This article describes the study that the authors conducted with Constance Kamii concerning how phonemic awareness (PA) is assessed. The study concerns the validity of the Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF) portion, one subtest of the DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) tests that purports to determine a student's ability to segment three-and four-phoneme words into their individual phonemes. The research found that as children begin to read and write, PA and knowledge of phonics develop gradually and simultaneously. Here, the authors share what they have learned about how to quickly assess a child's PA development and how to help students become more aware of individual phonemes. They also suggest few ways to help teachers determine their students' phonemic awareness and offer two PA games that help develop the students PA.