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Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate sounds in spoken words. Basically, identifying that the first sound in the word "sun" is ss.

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Phonics is the study of how letters and letter combination connect to sound.

The letter C H can represent as the sound "CH".

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Vocabulary is the process of acquiring new words, understanding their meaning and expressing vocabulary.

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Fluency refers to the ability to read smoothly, accurately and with expression. This focuses on recognizing words and with accuracy.

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Comprehension is the ability to grasp, understand and remember what was read. This is understanding the meaning of text.

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Classroom activities to support development:

Using LEGO bricks, beads, or pennies, say a word and have the student show you how many sounds the word makes. For example, top = t-o-p = three sounds, so the student would place three objects in a row. Then have them tap each object as they say the sound.

Sound Matching:

Students will have a paper with a set of pictures where they would have to cut and glue the pictures to the correct sound it makes.

For students with exceptionalities:

I will state the instructions clear and with more visuals to explain the directions. I will also use sensory activities and provide one on one support. For students who are gifted I would look into other worksheets that are at a different level or suggest peer to peer support.

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Classroom activities to support development:

Using charts to display in the classroom letters and words.

Footsteps2brilliance- this is an online platform that helps students with many objects such as phonics, vocabulary, etc.. This will help students with saying and practicing vocabulary. It is a very engaging and active learning method for students.

For students with exceptionalities:

Alternative ways would be by accessing key content (e.g., charts, books written in their first language, simplified text written by the teacher, discussion, etc.) this allows students to learn the same material as other students as they continue to develop their English language skills.

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One at-home activity:

Sound scavenger hunt

Choose a letter sound, then have your child find things around your house that start with the same sound. “Can you find something in our house that starts with the letter “p” pppppp sound? Picture, pencil, pear”.

This website includes many at home activities that includes videos for demonstration to try out at home.

https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home/reading-101-guide-parents/your-kindergartener/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness

This will meet the reading needs of students by building awareness of beginning sounds. This helps with seeing visuals/first letter of the word and to make sound connections.

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That's a complicated sounding term, but it's meaning is simple: the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the sounds in spoken language. Phonological awareness is really a group of skills that include a child's ability to:

Identify words that rhyme

Count the number of syllables in a name

Recognize alliteration (words with the same beginning sound)

Segment (break) a sentence into words

Identify the syllables in a word

The most sophisticated phonological awareness skill (and the last to develop) is called phonemic awareness - the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. When playing with the sounds in word, children learn to:

Blend individual sounds to make a word

Stretch out a word into its individual sounds

Swap in a different sound to the beginning, middle, or end of a word to make a new word

Strong phonemic awareness is one of the strongest predictors of later reading success. Children who struggle with reading, including kids with dyslexia, often have trouble with phonemic awareness, but with the right kind of instruction they can be successful. Learn some of the warning signs for dyslexia in this article, Clues to Dyslexia in Early Childhood.

Parents can make a big difference in helping their children become readers by practicing these pre-reading oral skills at home. Try some of the simple rhyming and word sound games described here.

Try these speech sound activities at home

Rhyme time

"I am thinking of an animal that rhymes with big. What's the animal?" Answer: pig. What else rhymes with big? ( dig, fig, wig)

Road trip rhymes

While you're out driving in the car, spot something out the window and ask your child, "what rhymes with tree or car or shop?" Then switch roles and have your child spot something and ask you for a rhyme. This can turn into a game of nonsense rhymes ("What rhymes with tree stump?") but that's great for practicing sounds, too!

Word families

Word families are sets of words that rhyme. Start to build your family by giving your child the first word, for example, cat. Then ask your child to name all the "kids" in the cat family, such as: bat, fat, sat, rat, pat, mat, hat, flat. This will help your child hear patterns in words.

Silly tongue twisters

Sing songs and say silly tongue twisters. These help your child become sensitive to the sounds in words.

Tongue ticklers

Alliteration or "tongue ticklers" - where the sound you're focusing on is repeated over and over again - can be a fun way to provide practice with a speech sound. Try these:

For M: Miss Mouse makes marvelous meatballs!

For S: Silly Sally sings songs about snakes and snails.

For F: Freddy finds fireflies with a flashlight.

Syllable shopping

While at the grocery store, have your child tell you the syllables in different food names. Have them hold up a finger for each word part. Eggplant = egg-plant, two syllables. Pineapple = pine-ap-ple, three syllables. Show your child the sign for each and ask her to say the word.

"I spy" first sounds

Practice beginning sounds with this simple "I spy" game at home, on a walk, or at the grocery store. Choose words with distinctive, easy-to-hear beginning sounds. For example, if you're in the bathroom you can say, "I spy something red that starts with the "s" ssss sound ( soap)."

Sound scavenger hunt

Choose a letter sound, then have your child find things around your house that start with the same sound. "Can you find something in our house that starts with the letter "p" pppppp sound? Picture, pencil, pear "

Which letter sounds do I teach first?

Reading expert Linda Farrell recommends that you begin with teaching the letter names, and then focus on the letter sounds that are closest to their letter names (such as /v/). And here's a great tip for teaching the trickier letter name-letter sound combinations - use arm motions. In this video, Linda demonstrates motions for /x/ and /y/. (From our video series Reading SOS: Expert Answers to Family Questions About Reading.)

Sound games

Practice blending sounds into words. Ask "Can you guess what this word is? m - o - p." Hold each sound longer than normal.

First sounds

When you're reading together with your child, pick a word from the book and say it with emphasis on the first sound. Pick another word and compare them. "Zzz-zookeeper and rrr-rhinoceros. Can you hear what sound zzz-zookeeper starts with? Is it the same as rrr-rhinoceros?

Jump, skip, hop!

Create simple picture cards that you draw or cut out of magazines. Have your child, identify what's in the picture, and then break that word into its individual sounds. For example dog is d-o-g, three sounds (phonemes). Three sounds? You and your child do three jumping jacks, skips, or hops (followed by a high-five). You can also do this game outdoors without the cards, just call out simple words for your child.

Snail talk

Tell your child you're going to communicate in "snail talk" and they need to figure out what you're saying. Take a simple word and stretch it out very slowly (e.g., /fffffllllaaaag/), then ask your child to tell you the word. Switch roles and have your child stretch out a word for you.

"I spy" blending

Here's an easy phoneme blending game you can play while talking a walk. For blending, you can say, "I see a sign that says s-t-o-p" Then your child has to blend the sounds to guess your word - stop. (Remember to say only the sounds in the word - not the letters.) Keep the words short, moving from two to three to four sounds depending on your child's skill level.

Sound counting

Using LEGO bricks, beads, or pennies, say a word and have your child show you how many sounds the word makes. For example, top = t-o-p = three sounds, so your child would place three objects in a row. Then have them tap each object as they say the sound. Remember, your child is just showing you the sounds they hear. So the word bike would be = b-i-k (silent e) = only three sounds.

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Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Activities for Your Kindergartener

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Phonological and phonemic awareness are important pre-reading skills, related to the ability to hear, identify, and play with the sounds in spoken language - including rhymes, syllables, and the smallest units of sound (phonemes). Children with strong phonological awareness skills are ready to become readers.

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Encourage attention to letters and sounds:

Prompt students to look at the first letter of the word and make the letter’s sound.

Use a chart to practice saying beginning sounds:

displaying an alphabet chart with corresponding pictures boosts letter-sound recognition and automaticity.

For students with exceptionalities:

I will state the instructions clear and with more visuals to explain the directions. I will also use sensory activities and provide one on one support. For students who are gifted I would look into other worksheets that are at a different level or suggest peer to peer support.

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One at home activity -

Talk about letters and sounds:

Help your child learn the names of the letters and the sounds the letters make. Turn it into a game! “I’m thinking of a letter and it makes the sound mmmmmm.

This website has different activities that parents can try at home with their children.

https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home/reading-101-guide-parents/your-kindergartener/phonics-and-decoding-activities

This will help students understand the word and the sound that the letter makes. Understanding and learning what sounds the alphabet requires a lot of visual and interactive learning.

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Once children have a solid grounding in the sounds of speech (phonemic awareness) they are ready to learn how these speech sounds are connected with the letters of the alphabet. And they begin to learn that there are predicable patterns in sound-letter relationships. They will take their first steps into "decoding" - sounding out simple words.

In kindergarten, your child will start with basic CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant words) such as c-a-p, say each sound individually, and then begin blending the sounds into a word. Decoding takes a lot of practice! You can help your child build phonics skills with some of the activities described here - and by offering lots of encouragement as your child gains confidence with this big step into becoming a reader.

Here are some basic tips on how to help your child build phonics skills:

Help your child learn the names of the letters and the sounds the letters make. Turn it into a game! "I'm thinking of a letter and it makes the sound mmmmmm."

That means to follow the words with your finger from left to right as you read them. Your beginning reader will do the same thing for awhile.

Beginning readers may read slowly. Give your child time to decode the words, and avoid jumping in too quickly.

If your child is stuck on a word, prompt them to look at the first letter of the word and make the letter's sound. Of course, only do this for words that can be sounded out! If the word can't be sounded out, just supply the word for them.

Try these phonics activities at home

Alphabet scavenger hunt

Be sure your kindergartner knows all of her uppercase and lowercase letters. One fun and easy way to practice is to pick up a favorite read aloud book and have your child find each letter in the print, in alphabetical order. Ask your child if some letters are harder to spot in every book, and guess why that might be.

Grocery store literacy

Choose a letter as you're walking into the store. Make a game of finding things in the store that start with that letter. For example, for the letter "p" you could find peanuts, popcorn, pineapple, paper and pizza. Emphasize the letter "p" and the sound it makes with each of your "p" words.

Trace and say

Have your child use a finger to trace a letter while saying the letter's sound. Your child can trace on paper, in sand, or on a plate of sugar. Next, see if your child can trace a simple two- or three-letter word (it, at, sat) and sound it out.

The "H Brothers"

Explain to your child that sometimes two letters will stand together to create one new sound. The "H Brothers" join with other letters to make the sounds: sh, ch, th, wh and ph. Write down some example words and use multisensory props and gestures to help your child remember the new letter combination. Here's a fun idea for telling the story of the H Brothers to reinforce the concept.

Fridge fun

Magnetic letters can provide lots of easy phonics practice right in your kitchen. For an alphabet refresher, ask your child to arrange the letters in alphabetical order. Next, ask her to pick out a letter, think of a simple three- or four-letter word that starts with that letter, and spell it out on the refrigerator. Can your child think of more words to spell with that first letter? Finally, see if she can change one letter in the word to make a new word.

Scrambled words

Draw three boxes side by side on a piece of paper. Using magnetic letters or letters written on paper, scramble the letters of a simple three-letter word (big, bug, top, ran) under the boxes. Have your child unscramble the letters and place them into the correct box.

Extra, extra!

Ask your child to find and cut out all the words in a newspaper or magazine that she can read. Glue or tape them onto a piece of paper and practice reading them together.

Dig into decodable books

Through read alouds, kindergarteners should be exposed to a wide range of books that introduce them to rich vocabulary and story structure. But there is also a role for decodable books to help your child practice beginning phonics skills. Decodable books contain a high percentage of words with predictable letter-sound relationships. You'll find a comprehensive list of K-2 books here: Decodable Text Sources.

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Phonics and Decoding: Activities for Your Kindergartener

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The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle - the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language - and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.

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At home activity:

An at home activity would be to print an image of the child. Then glue the image onto a paper. The child would then have to write vocabulary words that best describes themselves.

Starfall is a children's website that teaches basic English reading and writing skills. There is a section that focuses on "All about me".

https://www.starfall.com/h/index-kindergarten.php

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At Starfall, children have fun while they learn. Educational games, movies, books, songs, and more for PreK and Kindergarten learners.

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Classroom activities:

Student-adult reading

The student reads one-on-one with the teacher. The teacher reads the text first, providing the students with a model of fluent reading. Then the student reads the same passage to the teacher with the adult providing assistance and encouragement.

Repeated reading

After the teacher models how to read the text, then the students reread it. By doing this, the students are engaging in repeated reading. Usually, having students read a text four times is sufficient to improve fluency. Texas Education Agency. (2023).

For students with exceptionalities:

What will help students is repeated reading because repetition helps strengthen word recognition.

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At home activity:

Read together every day. You can read the morning news at breakfast, share a story after supper, or cuddle up for a book at bedtime. A daily reading routine is something everyone can look forward to.

Website for parents:

https://storylineonline.net/

Reading aloud to children has been shown to improve reading, writing and communication skills, logical thinking and concentration. This website has many books to choose from to read a long and listen to the book.

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The SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Daytime Emmy-nominated, Storyline Online, features celebrated actors reading children's books to inspire a love of reading in millions of children worldwide.

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Classroom activities:

Predicting when reading stories.

When students make predictions about the text they are about to read, it sets up expectations based on their prior knowledge about similar topics. As they read, they may mentally revise their prediction as they gain more information

Retelling

Asking students to retell a story in their own words forces them to analyze the content to determine what is important. Teachers can encourage students to go beyond literally recounting the story to drawing their own conclusions about it. Read Naturally. (2023).

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For students with exceptionalities:

Alternative ways would be by accessing key content (e.g., charts, books written in their first language, simplified text written by the teacher, discussion, etc.) this allows students to learn the same material as other students as they continue to develop their English language skills. As well as breaking down the information using graphic visuals.

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Website for parents:

https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home/reading-101-guide-parents/reading-basics/comprehension

Activities to do at home:

When reading books at home, stopping to talk about what happened? What do you think will happen next? Who were all the characters? How did you like the story? Will build great comprehension skills.

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Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words but do not understand or connect to what they are reading, they are not really reading. Good readers are both purposeful and active, and have the skills to absorb what they read, analyze it, make sense of it, and make it their own.

Strong readers think actively as they read. They use their experiences and knowledge of the world, vocabulary, language structure, and reading strategies to make sense of the text and know how to get the most out of it. They know when they have problems with understanding and what thinking strategies to use to resolve these problems when they pop up.

Teachers can play a critical role in helping students develop their comprehension skills. Reading research has shown that comprehension instruction can help students do a better job of understanding and remembering what they read. Good instruction can also help students communicate with others, verbally and in writing, about what they've read.

What good readers do

Draw on prior knowledge. Good readers draw on prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading.

Draw inferences. In addition to understanding the literal points that the author is making, good readers are able to "read between the lines" and draw inferences about a wide range of hidden meanings, such as why events are unfolding as they do, why characters behave in a certain way, what the characters are thinking, and what might happen next.

Self-monitor. During reading, good readers learn to monitor their understanding, adjust their reading speed to fit the difficulty of the text, and address any comprehension problems they have. After reading, they check their understanding of what they have read. Students who are good at monitoring their comprehension know when they understand what they're reading and when they don't.

Form mental images. Good readers often form mental pictures, or images, as they read. Readers (especially younger readers) who picture the story during reading understand and remember what they read better than readers who do not create a picture in their mind.

Summarize and retell. Summarizing requires students to determine what is important in the text and then put it into their own words by retelling, verbally or in writing. Instruction in summarizing can help students become more purposeful as they read and more skillful in comprehending. Summarizing can help students to:

Identify main ideas orally or in writing.

Connect the main or central ideas orally or in writing.

Learn to weed out unnecessary information.

Remember what they have read.

Can your child tell you what happened in the story?

This video is from Home Reading Helper, a resource for parents to elevate children's reading at home provided by Read Charlotte . Find more video, parent activities, printables, and other resources at Home Reading Helper .

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Comprehension is understanding what you read - the goal of reading! It is the thinking process readers use to understand what they read. Strong vocabulary, background knowledge, and an understanding of how language works are keys to comprehension.