- Over 8 million students in grades 4-12 struggle with reading. High school dropout rates are high, with only 70% graduating on time. Struggling readers are 20 times more likely to dropout than top students. - Lack of phonemic awareness, the ability to understand how spoken words are represented in print, is a strong predictor of difficulty learning to read. Phonemic awareness instruction helps all students learn to read and spell. - Effective phonemic awareness activities involve students in understanding sounds in words and connecting letters to sounds. Such instruction should be developmentally sequenced and integrated into daily language arts lessons with a clear focus on linguistic units.