Students in Oral-Only Activities for Too Long

Oral phonemic awareness activities absolutely have a place. Students need opportunities to blend, segment, delete, and substitute sounds without relying on print.

However, once students begin learning letter-sound correspondences, it is important to help them connect sounds to letters. If students spend months manipulating sounds without ever connecting those sounds to print, we miss valuable opportunities to strengthen reading and spelling development.

Research suggests that 10 hours total of phonemic awareness instruction is sufficient for most children.

Mistake #2: Thinking Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Must Be Taught Separately

Many teachers feel they must choose between phonemic awareness activities and phonics activities.

In reality, some of the strongest lessons integrate both.

Word chains, spelling activities, sound dictation, letter tile work, and Elkonin boxes with letters all help students strengthen phonemic awareness while simultaneously building phonics knowledge.

Mistake #3: Jumping to Advanced Phonemic Awareness Skills Too Quickly

It can be tempting to focus on deletion and substitution tasks because they seem more advanced.

However, students benefit most when they have a strong foundation in blending and segmenting first.

If a student struggles to blend sounds into words or segment words into sounds, advanced manipulation tasks may create unnecessary frustration.

Focus on automaticity for each PA skill over leaping too quickly to another PA skill.

Mistake #4: Forgetting the End Goal

The goal of phonemic awareness instruction is not to create students who are experts at sound games.

The goal is to help students become successful readers and spellers.

When we keep that goal in mind, connecting sounds to letters becomes a natural next step.

So, Should Phonemic Awareness Be Done in the Dark?

Sometimes.

When assessing phonemic awareness, yes. Students should work with sounds only so teachers can accurately determine what they know and can do.

During instruction, however, the answer becomes more nuanced.

Students benefit from oral phonemic awareness practice, but research and classroom experience suggest that instruction becomes even more powerful when students begin connecting sounds to letters.

The strongest literacy instruction does not treat phonemic awareness and print as enemies. Instead, it helps students build a bridge between the sounds they hear and the letters they see.

That bridge is what ultimately supports reading and spelling success.

Key Takeaways

✓ Phonemic awareness assessments should be administered without letters or print.

✓ Phonemic awareness assessment and instruction serve different purposes.

✓ Research supports connecting phonemic awareness and print during instruction.

✓ Word chains, letter tiles, whiteboards, Elkonin boxes, sound dictation, and spelling activities help students build connections between sounds and letters.

✓ Phonemic awareness and phonics work together to support reading and spelling development.

✓ The ultimate goal is not simply manipulating sounds—it is helping students become successful readers and writers.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can I use letter tiles during phonemic awareness instruction?

Absolutely. Letter tiles help students connect the sounds they hear to the letters that represent those sounds. They are a simple and effective way to bridge phonemic awareness and phonics. I recently used this set of magnetic grapheme tiles and loved the ease of use and organization they had!

2. Are word chains phonemic awareness or phonics?

Both. Students must analyze and manipulate sounds while also attending to the letters that represent those sounds. Word chains strengthen phonemic awareness and phonics simultaneously.

3. What is the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics?

Phonemic awareness focuses on the sounds in spoken language. Phonics focuses on the relationship between sounds and letters. Phonemic awareness is an auditory skill, while phonics connects those sounds to print. I go into depth about this in another blog post.

4. Can spelling activities strengthen phonemic awareness?

Yes. As researchers like Brennan Chandler found in this recent meta-analysis, spelling improves both the spelling and reading of students with learning disabilities. Before students can spell a word, they must analyze the sounds they hear and determine which letters represent those sounds. This makes spelling one of the most powerful ways to reinforce phonemic awareness. Research shows that as students reading and spelling improves, so does their ability to isolate and manipulate phonemes.

5. When should students move from oral phonemic awareness activities to print?

As soon as students begin learning letter-sound correspondences, teachers can start incorporating opportunities to connect sounds and letters. Oral activities still have value, but they should be complemented by activities that help students apply those skills to reading and spelling.

6. How many phonemic awareness skills should students be working on at any one time?

Target 1-2 PA skills at a time. Remember to focus your energy on phoneme-level skills instead of larger phonological chunks like rhyming and syllable awareness.

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