Phonemic awareness is the ability to manipulate sounds. In other words, it the ability to take a word and break it into its component sounds. This skill is vital to a child's ability to read,write and spell. In fact, research shows that phonemic awareness is one of the two most important predictors of reading success in the first two years of school. With STEPS training, you will learn how to ensure that a child can "hear" the sounds before he begins to try to read and write them.