The document discusses the importance of early reading skills like phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness involves understanding that spoken words are made up of individual sounds. It is an important precursor to learning letters and reading. Effective phonemic awareness instruction should involve modeling sounds, using games to blend and segment sounds, and progressing from larger to smaller linguistic units. Assessments like DIBELS can track students' phonemic awareness skills and progress. Interventions should explicitly teach sounds at the phoneme level and integrate phonological awareness with letter knowledge.