The Bridge to Reading curriculum is used in second grade at Yarmouth Elementary School. This program integrates both phonemic awareness and phonics instruction throughout its lessons.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, recognize, and manipulate individual sounds, or phonemes, within words. It focuses only on spoken language. For example, knowing that the word cat is made up of three sounds (c-a-t) is a phonemic awareness skill. This ability is a key building block for learning to read.
Phonics connects spoken sounds with written letters or letter combinations. It emphasizes the alphabetic principle—the relationship between spoken and written language. Phonics instruction helps students learn common letter-sound patterns, enabling them to both decode (read) and encode (spell) words. This is an essential skill for becoming a confident reader and writer.