Which of the following activities can help promote phonemic awareness?

Simple songs can help promote phonemic awareness because they often include rhymes, alliteration, and repetition, which draw attention to the sounds within words. Engaging with songs allows learners to recognize and manipulate phonemes—the smallest units of sound—by emphasizing the sounds through catchy melodies and lyrics. For instance, songs that incorporate rhyming words prompt children to listen closely for sound similarities, effectively enhancing their ability to discern and work with individual sounds in spoken language.

The other options, while beneficial in various ways, do not directly focus on phonemic awareness. Reading aloud silently does not actively engage the listener in sound identification, while writing essays is more about expressing ideas in writing rather than focusing on sounds. Memorizing facts does not encourage any practice in recognizing or manipulating the sounds in words, which is the core of developing phonemic awareness.