At the beginning of first grade a significant portion of literacy based instruction addresses phonological and phonemic awareness skills.  Phonological awareness is often thought of as an umbrella term encompassing a variety of sound related skills supporting developing readers.  Phonemic awareness is one aspect of phonological awareness, addressing how phonemes, or a single unit of sound functions in words.  Phonological awareness skills addressed in first grade at The Summit include general word awareness, identification of rhyme and alliteration, syllable awareness, onset and rime manipulation, and phoneme manipulation.  Many of these skills are addressed naturally through discussion or classroom read alouds including books such as The War Between the Vowels and the Consonants or Hop on Pop.  Center work incorporating phonological awareness skills  have included a variety of games and activities such as rhyming bingo, initial consonant bingo, short vowel bingo, word family sorts, CVC spelling games, and more.  The following article from Reading Rockets provides more information about phonological awareness and developmental milestones.  The Development of Phonological Skills