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Developing good active listening skills for kids of all ages is an important life skill. Sometimes it can be difficult to get your children to listen, so why not try these fun listening games?

Listen and move! What fun it can be to really listen to a friend.

Best Listening Activities for Kids to Build Listening Skills

Today we are sharing 15 fun listening exercises for children, listening games and silly activities you can use to teach your children to have good listening skills.
This article contains affiliate links.
1. Our Favorite Listening Game

Make a simple DIY telephone and then turn it into a listening game which is one of our favorite kids activities.

Listen while I read aloud...

2. Reading Aloud Improves Listening Ability in Kids

Read to your children every day. This is one of the very best ways to help them build their listening skills and strengthen their audible learning skills, too! - Welcome to the Family Table

3. Follow the Simple Directions Game

Listening to directions of how to stack a tower of blocks make this activity one kids will love to do because they already know the answers! -Hands On As We Grow.

4. Play a Musical Listening Game

The Sound Box is a musical listening game for small children. -Let's Play Kids Music.

5. Listen and Move the Characters

Narrate some basic instructions about animal characters and what they are doing. Have your child listen and move the characters along to the story. -In The Playroom.

Why is listening so hard???

6. Go on a Sound Scavenger Hunt!

Go on a sound hunt outside and think about all the different noises you hear along the way. -Inspiration Laboratories.

7. Red Light Green Light is a Listening Game

Playing a simple game of Red Light, Green Light is such a fun way to work on those early listening skills. My two-year old loves this!

8. Play a Guess the Sound Game

Grab those extra Easter eggs and fill them with odds and ends, then let your kids shake them and guess what is inside. -A Mom With A Lesson Plan

Listening to friends counts as listening!

9. Play the Rain Game

Try playing the rain game with your kids. Such a classic and wonderful activity! -Moments A Day

10. Listening App for Kids

Learn about a listening app with games and exercises for kids. -The Preschool Toolbox Blog

11. Explore through Sound Cylinders

Make your own sound cylinders to help you kids understand the intensity of sound. -Living Montessori Now

12. Play a Game of Freeze Dance

Play freeze dance to get your kids to hone in on their listening skills. -Sing Dance Play Learn

Kids listen more than you might think...sometimes!

13. Try the Listening Exercise of DO THREE THINGS

Play this game called " Do 3 Things " that helps with listening skills and also secretly convinces them to pick up their toys. Shh! -Inspiration Laboratories

14. Play Sound Hide & Seek Together

Try this fun version of hide and seek that only uses your sense of hearing. -Mosswood Connections

15. Play a Preschool Music Game

Here is a list of 12 music activities for your preschooler to try that works for kids of all ages.

16. Can You Identify the Bird Call?

My kids grandma has a bird clock on her wall that has a different bird song at each hour. My kids love to try and identify the bird sounds.

17. Follow Along with the Listen and Move Song

18. This Grid Activity is the Perfect Listening Exercise for Kids

I love this following directions activities idea for kids which would work well at home or in the classroom to improve listening skills.

19. Overheard Listening Exercise

A few years ago, I heard someone say that people believe things they "overhear" much more than things they are told. This can be used to a parent's advantage by being conscious of what your child might be overhearing. Play a little game everyday by dropping important, positive messages to your child in a way that appears just out of earshot. It is great fun and will have them listening more intently than ever!

20. Family Time as Team Building Time

Try hosting a family team building games for kids and see how fun it is to work together and how important it is to listen to each other.

The Importance of Active Listening for Kids

One of the best ways we can help our children to develop good listening skills is to model that ourselves. As we know our children are just like sponges and soak up everything around them.

Being a good role model when it comes to listening is a great way we can impact our children and help them become great listeners.

Are you a good listening role model for your kids?

Are You Modeling These Good Listening Skills for Kids?

1. Are you putting away all distractions? This means your phone, computer, television, book, etc.

2. Are you looking them in the eyes? Eye contact is such an important part of listening and communication. When we look at them we are showing them that they have our undivided attention.

3. Are you focusing on what they are saying, and not letting your mind wander? Your child may be little, but they are very intuitive. They know when their mom and dad are not paying attention to them. Show them you are listening by focusing on what they are saying.

4. Are you engaging appropriately? If your child communicates an idea, are you asking the appropriate questions and/or giving them the appropriate responses? Verbal and non-verbal responses are important when you are the listener.

By actively listening to your children, you are showing them the steps to become great listeners themselves!

Kids Books on Becoming a Good Listener

I also really like the book by Kane Miller called which walks through all the sounds of nature on a rainy day walk.

More Wonderful Lessons You Can Teach Your Children

Did we miss any of your favorite listening activities for kids? Please add your advice to help kids learn listening skills in the comments below...

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20 Fun Games to Build Good Listening Skills for Kids

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Developing good active listening skills for kids of all ages is an important life skill. Sometimes it can be difficult to get your children to listen, so why not try these fun listening games? Today we are sharing 15 fun listening exercises for children, listening games and silly activities you can use to teach your children to have good listening skills.

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Reading Rockets - Concept of Word Strategies.pdf

Reading Rockets - Concept of Word Strategies.pdf

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Reading Rockets - Concept of Word Strategies.pdf

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Concept of word refers to the ability of a reader to match spoken words to written words while reading. Students with a concept of word understand that each word is separate, and that words are separated by a space within each sentence. Using strategies to build concept of word in the classroom can also strengthen a child's developing awareness of the individual sounds within words.

Why teach concept of word?

Research suggests that only when a student can point to individual words accurately within a line of text will they be able to learn new words while reading. Incorporating concept of word instruction into daily literacy practice will not only strengthen students’ speech-to-print match, it will also develop students’ alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, and knowledge of words in print. See: Concept of Word in Text: An Integral Literacy Skill.

As students are learning about concept of word they are building upon the foundations in the developmental progression of reading. This progression also includes learning about concepts of print (also referred to as print awareness).

Not to be confused with concept of word, concepts of print includes an understanding that print carries meaning, that books contain letters, words, sentences, and spaces. It also includes understanding what books are used for, and that books have parts such as a front cover, back cover and a spine.

Learn more about concepts of print:

Teaching Phonemic Awareness, Letter Knowledge, and Concepts of Print

Print Awareness: An Introduction

Collect resources

Several activities are helpful for building the skills associated with concept of word in students from PreK to 3rd grade. A few of these activities are specifically described below.

Dictation with lines for writing

One of the simplest ways to develop a concept of word is to work individually with a child and a picture he or she has drawn. "Tell me about your picture!" As the student begins to talk, summarize what he has said in a few words or consider the child's words as dictation. "The leaves are falling." Draw one line for each word under the picture. Then help the child begin to write sounds for each different word in their dictation. Watch this activity in action >

Be the sentence

Physical involvement and hands-on activities are great for increasing learning in young children. One activity to support concept of word learning is to have each student physically represent a word in a sentence that the teacher creates. Create single-page size cards for each student, with one word on each card (for example "We" "went" "to" "the" "store"). Students work together to arrange themselves into the proper order to form a sentence.

Cut-up sentence

This activity includes active learning about words as part of a sentence. Teachers prepare a sheet of simple sentences printed out with a large-size font. Students cut apart the words from a sentence, and then move the individual word cards around, manipulating the words to re-create the sentence in proper order. This helps encourage students to recognize that each word is a separate entity, has meaning, and is separated by a space within each sentence.

Unifix word

Teachers can show students how to build and rebuild sentences by connecting unifix cubes. Students can learn about concept of word as they grasp the understanding that each cube represents a word in the target sentence regardless of syllables within words. This activity includes the use of Unifix cubes (Amazon).

General activities

The Get Ready to Read site offers 36 activity cards for use with an individual child or a group of children, in English and in Spanish.

Word walls

See how word walls can be used to help students build their concept of word skills. The sites below provides tips on word choice as well as many examples of real-life classroom word walls.

Examples from Reading Rockets

Word Wall Activities and Resources (Education World)

Building a Better Word Wall (Edutopia)

Word Walls That Work (Scholastic)

More concept of word activities

Download this set of preK–grade 3 concept of word activities from the University of Virginia PALS program.

See the research that supports this strategy

Clay, M. M. (1979). Reading: The patterning of complex behavior. Auckland, New Zealand: Heinemann.

Morris, D. (1981). Concept of word: A developmental phenomenon in the beginning reading and writing process. Language Arts, 58, 659-668.

Report of the National Reading Panel (NRP) (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Roberts, E. (1992). The evolution of the young child's concept of word as a unit of spoken and written language. Reading Research Quarterly, 27, 124-138.

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Concept of Word Games | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Concept of word refers to the ability of a reader to match spoken words to written words while reading. Students with a concept of word understand that each word is separate, and that words are separated by a space within each sentence. Using strategies to build concept of word in the classroom can…

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As students progress in their literacy understanding, they move from reading and writing single syllable words (often with consonant-vowel-consonant constructions) to reading and writing multisyllabic words. Instruction focused on teaching students about syllables often focuses on teaching different…

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Early Impact - 17 Syllable Games that Work!

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Early Impact - 17 Syllable Games that Work!

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Learning syllables is something that can be happening from quite a young age. Many three and four year olds will be able to start the process of learning about syllables in fun games, and this process continues for several years, as children deepen their understanding.

How do you teach syllables?
Begin teaching syllables with chants and songs. Children can hit syllables in words using rhythm sticks or instruments. Use puppets, bags of objects, and songs to grab their attention, and get children experiencing syllables in a range of ways.
That's the short answer, but there really is a lot more to it than that.

The learning of syllables is a long process. It starts with fun action games, and develops into reading and writing multi-syllabic words.

This article gives you everything you need - how to start, what you need to know, and every possible successful game to try out to teach syllables in a fun and effective way.

This games and activities are targeted at children between the ages of 3 to 6, and can be used just as well by parents as by educators.

1.Use Songs And Chants (With Objects)

The first few games in this article can be done with the children clapping. Alternatively, you could use something like drums, or they could all have a pair of rhythm sticks.

These sticks are my favorite resource for teaching syllables. If you have pairs of claves they will work. You could also use chopsticks, or just some sticks from outside. If you want to know more about what rhythm sticks are and how to use them, then check out this article that I wrote.

For this game you also need some kind of a feely bag and a few jungle animals. There is a chant that you are going to teach the children. It goes like this:
Walking through the jungle Walking through the jungle What do I see? What do I see?
All say the chant together, whilst hitting the sticks to the beat of the chant.

Then a child takes one jungle animal out of the bag. The idea now is to hit the syllables in the name of the animal, and then count the syllables as well.

For example, a cheetah would be 'chee-tah! 1-2!' Repeat this a few times, e.g. 'Chee-tah! 1-2! Chee-tah! 1-2! Chee-tah! 1-2!' Repetition in games like this is crucial for them to start to understand the skill.

Repeat the process with different animals. It's good if you have a selection of animals that have different numbers of syllables in their names. For example, you could have a snake (1), a tiger (2), a crocodile (3), and a hippopotamus (5).

2.Hit The Puppet Words!

Puppets really get the attention of the vast majority of children! They work almost like magic in some cases.

In this game, the puppet is going to say a word, and we all then copy the word, whilst hitting the syllables with rhythm sticks, drums or claps.

It's nice to have a theme. For example, you could ask the puppet what it likes to eat.

It might say 'a-pple! 1-2!' (All copy and hit). 'Ba-na-na.' 'Cake.'

One again repeat each word a few times so the children really get the hang of it.
If you want to find out some more puppet activities you can try, then take a look at this definitiive guide of the best 22.
3.Magic Box!

Anything with magic in is definitely a winner!

All you need for this is some kind of box that looks at least slightly magical. It could be an old chest, or a picnic hamper. Even an old suitcase would be fine.

Before the children are around, put a few objects into it (preferably ones that have a variety of syllables in their names).

Then when they are watching, you are all going to do a spell. Wiggle your magic fingers at the box and chant:
Magic box, magic box,
Open the box, and take out an object. Whatever it is, you all hit the word, and count the syllables.

The magic is mainly to get them interested, looking and excited to see what's happening. A bit of drama is the answer for almost all early phonics games.

4.Nursery Rhymes

One of the best ways of getting children beginning to understand about syllables is to use nursery rhymes.

This is the step before all the other activities in this list, but it is probably the most important!

All nursery rhymes are good for starting to understand syllables.

However, just to pick one, let's go for The Wheels On The Bus. This has lots of great sound effects in that have different numbers of syllables. For example, the wipers go 'swish!' (1), the adults go 'chatter' (2), the children go 'up-and-down' (3).

All these sounds have actions to go with them as well, so you are physically acting out the number of syllables.

Children at this point will have no idea what the word 'syllables' means, but they will be starting to understand the concept.

5.Use Instruments

What fun it is to whack the syllables in words using instruments!

Just give out loads of instruments in this one, and then give the children some sort of word. Hit the word together, like a 'syllable band.' Then count the syllables.

For example, go 'cho-co-late! 1-2-3! Cho-co-late! 1-2-3!'

Children never get bored when they are hitting instruments, so this lengthens the amount of time you can do the activity for.

6.Story With Sound Effects

This is another nice simple activity for starting the process of syllable learning.

Again this works really well with rhythm sticks, but you could use clapping.

Basically, you make up a story! It could be about anything, but it is important that you use lots of sound effects in it. The children hit and say the sound effects!

For example, the story could go something like 'One day a big bear went stamping through the woods - stamp, stamp, stamp. It met it's friend the cuckoo. It was saying ' cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo.' Suddenly a witch flew down going cackle, cackle, cackle.'

Activities like this are great for exploring the rhythm in spoken language. Children are experiencing syllables in a fun way, and that is the best foundation for later learning what they are.

7.Books With Sound Effects

In a similar way, any book you can find with sound effects in is great for this same strategy.

One fantastic example is the book Peace At Last, by Jill Murphy.

In this book, Mr Bear is trying to get to sleep in his house, but there are all sorts of awful noises going on! The tap is going 'drip!' (1 syllable) The clock is going 'tick-tock!' (2) and 'cuckoo'.(2)

This is a great book for the children to all chant the sound effects together. You could clap or hit the syllables at the same time to really emphasize the point.

8.Jumping

Making early phonics as multisensory as possible is definitely the way to go!

If you can get children moving, then you can get them learning.

Jumping the syllables is an excellent way to learn what syllables are all about. Just give the children a word, and then jump it. For example, 'coconut' would be three jumps - 'co-co-nut'. 'Mango' would be two - 'man-go.'

You could try other types of movement as well. The children could hop! They could point up high. Be as imaginative as you can.

9.Hit The Words Theme

This one is another game that requires clapping, rhythm sticks or drums.

It is good if you pick some kind of theme, and say words that relate to that theme. Start easy, but if they are doing really well then you can always make it harder.

For example, if the theme was superheroes, you just say the names of different superheroes, and the children clap or hit the name. Such as:

Hulk!

Captain America
Cap-tain A-me-ri-ca
Spiderman

Batman

Other themes you can try are ones like vehicles, food, jungle animals, dinosaurs - anything they are interested in then go with that.

10.Different Syllable Challenge

This one is quite a bit harder! Start with the other games first, but this is very much a next step.

What you do, is select three objects that each have a different number of syllables in their names. For example, it could be a 'truck', 'lorry', and 'bicycle.'

Show the children the objects, and practise hitting the words with sticks, or clapping.

Then you hit one of the words with something like a drum, but you don't say anything. For example, you do two hits of the drum.

The children have to work out which object's name you were hitting, and then point at that object. Then repeat with the other objects, e.g. one hit for 'truck', and three for 'bicycle.' This really gets them thinking!

11.Dance The Words

Who can resist a bit of dance!

What you do for this is get the children on their feet, and show them some sort of simple dance move. It could be arms up then down, for example.

Give them a word, like 'elephant'. What they do is dance the word using the dance move, one move for each syllable - 'e-le-phant!' Repeat a few times for each word.

Get them to invent their own dance moves. This gives them a bit of ownership which they really value.

Dancing can be brilliant for many early phonics skills, suh as oral segmenting.

12.Draw The Words

This is an early-writing activity.

This can be done before children are able to read or write.

What you do is to draw a word in dots, where there is one dots per syllable. For example, the word 'cucumber' would be '* * *'. The word 'bedroom' would be '* *'.

A simple notation of the word 'bedroom' - one dot for each syllable

This is potentially an excellent early mark-making activity that they can have a go of. It is also a great early reading game, and is getting them used to responding to symbols that represent sounds.

13.Draw Sentences As Syllable Dots

The next step to the last game is to draw a whole sentence in dots! Again this is an early reading and writing strategy, and you can try this before the children have learn to read and write words.

What you do is to take a simple sentence or phrase and draw it in dots. Then get the children to clap or hit the syllables.

For example, the phrase 'brush your teeth' could be drawn '* * *'. The phrase 'go on the bus' would be '* * * *'.

This strategy works best for one syllable words in sentences.

I would not go beyond this before they start learning to read and write.

14. Written Sentences

This is a version of the last game, but extended for children that are able to read.

Get a simple sentence, and clap or hit the syllables. For this you can also use words with more than one syllable.

So, for example, the sentence could be 'I saw a tractor.' Get them all to hit the sentence - 1,2,3,4,5.

This is good for learning about syllables, but also excellent for early sentence writing as well. By breaking the sentence up into words and syllables, the children visualize it, and understand better how language is broken up into units.

15.Draw Boxes Around Words

This is another good one for when the children are able to read.

You quite simply get a list of words that have different numbers of syllables in. It could be the words - 'tractor,' 'train', 'scooter', and 'helicopter'.

The children quite simply have to draw a circle or a box around each syllable in the word.

This is quite a formal way of practising and assessing the skill.

16.Whack The Dough!

This is a really good one for active children, and those that like to learn things in a physical way.

What you do is to have a ball of dough each. It is best to play this game on a table top.

Decide what word you are going to 'whack'. It could be the word 'crocodile' for example.

Get the children to split their dough up into three balls and put them in a line in front of them. Then you are going to split the word up into its syllables as you whack the dough, e.g. 'cro' (whack) 'co' (whack) 'dile'. Repeat the process a few times with each word.

If they can think how many syllables are in a word themselves then that's great. If not, just tell them how many balls to make, and it's good for them to experience the syllables in a fun way.

This dough whacking game can also be adapted for other skills like one to one counting. To read my definitive guide to what one to one correspondence is and how to teach it, then go here.

17.Use Different Voices!

This is an excellent strategy to 'hook' the interest of some children that may not be that excited by early phonics games.

It is also a great one for lots of boys (though girls will like it too).

What you do is pick some voices that the children could try out. Some example voices could be things like ghosts, aliens, robots, dragons, mice - anything like that will work well.

Give the children a voice, and give them a word to say. For example, the voice could be 'like a ghost', and the word is 'computer'. Say 'com-pu-ter!' in your best ghost voice. Then repeat!

It's as simple as that. They love exploring the sounds of their own voices! Hours of fun.

Top Tips For Learning Syllables

* Start with songs and nursery rhymes

* Use objects of things they are interested in and hit or clap the syllables

* Use clapping, drums or rhythm sticks (or anything else that will do a similar job)

* Children need to experience what a syllable is in a range of ways before they need to understand the terminology

* Make it active, multisensory and fun

If you have found this article useful, then I would recommend trying out one of these:

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Syllable Activities - 17 Games That Work! - Early Impact Learning

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Learning syllables is something that can be happening from quite a young age. Many three and four year olds will be able to start the process of learning about syllables in fun games, and this process continues for several years, as children deepen their understanding. How do you teach syllables?

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Bear, D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (1996). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Chard, D., & Dickson, S. (1999). Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines.

Ellis, E. (1997). How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities.

Goswami, U., & Mead, F. (1992). Onset and rime awareness and analogies in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 153-162.

Wise, B. W., Olson, R. K., & Treiman, R. (1990). Subsyllabic units as aids in beginning readers word learning Onset-rime versus post-vowel segmentation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 4, 1-19.

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The "onset" is the initial phonological unit of any word (e.g. /c/ in cat) and the term "rime" refers to the string of letters that follow, usually a vowel and final consonants (e.g. /a/ /t/ in cat). Not all words have onsets.

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Reading Rockets - Phonological & Phonemic Awareness Activities

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Reading Rockets - Phonological & Phonemic Awareness Activities

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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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Fractus Learning-15 Fun Phonemic Awareness Activities

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Fractus Learning-15 Fun Phonemic Awareness Activities

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Phonemic awareness games may help your child read fluently. Research has shown that the quicker a child differentiates the sounds in a word, the faster they understand. According to the National Reading Panel report on Teaching Children to Read, teaching kids phonemic awareness significantly improved their reading in various age groups and grades.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Although phonemic awareness affects the reading ability of a child, it isn't taught with the written word. It's about listening to the spoken word and being able to identify and manipulate the sounds in a word. Phonemic awareness breaks a single word into sounds. The child recognizes the beginning sound of the word and the individual sounds in the word. The child can then also manipulate the sounds to form a word by blending the sounds.

If written words are used together with a phonemic awareness activity, it may confuse the child. For example, the word off has two phonemes but is spelled with three letters.

Phonics, however, focuses on the sounds of written words and the spelling thereof. Phonemic awareness is one aspect of phonological awareness. Where phonemic awareness focuses on the sound of word segments, phonological awareness concentrates on the complete words. Words are strung together to create sentences.

Below is a list of phonemic awareness games for pre-k, kindergarten/1 st graders that focus on the three main aspects of phonemic awareness: listening, rhyming, and segmentation. We've added some games that include physical activity for the restless ones.

Listening Phonemic Awareness Games

Although listening is an essential part of phonemic awareness, often young kids don't know how. Teachers and parents shouldn't assume the child knows how to listen; they need to be taught how to listen carefully to the sounds of a word.

1. Who Can Spot The Sound?

Equipment Needed: Nothing!

Game Rules and Descriptions:

A relaxing game for after lunch or when the class needs some quiet time.

All the kids lie on the floor without making a sound. They listen to the sounds around them and try to identify what they are hearing. Is it a door closing, a teacher's voice, or a kid yawning?

They aren't allowed to use their eyes, only their ears. Talk about the sounds they hear. Be dramatic and overemphasize to add a fun element to the activity.

2. Beginning Sounds Mail Sort and Song

Equipment Needed:

Mailbag for each child (create one from a paper bag)

Copy of the song

A set of 10 Beginning Sound Mail Envelopes for each child (cards that look like envelopes with pictures on each mail piece)

Game Rules and Description:

The object of the game is to find all the mail that has an image of an item that begins with the same sound the kids heard at the end of the song.

Give each child a mailbag and spread out the envelopes in front of each child.

Sing the song on the tune of "I'm a little Teapot" and insert the letter sound.

Mail Delivery Song Lyrics (Lyric from Growing Book by Book)

I deliver mail Rain or shine. If you put a stamp on, it will get there in time. Can you help me sort my mail today? Collect the ones that start with ____ (insert letter sound)

3. I'm Thinking of a Word

Equipment Needed: No extra equipment is needed

Game Rules and Description:

The teacher sings a song with spelling out the sound syllables of each word. For example, "I'm thinking of a word named /c/ /a/ /t/, /c/ /a/ /t/. What is my word?"

The kids respond by sing back, "Is that word that you're thinking called cat?

4. 'Moo-Moo,' Where Are You?

Equipment Needed: No equipment is needed

Game Rules and Description:

The game teaches children to listen for a sound, to listen for the sounds in words, and to where it is coming from.

The object of the game is to identify the animal's sound and the direction it came from. The kids sit in a circle with the child who is 'it' lying with closed eyes in the middle of the circle. Another child moves to a place in the room and pretends to be a cow. 'It' needs to identify the animal's sound and where it is coming from. They point in the direction they hear the mooing coming from.

If 'it' identifies the sound and points in the right direction, they go next in making a different animal sound from somewhere in the room.

5. Block Challenge

Equipment Needed: 3-4 One-inch cubes of each color. Four or five different colored cubes.

Game Rules and Descriptions:

The object is to identify the different sounds by using colored blocks. The child chooses a block for each sound they hear. If the noise is repeated, they pick two blocks of the same color. For two different sounds, they will select two blocks one each of a different color. Increase the difficulty level for more advanced play.

Rhyming Phonemic Awareness Games

Rhyming teaches children that sounds form patterns and have meanings. Most kids understand the concept of rhyme or learn very quickly how to rhyme.

6. Rhyming Books, Poems, and Songs

Equipment Needed: rhyming book, poem, or songs

Game Rules and Description

The goal is to familiarize kids with the rhyming concept. The more rhyme books, poems, and songs you read to the kids, the better their understanding of rhyming.

Be silly. Have fun. Rhyming, books, poems, and songs are fun ways to introduce rhyming to young kids. Exaggerate the rhymes to make them aware of the verse. The more fun you have, the more fun they will have, and the quicker they will grasp the rhyme concept.

7. Rhyming Bingo

Equipment Needed:

A bingo board for each child. (Download free printable sheets here or create your own. The set contains 8 different Bingo boards.)

Counters - Use buttons, candy, counting cubes, or crackers.

Game Rules and Description:

Each kid receives a Bingo board and a handful of counters. Start with each child placing a piece on the free spot in the middle of the bingo board.

The game rules are the same as those of Bingo; you need five in a row or column to win.

When you call out a word, the child searches for a picture on their board that rhymes with the word called. If they find one, they place a counter on it. For example, if you called 'mat' and there is a 'cat' picture on their board, they must identify it and place a counter on the cat picture.

Obviously, winners can eat their counters on the bingo row or column.

8. In My Box

Equipment Needed:

A small box

Cards with pictures of familiar rhyming words, e.g., cat/mat, box/socks, bear/chair.

Have enough pictures so that everyone has a turn.

Game Rules and Description:

The game is for kids who are familiar with the concept of rhyme. The object of the game is for children to take turns in coming up with rhyming words.

The kids sit in a circle. For an easy start, choose a child that is good at rhyming. Choose a card. If the card contains a picture of a bear, for example, say, "In my box, there is a bear."

The kid you chose needs to come up with a word that rhymes with bear-like chair or pear and say, "In my box, there is a chair," for example. If the kid came up with a rhyming word, pass the box to them to choose the next card.

9. Making A Rhyme

Equipment Needed: None required.

Game Rules and Description:

The object of this phonemic awareness activity is to rhyme sounds. The focus is not on the words but on creating sounds that rhyme. Therefore, making up silly sounds that aren't actual words, is allowed; it's part of the fun.

Create new rhymes that the kids can fill in. Then give them a turn to make up their rhymes. For example,

A hat on a...mat (or cat, bat, zat)

A tree with a ...key (or sea, knee, bee, me)

A bug in a ...mug (or hug or slug)

A picture of a...fixture (or mixture, nicture)

A variation to the game is to sing the rhymes a familiar song like Farmer in the Dell.

10. Rhyme Memory Game

Equipment Needed: rhyming memory cards (Create your own or download printable memory cards here)

Game Rules and Description:

Rhyme Memory is a variation of the classic Memory Game. Before you start the game, go through all the cards with the kids. Make sure they know what word fits with each card. For example, a bee is a bee, not a bug.

Place the cards face down in a grid. Start with a few cards for younger children and make the grid more complex for older children. The child turns over two cards and names the pictures they see. They must tell you if the two words rhyme or not. If the two words rhyme, they remove the two cards; if not, they turn over the cards, and it is the next child's turn.

Segmentation Phonemic Awareness Games

Segmentation activities teach children that words are made up of smaller parts according to their sounds. It also shows them how to group sounds to form words. Where listening teaches children to hear and identify words, segmentation teaches them to understand the individual sounds the words consist of.

11. Bippity Boppity Bumble Bee

Equipment Needed: Stuffed or printable bumble bee for kids to hold.

Game Rules and Description:

The game teaches segmentation by using the names of the children. To familiarize the children with the individual sound syllables, they clap out the names focusing on each syllable in the name.

The teacher walks around the circle and points to a child with the Bumble Bee toy or gives the Bumblebee for the child to hold, saying, "Bippity, Boppity, Bumble Bee, will you say your name for me?"

The child responds with their name. Then the class says her name out loud while clapping once for each syllable in the name. Next, the teacher tells them to whisper and soft-clap the syllables in the name.

Lastly, the teacher thanks the child, "Bippity, boppity, bumble bee, thank you for saying your name for me." Repeat the process with each of the kids sitting in the circle.

Variation to the game is having the kids take on the role of the bumblebee instead of the teacher.

12. Old MacDonald

Equipment Needed: Kids should be familiar with the Old MacDonald song.

Game Rules and Description:

The game teaches children to merge segmentations to form a word mentally.

Tell the kids they are going to learn a different version of the Old MacDonald song. Warn them it is a silly version.

Start singing, "Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o. And on the farm, he had a /_/_/." Here the teacher introduces a different animal singing the word segments, e.g.,/ti/and /ger/. The kids immediately pick up the silly version and the introduction of a different animal. Without realizing it, they merge the segments and form the word of the animal-tiger.

Next, show them a picture of the animal, confirming that they figured out the correct animal.

13. Falling Snowflake Segmentation Activity

Equipment Needed:

Large foam or paper snowflakes for group activity

Snowflake manipulatives for example, snowflake sequins, foam snowflakes, white pompoms, or cotton balls

Falling Snowflake Segmentation Mats (Download free printable snowflake mats here)

Game Rules and Description

Develop and strengthen their motor skills with this phonemic awareness activity.

Use large snowflakes the kids can drop to the floor to help develop gross motor skills. Demonstrate to the kids how the game works and then let them do it as a group. Say a word and drop a snowflake for each sound in the word. Start with two or three phoneme words.

When they are comfortable playing in a group, help them strengthen their fine motor skill with the second part of the phonemic awareness activity. Kids can play individually or in small groups of two to three. Give each group or kid snowflake manipulatives and a snowflake mat.

The goal is for the kids to pull the snowflakes in the sky (top of the mat) down to earth (bottom of the mat)-one snowflake for each sound in a word. They start from the left and move to the right. Not all snowflakes will be used each time. Then they move the snowflakes back into the sky for the next word.

14. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Equipment Needed: None

Game Rules and Descriptions:

A fun phonemic awareness activity that practices segmentation while being physically active.

Give the kid a word that contains a maximum of four phonemes. The children must stand and touch first the head, then the shoulder, knees, and toes as they say each segment sound of the word. For example, for the word sit, they will touch their head for s, their shoulders for I and their knees for t.

15. Turtle Talk

Equipment Needed:

Game Rules and Description:

Turtle Talk is a phonemic awareness activity that teaches listening skills and segmentation. The idea of the game is to help the child merge sounds to form a word and then to break the words up into sound segments.

Tommy (or Tammy), the Turtle, takes the lead. Remind the children that turtles talk just as slow as they move. Tommy Turtle doesn't say the whole word at once but speaks one sound at a time. To understand what he is saying, the children must listen carefully and then merge the sounds to form the word.

Use the word list and say one word at a time with a pause between each phoneme.

Use the counting cards for the next part of the game. After the kids formed the words, do the opposite. They must break the words up into sound segments and count the number of segments with the counting cards.

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Fifteen Fun Phonemic Awareness Activities and Games For Kids

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Looking for some fun and easy-to-use activities to help teach phonemic awareness? These hands-on games will quickly get you going.

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Phonemic Awareness Skills Development Tools

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Phonemic Awareness Skills Development Tools

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Phonemic Awareness Skills Development Tools .pdf

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Rhyming Games | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Rhyme is found in poetry, songs, and many children’s books and games. Most children also love to sing and recite nursery rhymes. Words that can be grouped together by a common sound, for example the ”-at” family — cat, hat, and sat — can be used to teach children about similar spellings. Children ca…

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By Kim Greene, MA

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest units of sounds (phonemes) in words. Many students with learning differences like dyslexia struggle with phonemic awareness. Because phonemic awareness is a foundational literacy skill, students who have trouble with this skill often have difficulty with reading.

Elkonin sound boxes can help students develop phonemic awareness by focusing on segmenting and blending the sounds in words. Segmenting is breaking a word apart into its individual sounds. Blending is putting the individual sounds together to say the word. Read on to learn how to use Elkonin sound boxes to teach these important skills.

Scroll down for tips on adapting this strategy for distance learning.

Watch: See Elkonin sound boxes in action

Download: Printable Elkonin sound boxes

Read: How to use this strategy

K (Common Core ELA Literacy RF.K.2: Understand spoken words, syllables, and sounds)

1 (Common Core ELA Literacy RF.1.2: Understand spoken words, syllables, and sounds)

Gather materials. Give each student an Elkonin sound boxes printable and five counters, coins, tiles, or other small objects. For students who struggle with fine motor skills, consider using larger objects that are easier to handle.

Words with two sounds and two letters: it, no

Words with three sounds and three letters or with three sounds and four letters ending in a 'silent e': hop, cat, game

Words with three sounds and one or more digraphs (two letters that make one sound): fish, tooth, chime

Words with four phonemes and blends (two or more letters that blend together but that have separate sounds): crab, skip, trade

Words with five phonemes and blends: street, crust, blend

2. Model. Point to the set of boxes that has two squares. Explain that students will move one counter into one square for each sound they hear. Model how you'll do that by lining up two counters above the squares. Say the word it. Pull down one tile into the first square as you say /ĭ/ and the second tile as you say /t/. Then run your finger along the arrow underneath the box to blend the sounds back together: it.

3. Practice and give feedback. Invite students to practice another word with you. Depending on your students' needs, you might use the sound box with three squares and the word hit. Support students as they pull down one tile for /h/, one for /ĭ/, and another for /t/. Then blend the sounds back together to make hit.

Repeat the activity with several words that have two, three, four, or five sounds (as appropriate for your students). Provide feedback as students segment and blend the sounds.

For English language learners (ELLs): Hold up a picture of the word you are asking students to segment. Say the word and have students repeat it. (If the word is a cognate, say the word both in English and in the student's home language.) After students say the word in English, segment the sounds and then blend them together. By doing so, you'll help students build vocabulary by connecting the word with its meaning.

Understand: Why this strategy works

All students - and particularly students who learn and think differently - benefit from explicit instruction in literacy. The visual element of the sound boxes helps students to segment each sound separately. Similarly, moving the tiles and dragging their finger along the word helps to engage students in multisensory learning.

Elkonin sounds boxes are especially useful for ELLs. Learning English can be difficult for some students because there are sounds in English that may not exist in their home language. For instance, English has many more vowel sounds than Spanish. Elkonin sound boxes give students repeated practice with hearing unfamiliar sounds.

Share this resource with families to help them understand the importance of phonemic awareness and other phonological skills.

Adapt: Use for distance learning

Partner with your students' families. Find out what resources they have available and what they might need to support learning at home.

Guide an individual student or a small group of students through the steps (including how to draw the sound boxes) in a synchronous online lesson. Use UDL as you're planning the lesson.

Make sure your modeling is easy for students to see. Position your camera to show how you move the counters into the sound boxes. Or create slides that show the sound boxes and use animation to fade in the counters.

Give ideas for manipulatives that students might be able to find at home, like crayons, small game pieces, cotton balls, or coins.

Research behind this strategy

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Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest units of sounds (phonemes) in words. Many students with learning differences like dyslexia struggle with phonemic awareness. Because phonemic awareness is a foundational literacy skill, students who have trouble with this skill often have difficulty with reading.