The Nemies app was a cost effective and accessible phonemic awareness intervention designed for home use. It has now been retired and is no longer available for download.
Phonemic Awareness for Early Childhood Education
The Nemies app featured a compelling visual metaphor to represent individual phonemes and phoneme sequencing; audio-visual presentation of isolated phonemes; and sophisticated speech synthesis technology for presentation of blended speech sounds.
Build the Foundation for Better Reading
Phonemic awareness (PA) is the ability to identify and manipulate the sounds within words. It is considered a necessary skill, even a precursor skill, for reading and spelling. Because of the importance of strong PA, intervention beyond what is taught in regular preschool, elementary school, and special education is often necessary.
Phonemic Awareness Can Be Taught
There has been a tremendous amount of research devoted to the importance of Phonemic Awareness. Here are some key findings that were summarized by the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA):
- The most effective phonemic awareness instruction teaches children to manipulate the letters in the alphabet.
- Phonemic awareness instruction can benefit all children as they learn to read and spell
- Most children can achieve maximum benefit from as little as 20 hours of phonemic awareness instruction.