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This resource is from the Down Syndrome Resource Foundation. This website showcases multiple ways for all families to help increase their child's reading comprehension. An at-home activity would be finding a game-based activity such as charades or even telephone. These activities allow for the student to understand certain vocabulary.

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Learn at Home Activities for Comprehension - Down Syndrome Resource Foundation

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Beginning Comprehension We often think of the WH questions (who, what,, when, where, why) as the beginning stage of developing reading and listening comprehension, however, there may be some work to do before your child is ready to answer these questions. Before WH questions, we must ensure that the child comprehends at the word level.

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For older kids to get them thinking in multiple ways, after reading a book or chapter, allow students to retell the story using Legos or anything else around the classroom. As they build, they can describes details from the story. For students with exceptionalities, you could allow them to use a bigger Lego size if available. You could also allow them to draw their retelling of the story instead.

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Making Predictions with a Graphic Organizer

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This activity I have seen done live in class but making predictions is a just-right reading strategy for emerging readers. During a read-aloud, find a few good stopping points to ask students what they think will happen next. For students with exceptionalities, you could allow them to simply say their prediction in a complete sentence.

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Learning A-Z is a great resource for those homeschooling their children. This website has entire lesson plans that will bridge the gap between learning at home and learning at a school building. An at-home activity to increase fluency is simply reading aloud to your child and having them echo-read after so they are able to hear fluent reading to imitate.

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Learning A-Z reading products are used in nearly 70% of U.S. schools.

Our award-winning products are ideal for PreK-6 homeschool students because they offer personalized reading instruction. High-interest texts at all grade levels ensure that all students can find something they love to read. See our offerings below and get the right product for your homeschool student today.

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Reading Products for Homeschool Students - Learning A-Z

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Learning A-Z reading products are used in nearly 70% of U.S. schools. Our award-winning products are ideal for PreK-6 homeschool students because they offer personalized reading instruction. High-interest texts at all grade levels ensure that all students can find something they love to read.

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For upper elementary students robot reading is a fun way to practice fluency. For those with exceptionalities, this activity can be adapted by having a smartphone or computer speak for them. You could also have students try to write like a robot.

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Rereading can be boring, right? It’s less so when you use different voices! We love changing our voice to practice fluency. You can have kids read the text in a “Mickey Mouse” voice, monster voice, or any creative voice you can think of. This can be adapted for those with exceptionalities by modeling for them what is expected.

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In this activity students are going to use ping pong balls to toss into the cups. The cup that it lands in, the student must say a word with the word blend. This activity can be adapted for students with exceptionalities using some kind of ramp system for the balls. You could also instead of using cups you could write all the blending word combinations on a laminated sheet of paper, place Velcro sheets on the ping pong ball.

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This activity can be used during station time perhaps. Where the wheels will be pre-made and there will be about 3-4 at the station. Students using the picture clues will place clothespins on the the matching letter sound. For students with exceptionalities instead of using the clothespins, you could use Velcro pictures of the letter you are focusing on.

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Letter Sound Wheels Alphabet Activity | Letter sound activities, Letter sounds, Alphabet activities preschool

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Feb 2, 2021 - Practice letter sounds with Letter Sound Wheels! This fun alphabet activity challenges students to clip the four words that start with each letter.

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This activity is great for upper elementary students with a higher vocabulary bank. This activity can be adapted by instead of the students peers saying words/clues, students could show picture clues. Another way to

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How To Play Hot Seat | Fun Classroom Game

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These days kids want everything on their tablets and smartphones. Duolingo ABC is a great app that feels like a game for students and they won't realize they are learning letter recognition. A fun hands-on phonics activity that can be done at home is called Slap the Letter Sounds. Using foam letters, build a word and have he student swat the letters with a fly swatter as they are sounding out each letter.

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Visual Dictionaries are a fun way to create word association in the classroom. Students will draw a picture for each word to create their own visual dictionary.

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Keep The Phonemic Awareness Going At-Home

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Keep The Phonemic Awareness Going At-Home

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Education.com is a great resource for those homeschooling their students. This resource provides guided lessons, online games and hands-on-activities pre-made. An at-home activity that can be done to increase a child's phonemic awareness is when reading books, point out the words that rhyme. Along with doing so, you can play i-spy rhyme around the house and when adventuring outside the house. A great time consuming game for short or long car rides.

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Browse Educational Resources | Education.com

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Browse Educational Resources. Award winning educational materials designed to help kids succeed. Start for free now!

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Phonemic Awareness Activity Lower Elementary

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Phonemic Awareness Activity Lower Elementary

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This clapping syllables classroom activity can be adapted for students with exceptionalities by using methods other than clapping for those with a arm/hand mobility limitation or non-verbal students such as patting legs, using music sticks or even a clicker. For those confined to a wheelchair or whom have lower lower body mobility restrictions this activity should be just fine.

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Are you looking for a fun and interactive way to help your kids learn about syllables? If so, you are in the right place! We'll look at how clapping syllables can be used as an effective tool for teaching phonological awareness.
Read on to find out why breaking words apart is important, and how you can use syllable clapping to help your kids learn syllable awareness.

Why is it important for kids to learn how to break words into syllables?

Phonological awareness is the ability to notice or manipulate sounds in speech. Developing phonological skills such as breaking down spoken speech into words, syllables, and phonemes is an important stepping stone to eventually learning to read. So, working on syllable awareness and syllable segmentation is essential literacy activity for kids.
The great news is that playing with words can be FUN and PLAYFUL for young kids.
How to teach syllable awareness and segmentation

You may wonder where to begin when thinking about how to teach syllable awareness. Here are some tips:

The first rule is to have fun with the syllable wordplay.

Start with simple compound words.

Slow down and over-emphasize syllables as you say them.

Ask kids to put their hands on their chins to feel the different parts of words as they say them.

Emphasize each syllable with a clap

Have Fun with Wordplay

Be silly as you play around with words. Say words in funny voices, pretend to be different characters, and get creative.

Start with Compound Words

It's easier for kids to hear syllables and understand the concept of breaking words down when you use simple compound words. Tell kids that you will play a game where you break a word into two different parts. Begin by slowly breaking 2-syllable compound words apart and then saying the word more quickly. Here are some 2-syllable compound words that you can begin with.

Feel the Syllables

Overemphasize the syllables as you say them, ask kids to say the words with you, and encourage kids to "feel" the syllables as they talk. You can encourage them to bob their head or, sway their body to feel the rhythm.

You may want to give them a mirror and encourage them to watch how their mouthes move as they say the words. They can also place their hands on their chins to feel the different movements that their lips, jaws, and tongue make as they say the words.

How and why to clap syllables

Now that your kids have begun to feel that words are made of different parts, you can teach them how to clap the syllables. Clapping syllables in words is an excellent way for teachers to help young kids learn syllable awareness and phonological awareness. It's an interactive and fun way for children to recognize syllables, understand how words are broken up into smaller parts, and discover the sounds of language.

Soon, you will be able to ask kids, "How many claps does that word have in it?"

syllable clapping words lists

Once your kids understand the concept of clapping syllables, you can play around with more complex words. Kids will enjoy counting the claps in the words. Here are some lists of words with different numbers of syllables to get you started.

One-Syllable Word List

Two-Syllable Word List

Three-Syllable Word List

Four-Syllable Word List

Five-Syllable Word List

Don't forget the most important words.... their names. Syllable clapping is a great name activity that kids love.

syllable clapping activities

There are a variety of fun literacy activities that teachers can use to help reinforce phonological awareness with their kids. You can stop and clap syllables of words you use throughout the day such as playground, restroom, storybook, etc. Speaking of books, stop and clap out exciting words that you find while you read books aloud to your kids.

If you are looking for a program to teach syllables, check out this article about how to teach syllable awareness. Here are some additional ideas for syllable clapping activities:

Syllable Clapping Clip Cards

These counting clip cards are a fun way to practice syllable segmentation. Kids can say the word on these cards, clap out the parts of the words, and then add a clothespin clip to the correct number of claps. You can easily make the cards self-checking by adding a little dot or sticker on the back of the cards.

I Spy

I love the "I spy" game because you can use it to practice many different concepts. To practice syllable awareness, kids can look around and spy something with a certain number of claps. If this proves too difficult, you can specify both the color and number of claps in an object like this, "I spy something that is orange and has two claps."

If you enjoy this version of I Spy, you will also enjoy the rhyming version. Find the directions in my list of rhyming games for preschoolers.

Syllable Clapping Word Sort

Kids can sort picture cards by the number of syllables or claps. This printable set also encourages more movement by getting kids to clap syllables, tapping their heads, doing leg lifts, squats, etc.

Purchase Printable Syllable Clapping Activities Today

Are you ready to start clapping syllables and working on phonological awareness with your kids? My printable syllable clapping activities are perfect for young learners, as they provide them with the opportunity to practice their skills in a creative and entertaining way. Visit the store today and get these fun activities for your kids!

Purchase on TPT

Do you prefer to shop at Teachers Pay Teachers? You can also purchase the syllable activities in my TPT Store.

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Syllable Clapping - The Best Way to Teach Kids to Break Words Apart

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Are you looking for a fun and interactive way to help your kids learn about syllables? If so, you are in the right place! We'll look at how clapping syllables can be used as an effective tool for teaching phonological awareness.

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Phonemic Awareness Activity Upper Elementary

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Phonemic Awareness Activity Upper Elementary

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Stand Up, Sit Down is an activity where the teacher will say a focus sound /h/, students must stand up when they hear a word with the same focus sound /h/. This can be adapted for students with exceptionalities by having pictures of the words showing the different parts of a word.

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Are you looking to build your students' phonemic awareness skills? When young children begin formal schooling, it can be super easy to jump straight into the learning of graphemes and phonics. The school year goes by so quickly that starting the reading and spelling journey is a teacher's number one priority. However, a child's phonemic awareness can often get overlooked, or a presumption made that they already have this awareness. It's important to point out that the terms phonics and phonemic awareness are not the same - and phonological awareness is its own distinct concept too.

With so many educators asking us what phonemic awareness is and how to teach it, our teacher team put together this guide to help you break this crucial concept down!

What Is Phonemic Awareness?

Let's start with the basics, shall we? Phonemic awareness involves the ability to identify, isolate, manipulate, and blend individual phonemes - the smallest units of sound - in words. For example, being able to identify that the word 'cat' has three sounds (/k/ /a/ /t/) and being able to change the /k/ sound to /b/ to create the word 'bat' is a sign of phonemic awareness.

When it comes to learning to read, developing phonemic awareness skills is crucial for young learners. Reading, after all, requires the ability to recognise and understand the sounds that make up words and to connect those sounds to the letters and letter combinations that represent them.

Phonemic awareness is the skill that allows students to decode words, recognising and sounding out the words they haven't encountered before. It allows them to can break down words into their individual sounds (phonemes) and blend those sounds together to form words.

Are Phonological and Phonemic Awareness the Same?

The names are similar, but phonological and phonemic awareness aren't quite the same thing.

Phonological awareness refers to the broad awareness of the sound structure of language, including the ability to recognise and manipulate larger units of sound such as syllables, onset and rime and phonemes.

Phonemic awareness, on the other hand, falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness. This literacy skill specifically focuses on the ability to manipulate and distinguish individual phonemes in words.

Short on time? Explore hundreds of curriculum-aligned phonics resources for your lessons!

Phonemic Awareness Listening Activities

The ability to listen is also an important building block of phonemic awareness. Listening skills are critical for the development of phonemic awareness because phonemic awareness is an auditory skill. In order to develop phonemic awareness, students need to be able to distinguish and manipulate individual sounds in spoken language, which requires good listening skills.

Here are some great listening activities that you can do with your early years students at the beginning of the year to get an idea as to how well they are listening. The best part about these listening activities is they are heaps of fun, and students won't even feel like they are being tested!

Multiple Instructions

Learning to listen to a series of instructions, not just one, is an important part of listening skills. In this game, you will read out a list of actions that you want a student to complete. That student will have to complete them all - after hearing them all listed out just one time!

For example, you might say that you want to a student to:

While your designated student is performing the tasks, the rest of the class also listens to the instructions and gives thumbs up or down to if their classmate correctly followed the directions.

Barrier Games

Another fun listening activity, this one involves colouring in pages and setting two students up so one is a speaker and one is a listener. The speaker and listener are then separated by a barrier such as a piece of cardboard mounted on a desk.

Prior to beginning the game, the student designated as a speaker should colour in their colouring sheet, while their partner will keep their sheet blank. Make sure the listener doesn't get to see the coloured sheet!

During the game, the speaker gives precise instructions to the listener, telling them how to colour their own sheet. The goal is for the listener to produce work that is close to being identical to that of the speaker. This can be done with activities other than colouring, too:

5 pages Years: F - 4

5 pages Years: F - 4

3 pages Years: F - 1

Phonemic Awareness Activities (By Skill)

To make it easier for teachers, we decided to unpack some of the most crucial phonemic awareness skills that young children need to master so that they can be set up for success when it comes to spelling and reading. Each of these skills outlined also includes some suggested questions and phonemic awareness activities that you could do with your students.

Phoneme Isolation and Identification

We popped these two skills together because they go hand in hand. Phoneme isolation is the ability to identify and isolate individual sounds within a word - the sounds at the start of the word, the middle of the word and the end of the word. With beginning readers, these are monosyllabic words.

Phoneme identification, on the other hand, refers to a student's ability to recognise and distinguish individual sounds in spoken words. For example, if you give a child two words such as 'cat' and 'cut,' a child with good phoneme identification skills would be able to identify the different sounds in each word (/k/ and /t/ in 'cat,' and /k/ and /ʌ/ in 'cut').

Here are some questions you may ask your students:

What is the first sound in pig?

What is the last sound in pig?

What is the middle sound in pig?

With phoneme identification skills, students can recognise the same sounds across multiple words, or they can identify a focus phoneme in multiple words.

Here are some questions you may ask your students about this skill:

Which word starts with the 'm' sound - cat, fat, mat?

What do these words have that are the same - mum, mat, mop?

Phoneme Isolation and Identification Activity Ideas

1. Beginning Sounds Scoot Activity - Place the 24 cards from this beginning sounds sorting activity all around your classroom with a number identifying each one. Students will move around the room from one card to the next, recording the number and writing down the correct beginning sound for each on a sheet of paper. In this activity, children need to identify the sounds that come at the start of the word, but you could easily adapt this resource to focus on middle and end sounds too!

2. Stand up, Sit Down Activity - While students sit in their seats, read out a focus phoneme. To play, students must stand up when they hear that phoneme at the start of a word. This is a very quick way to determine which students are able to identify phonemes.

Phoneme Categorisation

This phoneme awareness skill involves the ability to group or categorise phonemes based on their shared characteristics. More simply, this is the ability for students to recognise that certain sounds belong to a particular group or category, and that other sounds belong to different categories.

For example, if you have the words dog, dad and rug, both 'dad' and 'dog' can be categorised into the same group of initial sounds, while 'dog' and 'rug' would be paired together in a group of words with the same final sound.

Phoneme Categorisation Activity Ideas

1. Beanbag Phoneme Activity - Using picture cards that represent CVC words like these CVC word building mats, this activity is perfect for a small group. Set up three baskets, and add a label of 1, 2 or 3 on each basket to imply the 'first' sound, 'second' sound and 'last' sound in a word. Provide a focus phoneme such as 'd.' Students then pick up a picture card, identify the 'd' sound, and throw a beanbag in the correct basket. For the word 'dog,' for example, the students would throw the beanbag into the first basket. You might also create a discard pile for words that don't include your focus phoneme.

2. What Doesn't Belong? Using the picture cards from the activity above, present students with three picture cards, and ask students which one doesn't belong in the group, based on the sounds.

Phoneme Segmentation and Blending

Phoneme segmentation and blending are two important skills that involve the ability to break down and manipulate individual sounds. Segmentation is the ability to break words down into individual sounds, while blending involves blending individual sounds together to form a word

We've popped these two skills together because essentially you want students to be able to segment a word into its individual phonemes and then blend those phonemes together to say the word.

You might say to a child:

Phoneme Segmenting and Blending Activity Ideas

1. Playdough Blending - Place a picture card in front of your students, and ask them what they see and ask how many sounds can you hear? Then have them create three playdough balls. For example, if the word is 'bat,' students should press each ball of dough individually as they segment the word /b/ /a/ /t/. Then have them roll those 'squashed' balls together to blend the phonemes together again. This is a great way to represent how segmented phonemes come together to form one word!

2. Car Segmenting and Blending - Pull out the toy cars for a similar game. This time a child manipulates a small toy car across the desk or table. The car stops for each sound, but it keeps driving when students are blending words together.

3. Jumping Sounds - Turn phoneme awareness development into an active game with masking tape that you can use on the ground to create circles. This activity is similar to the playdough game described above, but instead of using dough, you will have students jump to your tape circles to represent the different sound segments in a word. Then walk across the tape when they are blending the phonemes together.

Working on consonant blends? Check out our teacher team's favourite blends resources!

Phoneme Deletion

Phoneme deletion is the ability to identify a target sound within a word and then remove it, creating a new word with a different meaning. By being able to delete individual sounds from words, children can better understand the relationships between sounds in words and the impact that changing or removing sounds can have on the meaning of a word - an important part of overall phoneme awareness.

You may ask your students the following:

Say cat - now say cat without the /c/ sound.

Say spark - now say spark without the /s/.

Phoneme Deletion Activity Ideas

1. Drop the Sound - Using picture cards (like this colourful card set with more than 100 flashcards), hold up card, and ask the students to say the word but skip the first sound. For example, if you are holding up a picture of a cat, the students would say 'at.' Switch things up after a while! Play the same game, but challenge students to drop the final sound in the words!

2. Feed the Dinosaur Sounds Activity - Find a dinosaur with an open mouth from your classroom toy box, or have students create a dinosaur from boxes (a cereal box is great for this!) and label blocks with letters representing the different phonemes. The game is for students to feed the hungry dinosaur the right sounds! For example, you could say the hungry dinosaur is wanting to eat the /m/ sound today. Use the blocks and say a word that has the /m/ at the start or the end such as 'mat.' Show the students the blocks for the sounds /m/ /a/ /t/. Which block will I feed the dino today? Have a volunteer put the block in the dinosaur's mouth and then ask what is the word now. Students would then say 'at.'

Teach Starter Teacher Tip: Change 'Feed the Dinosaur' to 'Feed the Monster,' and use this printable tattle monster template to decorate your hungry tissue box!

Phoneme Addition

Deleting a phoneme is important, but kids shouldn't just take away sounds. They need to know how to add them too! Just as the name implies, phoneme addition involves adding a phoneme to a word to make a new word. For example, add /s/ to the beginning of the word park. What word do you have now?

Phoneme Addition Activity

Make a New Word. Once again, you can use picture cards like these CVC word shape cards (these are so useful!). This time hold up images of objects that can have phonemes added to form new words. For example, hold up a picture of a pot and ask your students what new word would be formed if you add 's' to the start of the word pot, /s/ /pot/. You can keep doing this with a variety of images.

Phoneme Substitution

Phoneme substitution involves the students manipulating spoken words by substituting certain phonemes for others. This has often been described as one of the hardest phonemic awareness skills as students need to complete multiple steps to get to the new word. It's often one of the last skills developed as students need to have a grasp of the phoneme addition and deletion skills first.

In this skill you may say:

What word do we have if we change the /c/ sound to /r/ sound in cat?

What word do we have if we change the /d/ sound to /l/ sound in dog?

Phoneme Substitution Activity

Chop the Word. Use coloured pieces of paper for this activity. First, you need three of the same coloured cards and the ability to display them so students can see (a pocket chart works well). Tap each card as students help you segment a given word. For example, let's say 'hat.' Do this multiple times, touching the index cards as you segment the word /h/ /a/ /t/. Now, you are going to 'chop' it - often a hand signal like a karate chop works well here. You will remove the first card and add a different coloured card to that same spot. This is where you give them a new sound. Let's say /m/. Then blend those phonemes together to get the new word 'mat.'

Don't stop there! Explore our complete collection of phonics resources for your lesson plans now!

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What Is Phonemic Awareness? How to Teach These Important Skills to Young Learners

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Explore a teacher guide to phonemic awareness plus activities for the early years classroom!

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Finding fun activities to review vocabulary can be tough because it looks as though you're trying to teach them during out-of-school time. A fun activity is "What's another word for ...". This activity can be done during any time of day. You play by asking your child what's another word for cup, they could say bottle and mug. K5Learning.com is a great free resource for parents homeschooling their children. This website breaks down vocabulary words and worksheets for each grade level. It also has lots of other material for math as well.

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Reading, math and more for kindergarten to grade 5. Thousands of free worksheets in math, reading, science, vocabulary, spelling, grammar and writing.