Without a good command of oral language, reading has no foundation upon which to develop and expand. Once oral language is firmly established, it is much easier to introduce reading and the probability of reading success is much greater. When formal reading instruction begins, the goal is to help learners become independent readers, to give them tools that will enable them to unlock words on their own. Readers cannot successfully attack unfamiliar words if they are not aware that words have sounds, that those sounds can be manipulated, and that graphic symbols represent those sounds. In the simplest terms, phonemic awareness is the understanding that oral language is comprised of sounds that can be manipulated.
Young children love to play with sounds.
When first learning to talk, children mimic the sounds they hear. When children start experimenting with language, they should be encouraged to create new sounds, new sound combinations, and alterations in sounds so that language becomes real and exciting to them. Most children naturally develop the ability to manipulate sound through experimentation, without any formal instruction in how sounds are made. However, some children do not develop this sense of language. Further development of the learner's phonemic awareness comes with an understanding of its components.