A system to teach phonemic awareness uses a plurality of phonemes and a plurality of graphemes. Each phoneme is a unique sound and an indivisible unit of sound in a spoken language, and each grapheme is a written representation of one of the plurality of phonemes. A plurality of distinct graphical images and a plurality of unique names are provided where each unique name is associated with one of the graphical images and represents a grouping of graphemes selected from the plurality of graphemes. The system uses a plurality of sets of display pieces having a plurality of individual display pieces. Each individual display piece includes at least a portion of one of the graphical images and the graphemes from the grouping of graphemes constituting the associated unique name. A predefined instructional environment defines a predefined spatial context and predefined rules governing the acquisition and utilization of individual display pieces.