Do you know what phonemic awareness is? It is awareness of how words break down into sounds. This is not just the conceptual understand, but also the ability to actually hear and manipulate those sounds within words.
Many children develop phonemic awareness skills naturally during the preschool and elementary school years, but for some–especially dyslexics–it can be very difficult to break words into sounds and put them back together. When this is very effortful, it makes it difficult and slow to sound out words. Then even once the word is decoded, the student may be less likely to recognize the word when it is encountered again.
Colorful sound blocks are one way to practice these skills. While practicing with physical manipulatives is generally preferable to screen-based manipulatives, sometimes a digital version is more convenient, so I made one.
Here are a couple links to videos (not mine) on how to use these sound blocks.
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