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Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Toolkit

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This toolkit helps teachers and families understand the difference between phonemic and phonological awareness and how to support a child's development of these important reading skills.

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Having Fun with Phonemic Awareness: Video and Lesson ideas for building Phonemic Awareness

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Play with Sounds and Words

Before watching this video, read the text below. When instructed, watch the video from the beginning to end.

When teaching phonemic awareness skills, you should also focus on helping children learn the sounds of language. These important skills should be taught sequentially, from easiest to most difficult, but can still be shared in informal, fun ways. Children often begin with clapping syllables, first in their own names and then in other words. Next, children begin to recognize and match like sounds at the beginning of words. Finally, when children learn to recognize letter forms and letter sounds, they match sounds to make words. At this point, children are moving into phonics. The sequence of skills looks like this:

Clap syllables. Help children recognize that words are made up of parts, and the parts make a whole word.

Clap names. Have children clap the syllables in their own names. As the game progresses, have children determine who has the longest name, e.g., Victoria (the most claps), or the shortest name, e.g., Sean (only one clap). Play a guessing game: I am going to clap a name. (clap twice) Whose name has two claps?

Clap words. Children can progress to clapping words. It's especially fun to clap unusual and interesting words. Challenge children to think of a long word they would like to clap: hippopotamus, elephant, chalkboard, or calliope.

Match sounds. Soon after they understand how to clap syllables, children will begin to recognize words that start with the same sound (sound matching). At this stage, children are not asked to name or identify beginning letters. They are recognizing the sound of the letter with which the word begins. For example, encourage children to recognize that sand and sun both begin with /s/ or that bell and ball begin with /b/. Ask, What do you notice about these two words: rhyming, reptiles? Praise children for hearing the sound itself.

Identify and isolate initial sounds.Children learn to hear and identify the sound that comes at the beginning of words. Ask, Who knows another word that begins with the sound /h/?

Match sounds to letters. Once children learn letter sounds, they begin to move into phonics and match those sounds within words. For example, say, Tell me the sound you hear first in mat, mouse, and mail? What letter stands for that sound? Or, Who can tell me the letter you hear at the beginning of sail, Sam, and sit? Or, If I want to write Bella's name, what letter will I write first?

In this video, you'll see educators teach phonemic awareness by playing with sounds and words. As you watch, look for effective strategies used by the educators in the video and jot down answers to these viewing questions in your Learning Log.

What strategies do the educators use to encourage children to listen for word "chunks" or syllables?

How do the educators teach sound matching activities?

Review How can educators use songs and games to help children learn phonemic awareness skills?

Singing songs is fun for children, and they can learn from each other as they sing.
What do children learn by clapping syllables in names or other words?

Children learn to listen for sounds in words.

Children begin to understand that words are made up of separate sounds.

Why is sound matching an important skill?

Sound matching activities prompt children to listen to the beginning sounds in words.

As children identify the beginning sounds of words, they can group words that begin with the same sound. For example, /h/: head, hair, hummingbird.

Once children master the skill of identifying beginning sounds, they will be able to match the sounds to letters in the alphabet.

Reflect
Think about the learning environment at your own program as you answer these reflection questions in your Learning Log.

What strategies do you use to teach children to focus on sounds in words?

What did you learn that you will take back to your learning environment and put into practice?

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Before watching this video, read the text below. When instructed, watch the video from the beginning to end. When teaching phonemic awareness skills, you should also focus on helping children learn the sounds of language. These important skills should be taught sequentially, from easiest to most difficult, but can still be shared in informal, fun ways.

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Interactive song and video introducing Digraphs to students for Phonemic Awareness

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Digraphs | Phonics Song for Children | Phonemic Awareness | Jack Hartmann

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Teacher Resources for "going back to basics: and teaching phonemic awareness and phonics

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If your students are working on phonics, decoding, or spelling, it may be helpful to regularly revisit basic phonemic awareness, says Karen Baicker, executive director of the Yale Child Study Center-Scholastic Collaborative for Child & Family Resilience and publisher for Family and Community Engagement (FACE) at Scholastic.

"Phonemic awareness is the most fundamental precursor to reading," Baicker says. "Building phonemic awareness begins with word play - listening to sounds, exaggerating them, and manipulating them. Phonics, decoding, fluency, and comprehension can't take place without the ability to break words into units of sound."

To strengthen your students' early reading skills, Baicker recommends playing simple syllable and rhyming games. Here are three phonemic awareness exercises you can use to build a stronger foundation and boost confidence in your students.

Children love to come up with rhymes, and encouraging them to do so helps build their phonemic awareness.

Baicker recommends asking your students to produce rhymes for simple words - think cat, dog, run - and emphasizing the initial sound in each word.

Afterward, read rhyming books like Frog on a Log and We're Going on a Bear Hunt aloud to incorporate even more fun and learning into story time.

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Go Back to Basics By Teaching Students Phonemic Awareness

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If your students are working on phonics, decoding, or spelling, it may be helpful to regularly revisit basic phonemic awareness, says Karen Baicker, executive director of the Yale Child Study Center-Scholastic Collaborative for Child & Family Resilience and publisher for Family and Community Engagement (FACE) at Scholastic.

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Jack Hartmann See It, Say It, Sign It - Letter Sounds with ASL

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Jack Hartmann See It, Say It, Sign It - Letter Sounds with ASL

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A lesson on learning the alphabet, learning letter sounds, and incorporating American Sign Language

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See It, Say It, Sign It | Letter Sounds | ASL Alphabet | Jack Hartmann

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Interactive song and video for students to practice Phonemic Awareness

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Party In The Jungle | Fun Phonemic Awareness Song | Jack Hartmann

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Short video activity for students to clap out syllables for Phonemic Awareness

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First Grade Phonemic Awareness Lesson by Astute Toot, for Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum

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First Grade Phonemic Awareness Lesson by Astute Toot, for Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum

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A lesson/video on Phonemic Awareness Instruction for First Grade

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First Grade Phonemic Awareness #1 (Heggerty)

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Resource for games to assist ESL students learn English Pronunciation

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by Claudia Pesce 320,409 views

Let's all be honest. Pronunciation is one of those things that we don't often teach explicitly.

Of course, we correct our students' pronunciation when they make mistakes, when they're not speaking clearly or when they need to be a little more accurate. But do we devote class time to pronunciation practice on a regular basis? Don't feel bad if your answer is no. Instead, try playing these games to practice pronunciation. Your students will thank you for it, and you'll be relieved you can make pronunciation practice fun!

7 Fun Games for Pronunciation Practice

1. Odd One Out

Prepare a list with sets of three to four words that have the same vowel sound, plus one somewhere in the middle that is different. For example, cut, but, nut and put. Divide your class into two teams and have them form two lines in front of the board. Write the first set of four words on the board. The students at the front of the line must read the set of words, race to the board once they have identified the word that sounds different and circle it. The first student to circle the odd word scores a point for the team.

2. Homophone Go Fish

This is a game that is best played in pairs or small groups - a really fun way to practice homophones! Make a list of the homophone pairs you'll use, and write each word on a separate index card or piece of paper. Make as many decks of cards as you'll need depending on the number of groups you'll have. Each group gets a set of cards; each student gets five cards. The remaining cards are put in a draw pile. The goal of the game is to find the matching homophone by asking another student if they have "a word that sounds like...". For example:

S1: Do you have a word that sounds like "plane"?
S2: Yes, I do. (hands over "plain")

Now, to keep the matching pair the S1 must use both words correctly in a sentence or two. If S2 does not possess the homophone he/she has to say, " Go fish!" And S1 takes a card from the draw pile.

3. Pronunciation Maze

In this game, students must connect words that have the same vowel sound. Take a look at this Pronunciation Maze as an example. Here, students must follow the path from boys to choice by following the words with the /ɔy/ sound. But you can create your own maze. Make a 10x6 table, add the words that have the sound you want to practice, then fill in the rest with others words that don't have this sound at all. You can have students take turns on one maze. Or print out several copies to see who reaches the end of the maze first!

4. Four in a Row

Here's a good one for young learners! Divide your class into groups of three to four students. Print out this Four in a Row worksheet (or make your own!) and cut it up into separate cards. In groups, students must work together to arrange the words into sets of four words that sound the same. The first team to complete all of the sets wins.

5. IPA Bingo

There are lots of pronunciation games you can play with IPA flashcards, but here's a great Bingo with a twist. You'll have to prepare several 5x5 Bingo sheets with sample words for each of the phonemes; students can play individually or in pairs. Take an IPA flashcard from a bag and say the sound: /ɔy/. Students must find the word that matches that sound on their Bingo sheet in order to cross it out: toy. If this is too hard, you can say the sound and give them a sample word: /ɔy/ - toy. Students must find a word with the same sound: boy.

6. Minimal Pair Slap

There's no better way to practice those pesky little minimal pairs! Lets begin:

1 - Choose sets of minimal pairs and write down each word on a separate card/piece of paper
2- Divide the class into two teams and have each team line up in front of a desk; the first students in line must have their hands behind their backs
3 - Present two cards: forty and fourteen. Say one of the words out loud: fourteen
4 - Students must slap the right card
5 - The one who slaps it first must use the word in a sentence to get a point for the team

7. Rhyming Pair Memory Game

Make cards with words that rhyme, like name/game, box/fox, tick/stick, etc... Place them face down. Students take turns turning over the cards to find the pairs that rhyme.

It takes a lot more than simple correction to improve your students' pronunciation.

Take a few minutes of your class time every day to practice some phonemes, consonant or vowel sounds, or verb endings. And to add a little more fun to it, make a game out of it!

Do you think games like these can help you focus more on pronunciation? Feel free to add more to the list by leaving a comment below!

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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7 Fun ESL Games to Practice Pronunciation

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by Claudia Pesce 320,409 views Of course, we correct our students' pronunciation when they make mistakes, when they're not speaking clearly or when they need to be a little more accurate. But do we devote class time to pronunciation practice on a regular basis? Don't feel bad if your answer is no.

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Blog Outlining a discussion on Phonemic Awareness as well as outlining pointers on teaching ELL students Phonemic Awareness and Phonics

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I have decided to build upon a deep discussion that the Literacy community have been discussing on teaching phonemic and phonological awareness . I recommend following the thread and exploring some of the links shared. These included:

As part of this discussion Jane Carroll shared an article, Do you speak Kiwinglish?: New Zealand's distinct linguistic identity. It helps you to understand the learning curve new arrivals to our country have to go through even if they already speak English.
Background
Phonemes are the smallest units making up spoken language. Depending on the particular dialect spoken, English has around forty-four distinctive sounds or phonemes. Phonemes combine to form syllables and words and make a difference to the meaning of words. For example, the word stop has four phonemes (s-t-o-p), while shop has three phonemes (sh-o-p).

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to identify and manipulate these phonemes in spoken words. It is also the understanding that the sounds of spoken language work together to make words.
ELLs and Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
To add to this discussion I thought I would share a few pointers about ELLs and phonological and phonemic awareness. As I am no expert in this area I have gathered these from a number of websites which I have listed at the end of this update.

Phonemic awareness is difficult for ELLs because they may not yet have enough experience with English to be able to distinguish sounds that differ from those of their native language. ELLs cannot develop phonological awareness in English until they are familiar with the sounds of English. Children should have extensive experiences with fun and appealing songs, poems, chants, and read-a-louds that will allow them to hear and reproduce the sound patterns of English.

Most second language learners, especially in the early stages of learning the language, make use of the closest sound in their own language when the English phoneme is unfamiliar (and they probably "hear" it as the sound of their own language, too). Gibbons, P. (2002) Scaffolding language, Scaffolding learning pg 113.

1. Sounds that either don't exist in the first language or sounds that are perceived as different in English but the same in the native language can cause confusion for ELLs. Explicit instruction and opportunities to practice these sounds should be the focus of instruction. Because these differences vary from one language to another, teachers will have to become familiar with which sounds of English will need extra practice, depending on the language backgrounds of their students.

2. Once phonological awareness has developed in any language, it transfers to other languages that are learned. Therefore, students who are literate in their first language will not need to develop this skill again in English; they will only need to become familiar with the sounds of English and to learn to discriminate sounds that are different between their first language and English.

3. Some phonemes may not be present in ELLs' native language and, therefore, may be difficult for a student to pronounce and distinguish auditorily, as well as to place into a meaningful context. For ELLs it is important that instruction have meaning, so that the words and sounds students are manipulating are familiar. It is therefore necessary for ELLs to have knowledge of the English vocabulary words within which they are to understand phonemes. Teachers can teach phonemic awareness while also explicitly teaching vocabulary words, their meaning, and their pronunciation to ELLs.

4. ELLs respond well to meaningful activities such as language games and word walls, especially when the activities are consistent and focus on particular sounds and letters. Songs and poems, with their rhythm and repetition, are easily memorized and can be used to teach phonemic awareness and print concepts to ELLs (Hiebert, et al., 1998). These rhymes exist in every language and teachers can ask students or their parents to share these culturally relevant and teachable rhymes with the class, and build phonemic awareness activities around them

5. Students may not be able to "hear" or produce a new sound in a second language. Students who cannot hear and work with the phonemes of spoken words will have a difficult time learning how to relate these phonemes to letters when they see them in written words.

6. Students, who have not learned to read in their native language, may struggle to put together the sound/symbol correspondence concept, new words, and new sounds all at once.

7. For students with strong first language literacy skills, help them understand that they can draw upon their first language reading skills and apply them to learning to read and write in a second language.

8. Ells may find it hard to master English's stress system. In connected speech, many languages have equal stress on every syllable, whereas English stresses some syllables but not others.

Activities to teach sounds

Pauline Gibbons in her book Scaffolding language, Scaffolding learning (2002) pgs 114-116 suggests several good activities for focusing on sounds and providing practice.

Minimal Pair Exercises see this you tube clip on teaching minimal pairs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnH4w-4UDA8

Word Linking learners need to be able to recognize critical grammatical markers such as past tense ort plural endings. This may be difficult for some children who come from languages where final consonants are not fully "released." Many Asian speakers, for example, may have difficulties with the sounds /p/. /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, in English when they occur at the end of a word. Learner's speech will be less 'staccato-like" in these contexts if you get them to consciously link the end of one word with the beginning of the next.

E.g. Get it out please. Ge-ti-tout please.

Put it in the bin. Pu-ti-tin the bin.

He said I could take it. He sai-dI-could-ta-kit.

Gibbons, P. (2002), page 115.

Say It Again In this activity students' watch video segments (or listen to audio-taped conversations) and repeat selected lines, attempting to imitate the exact wording, pronunciation, and intonation.

1. Play the excerpt to the students.

2. Select one or more lines spoken by the characters in the video selected. These are the lines that students are later going to practice. The lines should be in chronological order but should not all occur together. The scenes you select should be of high interest to the students and have some "memorable lines." Write the lines on a chart so there will be whole class focus on them.

3. Display the list of lines to be practiced. Before you play the tape, ask the students to say the selected phrases or sentences. Give simple paraphrases so that the students have a general sense of each _expression_.

4. Play the tape again while the students listen for the sentences. Have them raise their hand each time they hear one. Stop the tape at this point and ask them to repeat the line, exactly as it was said. Pay attention to all aspects of pronunciation, including stress, intonation and vowel weakening segment once to set the general scene. They may need several rehearsals with you!

5. Play the scene a third time. This time, stop the tape before the selected lines. The students say the line as you point to it. After several repetitions, continue the tape until just before the next line. Encourage students to say the lines in character, not simply to repeat them as an exercise.

Shadow Reading This activity can be used with an audio or video tape or tape a short story, and give students a copy of one paragraph from it. They first listen to the story all the way through. Then play only the paragraph, stopping after each sentence to give students a chance to repeat it. They should try to copy the pronunciation, stress, intonation, and pace as closely as possible. When the whole of the paragraph has been rehearsed in this way the students "shadow" the tape by reading along with it, remembering to pay attention to the stress and intonation patterns. This stage may be better done as individual work so that children can proceed at their own pace.

ESOL Online has a number of speaking and listening activities including a variety of different types of dictation.
Resources and links on phonological awareness and ELLs

English-Language-Intensive-Programme-ELIP-Years-7-13-Resource-Units:Phonemic Awareness (PDF 653KB) : This is an introductory guide to English letters, sounds and sentences. There is a student workbook containing approaches using the alphabet, vowel sounds, consonant blends, and dictation. The teacher notes include a programme which enables students to build their phonemic skills through the use of key strategies and approaches. It is best for older students. Can be downloadedhere.

7 Fun ESL Games to Practice Pronunciation on Busy Teacher

Shadow-reading in the ESL classroom: A brief report Millie Commander & María C. M. de Guerrero

English Language Learners and the Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction, by Beth Antunez on Reading Rockets

Phonemic Awareness, Multicultural & ESOL Program Services Education Dept. 12. This pdf has considerations for ELLs and several activities and poems etc.

What Does Research Tell Us About Teaching Reading to English Language Learners? By Suzanne Irujo, The ELL Outlook

Using the Language Transfer Supports The address language transfer issues between English and Chinese, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Korean Vietnamese, Spanish. It would be great to have something similar for the most common languages spoken in New Zealand.

Wikipedia on Answers.com: Non-native pronunciations of English

The speech accent archive

I would love to hear what activities and websites you have found to be particularly helpful for supporting ELLs' pronunciation of English.

Kind regards

Janet

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I have decided to build upon a deep discussion that the Literacy community have been discussing on teaching phonemic and phonological awareness . I recommend following the thread and exploring some of the links shared. These included: As part of this discussion Jane Carroll shared an article, Do you speak Kiwinglish?: New Zealand's distinct linguistic identity.

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Phonemic Awareness with ELL; Resources for Assisting ELL with ELL students

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A student's level of phonemic awareness when they enter kindergarten is a strong predictor of how easy it will be for them to learn how to read. All students in preschool and many in the primary grades are learning phonemic awareness skills. Teaching phonemic awareness skills to young ELLs is similar to their native English peers. Older ELLs may also benefit from short and targeted instruction and practice with the sounds of English.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes in spoken words. It is also the understanding that the sounds of spoken language work together to make words ( Reading Rockets.) Phonemic awareness activities are done without letters so that the focus is on sounds.

Components of Phonemic Awareness

Isolation

What is the beginning, middle, ending sound in cat?

Identification

Which word had the same beginning sound as cat? Dog, bug, cut (cut)

Categorization

Which word does not start with the same beginning sound, it does not belong? blue, black, red (red)

Blending

Put the sounds together to make a word. /c/ /a/ /t/ is cat. If a student struggle with blending each sound give them the initial sound (onset) and the rest of the sounds (rime) /c/ /at/.

A simple activity is to play a guessing game with students. Segment a word /t/ /r/ /e/. Students say the word and then look around and try and find it. This helps ELLs build their vocabulary as they are practicing sounds.

Segmenting

Say the sounds you hear in the word cat /c/ /a/ /t/. One way to help students with this task is to give blocks for them to move with each sound or tap their finger for each sound.

Deletion

Have students remove a sound to create a new word. Say blog. Now say blog without the /b/ log.

Addition

Have students add a sound to create a new word. Say at. Now say at and add /s/ to the beginning sat.

Substitution

Say mat. Change the /m/ to /r/. What is the new word? (rat)

Exposure to the Sounds of English

You can help ELLs strengthen their knowledge of the sounds of the English language through read alouds, songs, poems, and other word games. Choral reading is also helpful as it gives students practice pronouncing English words without the stress of people hearing if they mispronounce a word.

Focus on Sounds that are Different

Especially for older Ells, it is helpful to focus on the sounds that are different between English and their native language. Phonological awareness skills transfer from one language to another. If a student is literate in their native language then they only require instruction in sounds that are different.
English and Spanish similarities and differences
Use Pictures

ELLs need to understand the vocabulary words that are being used for a phonemic awareness lesson. Using pictures is a simple way to help students both learn new sounds and vocabulary.

Older Students

For older ELLs photographs are one way to keep instruction age-appropriate. Students can work on completing a picture alphabet book. Use magazines, teacher provided pictures and student drawings that connect to the content that students are learning. Students can sort the pictures based on the beginning sounds.

Resources

Phonemic Awareness Bundle - This set includes print and digital phonemic awareness games with pictures and rhyming puzzles.

A Fresh Look at Phonics
https://www.readnaturally.com/research/5-components-of-reading/phonological-awareness

The Big Five: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Part 2

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Phonemic Awareness with ELLs - A World of Language Learners

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Learn ideas for teaching phonemic awareness skills to English Langauge Learners. For ELLs it is important to give instruction...

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5 Activities for Phonemic Awareness

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Learning to read can be quite an overwhelming task for small children. In fact, if you think about it, it's astounding that children are even capable of learning to read in such a short amount of time. However, before they begin to read print, they must have an adequate foundational understanding of how sounds in words work. That is where phonemic awareness comes into play.

What is phonemic awareness?

In easy-to-understand terms, phonemic awareness is the ability to identify, think about, and manipulate sounds in spoken speech. This is NOT the same as phonics. Phonemic awareness is actually a critical skill that is a precursor to reading letters. That's why phonemic awareness instruction should NEVER involve print. If you find yourself working with letters or printed words, then you have skipped a step and crossed the line into phonics. This is a very important point. Research tells us that it's essential to focus on phonemic awareness in the classroom before reading can begin. We want to ensure that children have a solid understanding of the sounds of speech before we start phonics instruction.

Nowadays, we are facing an added difficulty, though. In today's early-childhood classrooms, teachers are feeling an ever-increasing pressure to get their students reading. It is easy to lose sight of the developmental process and try to skip steps in order to get our kids reading books as soon as possible. There is just one problem: skipping steps is not going to work. Children's progress in reading will be limited if they haven't learned to think about the sounds in words.

As early childhood teachers, we need to remember that we can't skip past phonemic awareness skills. We can't just barge ahead in the hope that all of our students have arrived in our classroom complete with the full-blown skills of thinking about and manipulating sounds in their minds. On the other hand, we also can't afford to spend a lot of time doing phonemic-awareness instruction. I am happy to tell you the good news that we don't have to! Phonemic awareness instruction can and should be done in small pockets of time throughout the school day. In fact, oral language and phonemic awareness can often be taught and reinforced in as little as five to ten minutes per day.

Here are five quick, easy, and fun phonemic awareness activities that are perfect for the beginning of the school year in any early childhood classroom. Yes, you heard me correctly - that word was F-U-N. I know fun has become an undesirable notion in many schools today. But I assure you that these activities will be fun and that your students really will learn about our amazing language! I have also included activities that require little or no preparation - things you can do on the fly! Although these activities don't cover the full range of phonemic awareness skills needed to produce great readers, they are still fantastic activities to begin any school year!

Listening

The ability to listen closely is a key ingredient of phonemic awareness. This is the part of instruction that is skipped most often, because teachers assume that young children know how to listen. They may not! Furthermore, if they don't, they're not ignoring you. It's just that they don't understand what "listen closely" means. They have to be taught.

The Listening Game.

One of the first phonemic-awareness activities I do with my students, even as soon as the first day, is to bring their attention to noises. After lunch, we come back to the classroom and all the children lie quietly on the floor. It's not naptime, but it's a great time to unwind, which is important for young children. As we lie there quietly for five to ten minutes, we listen for sounds. We all stay perfectly still and quiet. We become "sound spotters." We don't use our eyes - we use our ears. There are always sounds and weird noises you can hear in a school building. We may hear the air conditioner, doors closing, teachers talking, stomachs growling. The possibilities are endless! Your part is to talk about the sounds you and the children hear. Use a little teacher enthusiasm and exaggeration to get the kids interested in this activity. The key phrase is, "Who can spot a sound with their ears?"

"Moo-Moo," Where Are You?

I love playing this game with my class. The kids have a ball, too. In fact, they simply think we are playing.

How to play: All the children sit in a circle. One child lies down in the middle of the circle and covers his or her eyes. The teacher chooses another child to go somewhere in the room and pretend to be a cow by making a "moo-moo" sound. The child in the middle of the circle - with eyes still covered - points in the direction of the animal sound. This game is great because it gets children to listen closely for sounds and for where the sounds are coming from. It also prepares their ears to listen more closely to sounds in words. When the child in the middle correctly identifies the sound and direction, he or she gets to go next and make a different animal sound.

Rhyming

Rhyming is such a great phonemic awareness activity! Most children easily grasp the concept of rhyme. Some need a little help, though. Using word-play with rhyming helps children notice that sounds in our language have meaning and follow certain patterns. Again, this is a precursor skill to seeing sound patterns reproduced in print - as a phonemic awareness practice, it is purely auditory.

The absolute best way to introduce rhyming to your students is by reading lots of fun rhyming books, poems, and songs. Act silly and have fun! The more fun you have with the rhymes, the more the kids will notice the rhymes and enjoy the activities. Exaggerate the silliness of the rhyme. The poem "Down By the Bay" and the book "Silly Sally" are perfect examples of how rhyme can be super fun!

In My Box

This game is great to use after your students have at least some understanding of how rhyming works. That means you have already read lots of rhyming books, poems, and songs and played with those rhyming words.

How to play: Get a small box and place some pictures in it with pairs of familiar words that rhyme (like box/socks, cat/hat, or chair/bear). Use enough pictures so that everyone in your class has a turn. Sit in a circle with your students. Start with a child you know is strong in rhyming. Hold the box and choose a picture. If the picture shows a cat, say "In my box, there's a cat". Call on him or her to come up with a rhyming word. The child might say, "In my box, there's a hat" (or some other rhyming word). After he or she answers with a rhyming word, hand him or her the box. Now he or she gets to choose a card and continue the play.

Syllables

Working with and noticing syllables within words is important, because it makes students aware of how words can be split up into smaller parts, according to their sounds. Our ultimate goal is to work on individual phonemes (vowels or consonants), but children must first learn the concept of "parts of words." It's easier for young children to start with larger parts of words and then work their way down to the smaller, discrete individual sounds of phonemes. We are building a bridge from hearing words to hearing phonemes.

Bippity Boppity Bumble Bee

This is such a fun game. You get the kids clapping out names, first. As they get used to the game, you can start using other words with more syllables.

How to play: Sit in a circle with your students. I have a little stuffed bee that the kids love to hold. You could also use a printable bumble bee. The teacher begins the chant and walks around to a child:

Teacher: "Bippity Boppity Bumble Bee, Will You Say Your Name For Me?"

The child responds, "Jennifer."

Teacher: " Let's all say it." And the class says her name out loud, while clapping once for each syllable.

Teacher: "Let's all whisper it." And the class whispers her name, while quiet-clapping the syllables again, once per syllable.

Teacher and class: "Bippity Boppity Bumble Bee, Thank You For Saying Your Name For Me!"

Repeat with another student and his/her name. As students become familiar with the game, you can allow students to take on the "teacher" role.

Old MacDonald

Here is another great game that you can use to give the students practice in listening to syllables and putting them together into words. It follows the pattern of the song, Old MacDonald. By the time I use this activity with my class, we have read and sung Old MacDonald hundreds of times, so the song is well-known to the students.

How to play: The teacher begins by telling the students they are going to learn a new game - it's a different version of Old MacDonald, and it's kind of a silly version. The teacher begins singing, "Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a /ti/ /ger/, E-I-E-I-O". Of course, the kids think the introduction of the tiger is wildly funny, but notice what they have actually done: Without being told, they have mentally combined the syllables /ti/ and /ger/ to realize what the animal was! It's huge! Then I show the children a picture of a tiger and they feel proud that they figured out the animal - and they think it's too funny! Again it's lots of fun, and they really think we are just playing a game.

The most important thing to keep in mind as an early childhood teacher is that phonemic awareness can be such a fun time! It shouldn't be long drawn-out lessons. All you need is five-to-ten-minute pockets of time each day. Phonemic awareness activities are also great to use during transition times throughout the day. I often use the ten minutes before lunch, and sometimes during group restroom breaks, to practice and reinforce listening and oral language skills. And the payoff is big! If you give phonemic awareness the attention it deserves, your students will be richly rewarded when it's time for them to start reading!

So now you know some of my secrets - the teaching games I use myself! I've had success with them, so I'm sure that if you make them your own, not only will you have fun with them in your classroom, but your students, too, will have an easier time with reading and go further faster!

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5 Quick, Easy, and Fun Phonemic Awareness Activities

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Learning to read can be quite an overwhelming task for small children. In fact, if you think about it, it's astounding that children are even capable of learning to read in such a short amount of time. However, before they begin to read print, they must have an adequate foundational understanding of how sounds in words work.

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Worksheets and Assessments for First Grade Phonemic Awareness

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Award winning educational materials like worksheets, games, lesson plans and activities designed to help kids succeed. Start for free now!

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I am always trying to think of ways to make phonics practice more fun. These phonics spinners will be the perfect addition to independent reading centers this coming year.

The students will love being able to spin prior to coloring their picture. I have six separate sets of Phonics Spinners, or I have placed them in a bundle.

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I am always trying to think of ways to make phonics practice more fun. These phonics spinners will be the perfect addition to independent reading centers this coming year. The students will love being able to spin prior to coloring their picture. I have six separate sets of Phonics Spinners, or I have placed them in a bundle.

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Teaching Phonemic Awareness for Parents and Teachers with 5 different strategies

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Phonemic awareness is an important skill to teach kids who are getting ready to learn to read or who are struggling to get the hang of basic reading. Phonemic awareness is an understanding of phonemes and how they work together to create words.

Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can be differentiated in a word. For instance in the word "cat," the phonemes are the "c" sound, the "short a" sound, and the "t" sound. A child who possesses phonemic awareness can segment sounds in words (for example, pronounce just the first sound heard in the word cat) and blend strings of isolated sounds together to form recognizable word forms.
Side Note: I am aware that phonemic awareness is not the only approach to teach reading or the best approach for every child. Some children never develop an understanding of how letters make certain sounds or how those sounds blend together to make whole words. Some children who read, learn through memorization of word shape, order of letters, etc. However, research indicates that early teaching of phonemic awareness before actual reading is introduced, and explicit instruction in phonemic awareness for children who are struggling to get the basics, is highly beneficial and can actually prevent reading problems down the road. If phonemic awareness training is not working, we naturally try other approaches.
What is the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics?
Phonemic awareness is an understanding about spoken language. Children who are phonemically aware can hear the word (b - a - t) said in three separate sounds and tell you it is bat. They can tell you all the sounds in the spoken word dog. They can tell you that, if you take the last sound off cart, you would have car.

Phonics, on the other hand, is knowing the relation between specific, printed letters (including combinations of letters) and specific, spoken sounds. You are asking children to show their phonics knowledge when you ask them which letter makes the first sound in bat or dog or the last sound in car or cart.

Recent longitudinal studies on reading have demonstrated that the acquisition of phonemic awareness is highly predictive of success in learning to read, and to decode (i.e., sound out a word, blend it together to figure it out) in particular. If children understand that words can be divided into individual phonemes and that phonemes can be blended into words, they are able to use letter-sound knowledge to read and build words. To read more about phonemic awareness and how it relates to reading acquisition see Phonemic Awareness and the Teaching of Reading A Position Statement from the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association.

Below are helpful strategies for teaching phonemic awareness.
1-Show printed material to your child and talk about the sounds and structure of the words:

Research suggests that the greatest impact on phonemic awareness is achieved when there is interaction with print, along with paying specific attention to phonemes, sound/word structure. Seeing the words, hearing the sounds, and studying the structure with a coach (parent, teachers, etc.) allows them to make the connection between what they see and hear, a crucial skill for reading. It is also helpful to point to each letter and say each sound.

2 - Play letter games/phoneme substitution games:
Research shows that letter/sound games help develop phonemic awareness. Here are some game ideas:

Take turns thinking of a word. Have the adult and child work together to say each sound in the word. Write down the word (adult or child) and say each sound individually pointing to the letter(s) that make that sound.

Pick a word and take turns switching the first sound in the word to see how it changes the word or switch the last sound to see how it changes the word and sound (e.g., turn cat into bat or pop into pod).

Put letters on index cards (e.g., give your child a, t, and c and ask them to arrange them into cat, and talk about each sound-you can do this with a variety of words-rat, pot, bed, mat, etc.).

Play a rhyming game. Take turns thinking of words that rhyme with cat, dog, big, etc. Look at the words, talk about the structure and what makes them rhyme.

Play the song lyric game by changing a phoneme in a song to see how it changes the meaning of the lyrics. For example, "Pop Goes the Weasel" could be changed to "Hop Goes the Weasel." After changing the lyrics talk about how changing a phoneme gives the song a different meaning.

Related Article: 10 Fun Activities to Teach Your Child Letter Sounds 3 - Use auditory, visual, tactile (touch), and kenisthetic (movement) representations of sounds to teach phonemic awareness:
Many successful training studies include concrete representations of sounds to help children understand how to manipulate sounds in a word (e.g., Ball & Blachman, 1991). For instance, auditory cues are in play when children are asked to clap the number of syllables they hear in a spoken word. (Let's clap the sounds in cat!)

Or you could use visual/tactile cues like blocks or chips to represent each sound in a word (e.g., writing each sound or letter on each chip and seeing how you could manipulate the chips to change the words or letters). How about making letters out of play-doh and using those letters to create words, switch sounds around, etc.).

Kinesthetic cues are used when children jump as they repeat sounds, say a rhyming word, or say each sound in a word. How about using your body to make letters (give me a C, give me an A, give me a T!).

Model for your child how to clap the sounds or syllables in a word, jump while saying letter sounds, or use play-doh or blocks to manipulate or change words around.

4 - Provide Early Writing Activities:
Research also indicates that early writing activities are helpful for developing phonemic awareness. Let your child guess how to spell words. If they are correct, talk about why. If they are incorrect, provide guidance on what letters need to be changed and why.

If they can't write letters yet, have them tell you what letters they think would make up a word, or use play-doh, magnetic letters, blocks or the computer to make words. Show your child how to take your thoughts and put them on paper. Use simple sentences like "I am hungry" or "I love cats!" I also love using dry erase boards for writing practice!

5 - Practice at Home Before School Starts (if you didn't do this it is okay-just start practicing now):
Research shows that children who are frequently exposed to print and phonemic awareness activities at home prior to starting school have higher levels of phonemic awareness. Parents can model phonemic awareness by reading aloud to their children, talking about the spelling, structure, and sounds in a word; showing their child how to write a word while saying the sounds; or leading games that incorporate letter and language play. Give your children opportunities to practice early reading skills by talking, singing, rhyming, and playing guessing games.

We also know that many kids love the IPAD and do well with fun, interactive computerized games! A great app to practice phonemic awareness is Kindergarten Reading,Tracing, and Spelling-Learn to Read First Words School Adventure!
Keep Your Cool
Remember to always stay calm when working with a child or student, even if you think they should be getting something that they are not getting. If you get frustrated with them, they may start to feel anxious, angry, inferior, stupid, etc. which will lead to a less productive learning session. Keep practice sessions short (5 to 10 minutes for younger children or children who get easily frustrated and 10 to 15 minutes for older children or children who can work for longer periods without frustration), unless the child is eager to keep going. For suggestions on ways to encourage children to complete tasks or activities they do not want to do, read 3 Ways to Use Timers to Encourage Homework and Chore Completion and How to Use Schedules to Improve Children's Behavior.
Video Presentation
Do you teach phonemic awareness? What strategies do you like to use?
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You might also like these articles: Recommended Tools for Teaching Phonemic Awareness

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5 Fun Research-Based Reading Strategies to Teach Phonemic Awareness: An Early Reading Skill

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Phonemic awareness is an important skill to teach kids who are getting ready to learn to read or who are struggling to get the hang of basic reading. Phonemic awareness is an understanding of phonemes and how they work together to create words. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can be differentiated in a word.

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Website with resources on Phonemic and Phonological Awareness for teachers

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Phonological/Phonemic Awareness: The Foundation For Literacy | Sight Words: Teach Your Child to Read

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Learn about phonological/phonemic awareness and phonemes and why they are so important for learning to read. More Phonemic awareness is the ability to think about, analyze, and manipulate the sound structure of individual words. This pre-reading skill, also called phonemic awareness, will make phonics that much easier for your child.

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Building Phonemic Awareness With Phoneme Isolation

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In this phonemic awareness lesson designed for a first-grade classroom, students engage in games and chants to recognize the same sounds in different words. Students match objects with the same beginning or ending sound, identify whether a given sound occurs at the beginning or ending of a word, and connect phonemes with graphemes.

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Teacher-made website with games and activities to use for phonemic awareness

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This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Your young learners will love this set of simple board games that build phonemic awareness!
Phonemic awareness.
What does it mean, anyway?

It's a scary-sounding phrase, but it's really not that complicated. It has to do with hearing and manipulating sounds in words. While some phonemic awareness activities may be used alongside letters, most of them don't.

If you ask a child to tell you the beginning sound of sandwich, and s/he says sssss, that's great! Isolating beginning sounds is one key component of phonemic awareness - and it's exactly what we're going to focus on with this set of games.

We have six children, and our oldest four developed phonemic awareness without a lot of intentionality on my part. I read to them often, and we did a variety of early learning activities - but I didn't have to explicitly teach phonemic awareness. For all of them (now 10, 9, 7, and 5) phonemic awareness just cam e.

This hasn't been true of my Three (almost four). Thankfully, she's catching on with the playful activities and games that I've been sharing over the past few months.

Print and cut apart the dot cards at the end of the file.

Grab playing pieces.

Take turns moving along the board by drawing a dot card and moving that number of spaces.

When you land on a space, say the picture's name and its beginning sound.

How to play the games
When my Three landed on a picture, she often stretched that initial sound instead of isolating it. For example, "Milk. Mmmmmilk." Or "Sandwich. Ssssandwich." Fine by me! My goal was for her to hear and identify that beginning sound - and she was doing it!

Sometimes she was frustrated and didn't want to try. Tiger was hard for her. Can you guess why?

It's because /t/ is not a continuous sound. Mmmmmmm and Sssssss were the other two sounds featured in the first game and were much easier.

When she hit a roadblock, she told me to do it. So I did.

"Hmm... is it /m/? Mmm, mmm, miger! No? Is it /g/? /G/, /g/, geiger?" After I was a little silly she was ready to get back in the game.

I chose to use those dot cards because my Three isn't real quick at knowing the dots on a die yet. Another reason is that it's a short game board. If your learner rolls a six three times, the game is over!

The dot cards gave her just enough turns without a single game overwhelming her.

After we played one game, she was willing to play one more. Each game adds a new letter's sound and bumps one sound off. So for example, the first game featured the sounds of m, s, and t. The second game features the sounds of s, t, and a.

I would say that she isolated (or stretched) the beginning sound correctly about 75% of the time. By the time we were finishing (after about 5-10 minutes), she was tired and gave up quickly. Ax (pictured above) was too hard.

So what do you think? Will these work for your learners? I hope you enjoy the 25 free games you can get in the download. These games come in color, but feel free to print in grayscale if you'd like.

BUILD A STRONG READING FOUNDATION

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If you have learners who struggle to isolate beginning sounds, these free phonemic awareness games are the perfect fit! Use them in preschool or kindergarten. Use them in literacy centers or small groups. #phonemicawareness #preschool #kindergarten

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A teacher-made website listing rhyming activities teachers can use to increase phonemic awareness in first grade students

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Phonological awareness activities that teach rhyming. Your kindergarten and first-grade students will love these fun lessons ideas to reinforce rhymes. These phonological awareness activities are great to use for reading intervention during your small group RTI time.

Teaching Phonological Awareness Activities

As teachers, we all understand the importance of creating strong phonological awareness in students. It is the foundation in which we build upon to create independent readers and writers.

Introducing Rhyming Words

Books! We use them every day. Our libraries are full of rhyming books that can help teach phonological awareness to students. Start by teaching students that rhyming words sound alike at the end. While conducting a read aloud, engage students in identifying rhyming words they hear. Here are a few of my favorites to use!

Catalina Magdalena Hoopensteiner Wallendiner Hogan Logan Bogan Was Her Name by Tedd Arnold

Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson

Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae

Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm by Joy Cowley

Listen and Repeat the Rhyming Words

Students learn by listening and doing. Start building a reading and spelling foundation by incorporating phonological awareness activities in whole-group or small-group lessons. You could say a little something like this, "Listen as I say two words that rhyme. Repeat the two words."

Catchy Rhyme Time video that is nice and short but right on point.

Do these two words rhyme?

The next step is to give students two words or pictures. Students decide if the two words rhyme. "Listen as I say two words. If they rhyme, give me a thumbs up."

This fun rhyming video by Jack Hartmann is another interactive way for students to show if words rhyme.

Which of these words rhyme?

Students are given three pictures or words. "Words that rhyme, sound the same at the end, like hop and mop. (It is best to emphasize the ending chunk /0p/)Listen as we say the words. Which words rhyme? Tub, bug, sub"

Another great Jack Hartmann video that engages students in identifying which words do and do not rhyme.

Producing a Rhyming Word

After students can repeat and identify rhymes, they are then ready to start producing a new word that rhymes. After showing students a card with two rhyming words, ask students to produce an additional word that would rhyme.

You can find the Phonological and Phonemic Awareness unit I use by clicking: Phonological & Phonemic Awareness Program for Reading & Writing Success

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Phonological awareness activities that teach rhyming. Your kindergarten and first grade students will love these fun lessons ideas to reinforce rhymes. Great for reading intervention during your small group RTI time.

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Task Cards for Teachers; Activities on Phonemic Awareness

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Last updated on July 13, 2021

These teacher task cards are the perfect phonemic awareness activities, right at your fingertips whenever you need them! There are cards for every skill and they are also differentiated for different levels!
This post contains affiliate links. By purchasing through this link, we get a small commission. Rest assured - we only share links to products that we know and love!
Phonemic awareness activities for kindergarten, first grade, and intervention! These teacher task cards will help you make the most of every classroom moment. Use them during small groups, whole group, one-on-one, in tutoring, or during class transitions to make sure that your students are building phonemic awareness every day!

Phonemic Awareness Teacher Task Cards

WHY PHONEMIC AWARENESS?

I remember my "Teaching Reading" professor in graduate school. She was passionate about phonemic awareness, and there were two things she drilled into our heads.

1. Phonemic awareness can be done in the dark.

2. Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of learning to read. (This makes it SUPER important!)

I'm also pretty sure she asked us to name these two facts at the beginning, middle, and end of every class session. In fact, she even made us order copies of reports from the National Reading Panel for "pleasure reading." But guess what? It's now seven years later, and I haven't forgotten about the importance of phonemic awareness.

As I teach reading intervention, I hear her voice in my head. (Note: I didn't say that I hear random voices in my head; I just remember her. ;) ) I'm constantly reminded of one thing: I need to give my students ample opportunities to learn and practice phonemic awareness skills on a daily basis. With only 20-30 minutes per session, I have to make the most of every minute. I could remember all of the skills in my head and keep track of who has already learned what, or I could create a program to keep me on track. Thus, Phonemic Awareness Teacher Task Cards were born!

These task cards are for the teacher only. Why? Because phonemic awareness can be done in the dark! Letters are not required in building phonemic awareness skills. (Save the letters for phonics.) Your students build phonemic awareness skills by listening and speaking. So for once, don't even worry about making copies for your students. These cards are just for you!

THE PHONEMIC AWARENESS ACTIVITIES

I took all of the phonemic awareness skills and created activities for them. They range from begining to advanced so that they can be used with kindergarteners, first graders, second graders, and any students struggling to read and write (spell).

Because phonemic awareness instruction should be systematic and explicit, I "scripted" each skill introduction and each set of student directions. That's right. All you have to do is read it aloud to your students! You'll also model a "sample" activity so that your students know just what to do (also scripted).

Ready for more? Turn the page (or card). You have multiple pages with 5-20 ways to practice that skill!

Skills range from "What's the first sound you hear in ___?" to phoneme deletion and manipulation. Don't worry. It's scaffolded all throughout so that your students will work up to the hard stuff!

SETTING IT UP - ONE AND DONE

Remember how only the teacher needs a set of these task cards? The setup is quick- do it once, and use it for years! If you have a paraprofessional, assistant, or parent volunteers, you can make them each a set too. They can also practice in small groups or one-on-one. I used colored cardstock and binder rings to keep all my task cards together. (Let's be real; it's also to make them pretty. 😉 ). [Note: These are affiliate links for your convenience.] I had many of you ask if I put the colored paper in a specific order, and the answer is no. I just randomly threw it in my printer. Since they print four to a page, the same skills will be the same color.

SKILL LEVELS

Last week, I decided to put all of the skills on one giant binder ring and use sticky tabs to track which groups are on which skills. However, if you want to divide the task cards by level, you can use the table of contents below to do so! [Note: This table of contents is clickable in the PDF, but it won't be here.]

Beginner: Beginning Sound Discrimination through Alliterations

Intermediate: Onset and Rime through Segmenting Phonemes

Advanced: Deleting With Compound Words through Ending Phoneme Substitution

I hope these phonemic awareness teacher task cards make as much of a difference in your classroom has they have in ours! May you hear voices in your head reminding you how important phonemic awareness is to your students. And also always remember that it can be done in the dark. 😉

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Phonemic Awareness Teacher Task Cards: Keep Me On Track

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Last updated on July 13, 2021 These teacher task cards are the perfect phonemic awareness activities, right at your fingertips whenever you need them! There are cards for every skill and they are also differentiated for different levels! This post contains affiliate links. By purchasing through this link, we get a small commission.

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Resources for Parents on Phonemic Awareness

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When talking about letter sounds, show your child what your mouth does to create the sound. Describe where your tongue is and how you're breathing.
"When I make the m sound, I press my lips together and make my voice hum like this "mmmmm". My tongue is relaxed." Choose a letter sound, then have your child find things around your house that start with the same sound. This is great activity to do in the kitchen while making dinner. "Can you find something in our house that starts with the letter "s" ssssss sound? Stairs, sofa, sandwich."
Sound Hunters
Have your child give a rhyme for a word you tell them. It can be a made up word. "What rhymes with "bindergarten"?
Ridiculous Rhymes

Be Silly!

Make up your own rhymes, songs, or silly stories to focus on a particular sound. Big Billy blows beautiful bubbles!

What's the Sound?

When you're reading together with your child, pick a word from the book and put emphasis on the first sound. Pick another word and compare them. "Aaaaaaalligator and eeeeeeeelephant. Can you hear what letter aaaaaligator starts with? Is it the same as eeeeelephant? What letter does elephant start with?"
Before kids are ready to read words, they need to be able to separate the sounds they hear in words. Tell them a whole word, like "cat" and have them separate the sounds as they touch their head /c/, then shoulders /a/, then knees /t/ (and toes for four sounds if they can handle it!). At the end, have them say the whole word, "cat", as they stand back up. If it's too hard for them, slow down saying the word and stretch out each sound so they can better hear the individual sounds.
Head Shoulder Knees and Toes

Fingers Up

Take turns saying a word while the other person puts up their fingers to match the number of sounds. For "cat," they'd hold up their pointer finger for "c", middle finger for "a" and ring finger for "t".

Show Me

Using Cheerios, rocks or beads, say a word and have your child show you how many sounds the word makes. For example, "cap" = c+a+p = three sounds, so they'd 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 "take" would be = t-a-k (silent e) = only three sounds.

Tell Me the Members of the Word Family

Word families are words that rhyme. Tell your child the "mom's" name is "bat" and they have to tell you all the "kids'" names, such as cat, fat, sat, rat, pat, mat, at, and hat. This will help children hear patterns in words.

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First Grade Phonemic Awareness | Knowing Sounds in 1st Grade

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Learn more about first grade phonemic awareness, as well as find free 1st grade goals & activities around knowing sounds.

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Resources for Teachers and Parents on Phonemic Awareness

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Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Activities for Your First Grader

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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: