# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Phonics instruction is all about helping developing readers understand how letters are linked to sounds. There are two ways to teach phonics: incidentally and systemically. Teachers who use incidental instruction teach intervention strategies as they arise and are needed. With systemic phonics instruction, teachers use specific lessons in a prescribed order ensuring lessons build on each other and work together.

With both strategies, you need to have strong activities that engage your students. Here are six different activities that build on different ways kids can learn:

1. Sound and Picture Match-Up

Pictures are the first symbols a child learns. She might not know how to spell cow, but she knows a cow when she sees one. Using pictures or videos to teach sounds can build confidence in students who struggle with letters. With picture cards, students can learn key words that are used to remember the sounds and shapes of the letters of the alphabet. Try out this free printable to help your learners light up when they see pictures they recognize. Reinforce their learning with these funny animated alphabet videos.

2. Sing-Alongs That Teach Specific Sounds

Combining the rythm and action of songs or chants with clapping and dancing helps children connect sounds and letters in an easy, memorable, and active way. You can find lots of alphabet songs and chants, and you can use this printable poster to help guide children through an alphabet chant.

3. Movement and Sound Play

The more kids move around, the more their brains build the gray matter needed to retain information. Every class can be a time to learn the sounds of letters and words. Check out this free locomotion phonics lesson for physical education.

4. Hand-On Letters

Kinesthetic, also known as tactile, learning is a way to get children moving and doing; using the body in some form or fashion as they learn to read. This cool pool noodle phonics activity helps kids who thrive on tactile learning experiences.

5. Phonics With a Friend

When planning your lessons, be sure to add a group component. Partner work and sharing motivate students to participate and learn together. Here's a lesson from FastTrack Phonics that has a social component built right in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Simple Intervention Strategies to Strengthen Phonics Skills

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phonics instruction is all about helping developing readers understand how letters are linked to sounds. There are two ways to teach phonics: incidentally and systemically. Teachers who use incidental instruction teach intervention strategies as they arise and are needed. With systemic phonics instruction, teachers use specific lessons in a prescribed order ensuring lessons build on each other and work together.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
HOMER Blog I The essential early learning program for ages 2-8. Try it free!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Research shows that for children to become enthusiastic, fluent readers, they need a firm grasp of phonics and the alphabetic code. That's where phonological and phonemic awareness - the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in words - come into play.

Having said that, we understand that it can sometimes be hard to know where to begin. And as a parent, you may or may not have even heard the term "phonemic awareness" before.

Good news! We're here to break down the concepts of phonological and phonemic awareness and show you how you can use them to encourage a love of reading in your child.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

As we mentioned above, phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate sounds. Put another way, it's a concept that deals with how we understand the function of sounds, specifically, phonemes.

A "phoneme" is the smallest possible unit of sound in a language. Every word we use is made up of a combination of phonemes. These sounds blend together to form words.

The easiest way to understand phonemic awareness as a concept is by playing around with words yourself (and with your child, but we'll get to that part later.)

If you take a simple word like "ball" and change the beginning sound from a /b/ to a /t/ sound, you get a different word - tall - with a completely different meaning.

Phonemic Awareness Vs. Phonological Awareness

Phonological and phonemic awareness have a good bit of overlap, which can make the two ideas confusing! We're here to simplify them and show you how these technical terms are actually fun, important parts of your child's reading journey.

Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that includes different skills your child will encounter while on their journey to becoming an enthusiastic, engaged reader. These are:

Really, phonological awareness is all about groups of sounds and how they relate to each other. Combining and playing with multiple syllables, or even the amount of words in a sentence, is the meat and potatoes of phonological awareness.

Phonemic awareness, by contrast, focuses on single sounds - or phonemes. The same skills can be used to engage your child's phonemic awareness.

From a practical standpoint, the fact that phonological and phonemic tasks are so closely related means you can utilize the same blending and sound-swapping exercises; if you'd like your child to focus on phonemic awareness specifically, simply use the exercises with individual sounds.

Examples

Maybe you're thinking to yourself: well, that's about as clear as mud. We hear you!

For the sake of your child's learning, don't sweat over working on these phonological and phonemic skills as individual, separate components. The distinction is mostly academic. Our examples will help you work both at once.

Singing nursery rhymes or silly songs is a great place to start! This will build your child's phonological and phonemic awareness skills by allowing them to play with and manipulate sounds and words.

Why Is Phonemic Awareness Important?

Phonemic awareness is one of the first skills your child will need in their toolbelt for reading, which, of course, is an important part of learning. It's also one of the first steps to building their confidence with sounds (and, later, words!).

Phonemic awareness is an effective tool for helping your child become an engaged, self-motivated reader in the future. A child with a healthy foundation of phonemic awareness stands the best chance to read with fluency and for fun!

Jumping straight into matching up sounds with letter forms may seem like the obvious first step. Your instincts are on the right track; that's an important part of helping your child learn to read!

But another way to help your child with phonemic awareness is to focus on listening skills - such as isolating individual sounds, blending them together, and then moving sounds around to create new words - will help your emerging reader get to their end goal.

As you're working with your child, keep in mind that phonemes may take a while for kids to grasp. That's okay! You can relax knowing that phonemic awareness will come with time and exposure.

How To Encourage Phonological And Phonemic Awareness

You've probably realized by now that when it comes to helping your child develop a love of reading, phonemic awareness is important. But that doesn't mean it has to be boring or difficult!

At HOMER, we believe in learning that's fun and functional for your family. We don't want the prospect of helping your child with their phonemic awareness to feel intimidating.

That's why we're here to share tips for encouraging phonemic awareness in a way that is engaging, stimulating, and educational for your child (without eating up all of your wind-down time as a family!).

The good news is that phonemic and phonological awareness practice can be incorporated into your family's busy lifestyle while allowing you to help your child build their reading confidence and bond with you at the same time.

The best way to build up your child's awareness of sounds in words is to play easy and fun games together. Light-hearted and entertaining activities will keep your little one happy, calm, and excited to learn (without really knowing they're learning in the first place!).

Hearing Rhymes

This one is probably part of your routine family life already. You may not have realized it, but by singing along to nursery rhymes with your child, you're already engaging their phonological awareness!

Exposure to rhymes is the easiest and first step to your child learning to manipulate sounds. And who doesn't love an old-fashioned sing-along in the middle of afternoon traffic or Sunday morning chores?

If you want to focus on your child's phonemic awareness skills more specifically, you can encourage them to make rhymes by only the beginning sound in a word.

For example, you could start with the word "rat." Your child might reply with the word "hat." On and on you can go together!

Differentiating Rhymes

Helping your child distinguish what words do or don't rhyme is an important introduction to a more advanced phonological concept - how changing the letter of a word also changes the sound and meaning.

For this exercise, play a rhyme game. You'll say three words, two of which rhyme and one that does not. Make sure you play up the silliness so your child understands that you made a mistake (one that they will be confident to fix!).

For example, you could say "cat," "bat," and "dot." Then ask your child to pick out the word that doesn't rhyme. Once they gain enough confidence, try and see if they can do it back to you.

Producing Rhymes

To help your little one learn to make their own rhymes, try saying a sentence and asking them to finish it with a word that rhymes. For example: In my bag, I have a ___ (rag).

You can play up the fun in this activity by seeing which one of you can come up with the silliest rhymes. And since you're mainly focusing on listening skills for this activity, the words you come up with don't even have to be real!

Recognizing Sounds

As adults, we take it for granted, but recognizing the beginning and ending sounds of words is really important for emerging readers!

Try saying three words that begin or end with the same sound and asking your child what sound they share. For example: l-l-leg, l-l-lamb, l-l-lint.

You can also change it up by inserting a word that does not belong in the sound group and have your child yell out which word is wrong.

Using the same example, you could say "leg," "lamb," "lint," "mud." once your child hears the wrong sound, they have to shout it out! How many times can your child catch you?

Creating And Associating Sounds

This is where the old I-Spy game comes in handy. Start by saying, "I spy with my little eye something that starts with an /r/ sound."

Have your child answer with something around you that begins with that sound. And while you're playing, remember that at this stage, you're focusing mostly on sounds, not the traditional letter name.

Make sure to give lots of praise and cheers when your child gets it right!

Blending Sounds

This one can be a lot of fun with the right twist! For example, pretend you're a robot who has come to Earth and is trying to learn the English language. Ask your child for help with a certain word in robot-speak.

Break down the sounds in a word and tell your child you don't know what the word is. Ask them to repeat it in robot talk (example: /c/a/t/), and then ask them what word you are saying.

This will help them practice blending different phonemes together to create a single word with a single meaning.

Phonemic Awareness: The Takeaway

Phonemic awareness is an important first step on your child's journey toward a lifetime love of reading, writing, and learning!

Remember: Your child's ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes (sounds) all make up their phonemic awareness. The more your child is able to play around with rhymes and break apart sounds the stronger their phonemic awareness will become!

And while it's crucial to introduce your child to phonemic awareness concepts early in their life, it's much more important to do it in a way that doesn't stress them (or you!) out.

That's why we offer kid-powered, play-based activities designed by learning experts to help keep your child entertained and learning. If you're not sure where to start, try our learning quiz to discover where your child is on their learning journey.

All in all, we encourage you to keep it simple: play phonemic and phonological awareness games for a few minutes as you go about your day. The more fun you have with it the more your child will as well.

If your child ever seems overwhelmed by what they're learning, feel free to take a break. Confidence comes with time and practice.

After all, there's no pressure for them to read Shakespeare any time soon. We know that sound by sound, word by word, with one success following another, your child will soon be on the road to reading Macbeth and other literary delights!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phonemic Awareness: A Simple Guide for Parents - HOMER Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Research shows that for children to become enthusiastic, fluent readers, they need a firm grasp of phonics and the alphabetic code. That's where phonological and phonemic awareness - the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in words - come into play. Having said that, we understand that it can sometimes be hard to know where to begin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This post includes the following reading points:
Hey-ho! I just love all things literacy and specifically working with words. I want to delve deeper into phonological development, because... well... I just love it! I'm a bit of a nerd that way! Are you too?

You know that phonological and phonemic awareness skills are important and also necessary to understand as a Pre-K-2 teacher.

It is vital that you know and understand what phonological and phonemic awareness is, as it is the foundation for reading success.

According to Calfee, Lindamood & Lindamood, 1973: Children's ability to attend to, and manipulate phonemes strongly correlate with their reading success through to the end of their schooling.

It can be tricky to wrap your head around. You may be confused by the terminologies, definitions, skills sets and acquisition. Well this is the place for you!

Lap it all up in one neat blog post that can also be downloaded fo' free you all! Let's get down to it straight up!
What is Phonological Awareness and why is it so Important?
Phonological awareness skills are the basis for reading. Without these important skills, potential reading difficulties may arise in the early years.

A child who has concrete phonological skills will have a strong platform in which to develop reading skills.
What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sound structures within words.

Click here to download the image above fo' FREE!

Phonological skills include:

Rhyme: rhyme awareness and construction

Alliteration: Discrimination and production

Sound and Word Discrimination: Hears units of sounds within a sentence, identifies which word is different

Syllabification: Syllable segmenting and blending

Onset and Rime: Blending and segmenting

Don't confuse phonological awareness and phonemic awareness! While phonemic awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness, it is just one aspect of phonology.
What is Phonemic Awareness?
Phonemic awareness is one part of phonological awareness.

Phonemic awareness deals with the phoneme. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds aurally.

A phoneme is usually defined as the smallest unit of sound.

Phonics is the system in which sound structures and phonemes are represented.

Phonemic Awareness Skills (also fits under the phonological awareness skills umbrella) include:
Individual Phoneme Skills (aural, no print involved):
Individual Phoneme Isolation:(beginning medial and final): Isolates phoneme in given word

Individual Phoneme Blending: Blends phonemes to make a word.

Individual Phoneme Segmenting: Identifies phonemes in words
Syllable Manipulation:
Syllable (onset-rime) Deletion: Deletes onset and then rime in given words

Syllable (onset-rime) Substitution: Substitutes onset and then rime to make new words

Phoneme Manipulation:

Phoneme Deletion: beginning and final

Phoneme Addition: Adds phoneme to make a new word

Phoneme Substitution: Substitutes a phoneme to make a new word
Note: Phonological skill sets seen above are in chronological order of assessment and teaching. Why is Phonological Awareness so Important?
Phonological awareness is a vital set of skills that allows us to learn how to read.

Phonological awareness skills provide children with a means to access the written form; phonics. You might know phonics as sound and letter combinations used to represent words.
Research suggests that trouble with phoneme awareness and phonological skills early on is a gauge for poor reading and spelling skills.
According to the National Reading Panel Report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), "The level of phonemic awareness that children possess when first beginning reading instruction and their knowledge of letters are the two best predictors of how well they will learn to read during the first two years of formal reading instruction." (Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler: 1998 -Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum).
What does this Mean for me as an Educator?
Did you know that:

"According to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 37 percent of fourth graders and 26 percent of eighth graders cannot read at the basic level; and on the 2002 NAEP 26 percent of twelfth graders cannot read at the basic level. That is, when reading grade appropriate text these students cannot extract the general meaning or make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, they cannot understand what they have read." Reference: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

Based on this and similar research outcomes, it is vital that early childhood educators understand both phonological and phonemic awareness skills. It is necessary that these skills are explicitly assessed in the first year of formal schooling and again in the second year.

Moreover, teachers need to understand how to integrate phonological and phonemic awareness curriculums for their emergent readers.

Most importantly, it is essential that teachers have access to systematic intervention resources that complement individuals. These skills are most important for Pre-K, to first grade as they are the foundation for reading, as covered. Children with reading difficulties, may benefit in re-assessment and interventions.
How will Assessing and Providing Interventions Help my Students with their Phonics Development?
We know that a robust phonics base curriculum (among other things like: comprehension, vocabulary and fluency) lends itself to higher reading outcomes.

Comparatively, the same applies with the relationship between phonological and phonemic awareness skills, and phonics skills.

We spend a lot of time planning, implementing and assessing phonics skills and knowledge. Is this to the detriment of more foundational skills? Do the students struggling to grasp: letter-sound relationships, vowel sounds, r-controlled vowels, and other spelling conventions actually struggle on a deeper level? Have you assessed these students' phonological and phonemic awareness skills? Are they missing something that can easily be revisited with an intervention session?
Where can I Find Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Assessments and Interventions for my Students?
There are many sites on the net that provide basic assessments. However, I found many of them frustrating as I needed a more global assessment that was explicit for the developmental ranges in my students. So many sources seemed to leave out key skills, aghhh. After a year of investigating what will work, I came up with my own systemic and explicit assessment.

Here are the skills the assessments will cover.

Click here to download it fo' FREE!

After almost 6 months, I devised a HUGE phonological and phonemic awareness assessment and intervention bundle that is conveniently, a 'grab and go' resource. I wanted to create intervention printables that involve very minimal prep, just copy, grab counters and die, and that's about it! Click the images below to see the BUNDLE.

In the intervention digital download you have access to: information pages, tracking pages, assessment pages, as well as print and go games for interventions. I know children learn best from hands-on activities like games so I have included a few for each skill (as seen in skills listed above in the boxes). The games are all black and white so you can place them in a binder, each inside plastic sleeves, or laminated. They will be ready to use at a moment's notice with individuals or small groups.

Above is a snapshot of the Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Binder. Photos of the binder can be viewed here.

This will be a great time saver, not to mention an explicit and systematic way to ensure you're assessing and teaching phonological and phonemic awareness skills and preparing competent readers.

Thanks for dropping by, I hope this post has been of value to you.

You can download the entire blog post for free here.

Happy word work!

Emma

***

Emma Farrell has 12 years of experience working with Pre-K to grade 2. She has a diploma in Social Science, and an Early Childhood degree. Emma has worked in special education and has extensive experience with ELLs. She is passionate about all things reading, especially word work. Emma understands the importance of hands-on learning, both her Clever Classroom resources, and blog reflect this. Teachers who follow Emma on her buzzing Facebook page; Clever Classroom, are inspired by the reading ideas she shares. Emma is also an influential pinner on Pinterest, who aims to help teachers find literacy resources and ideas.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why is Phonological Awareness So Important? | The TpT Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This post includes the following reading points: Hey-ho! I just love all things literacy and specifically working with words. I want to delve deeper into phonological development, because... well... I just love it! I'm a bit of a nerd that way! Are you too?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When you hear someone say silent e words, do you automatically think of words where the silent e makes the first vowel say it's name? Did you know that silent e does so more than that? I did not know there were so many jobs of the silent e when I started teaching.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Structured Literacy | Pride Reading Program

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds of spoken language. This is the beginning foundation of reading and is a critical component to future reading skills, especially for children with language processing disorders (dyslexia, auditory processing, speech deficits, etc.). Although many children's brains are "wired" to learn this skill easily, a lot of children need direct teaching. On today's post, I am going to give you tips and strategies for teaching phonological awareness.

Rhyming is the first step in teaching phonological awareness and helps lay the groundwork for beginning reading development. Rhyming draws attention to the different in our language and that words actually come apart. For example, if your child knows that and rhyme, they are focused on the ending .

You can begin introducing rhymes by reading stories and poems with your child that use a lot of rhymes aloud together. You will want to first read the story aloud several times simply for the pure joy of reading and sharing the story together. Then you can begin drawing attention to the sounds of the rhyme. For example you can say, "I hear rhyming words! and rhyme!" You can also ask your child to predict the next word in the rhyming story. As you read these rhyming books aloud, you will want to really exaggerate the sound of the rhyming words.

You can also sing rhyming songs and rhyming chants with your child. Singing is so easy to fit into your daily schedule, as you can basically break out in song or chant any time of the day.

Once you have introduced rhyming, you can help your child to identify and practice rhymes by manipulating, adding, deleting or substituting sounds in words.
Some examples of doing this are:
"Tell me all the words you know that rhyme with the word "hat."

"Close your eyes. I am going to say 2 words. If they rhyme, raise your hand. If they don't shake your head."

"Say the word hat. Good. Say the word hat again, but change the h to b. (bat).

"Listen to these 3 words - mop, plop, flop, tag. Which of these does not rhyme?"

"Can you finish my sentence for me. The cat sat on the _______."

Rhyming is one of those reading skills that is really fun to work on and kids like doing it. If you want to read a more detailed post on rhyming and a list of songs to sing, and a list of rhyming books to read, you can read my post:

Breaking up words into syllables or chunks is the second step of teaching phonological awareness. Syllabication helps children learn to read and spell difficult words. When a child is stuck on a difficult word, they can use syllabication rules to figure it out.

One activity that helps a child pull apart the syllables in a word is to count them. This can be done by clapping each syllable. You can start by counting (actually clapping) the number of syllables in your child's own name. (clap, clap). . (clap, clap, clap). You can also clap out the days of the week , the months of the year, and fun words like or Cin-der-el-la .

If your child is having trouble understanding syllables, try using "chin dropping." This technique will help your child really "feel" the syllables. Place your hand under your chin. Now, say a multisyllabic word aloud. Every time your chin drops, that is one syllable! For a more detailed description on teaching syllables as well as every syllable type you need to teach and a bunch of strategies and activities you can use, read my post:
My Favorite Multisyllabic Word Activities
Pulling apart words into different sounds is what we call sound segmentation. For example the word has three sounds - , , . The word also has three sounds - , , . Teaching sound segmentation is the final process in teaching phonological awareness. This step is the one that leads to beginning blending in reading.

You can begin working on sound segmentation by asking your child to match the very first sounds in words and then the final sounds. It is helpful to have a set of cards with pictures of everyday objects (man, boy, girl, cat, dog, house, book, etc.). You can also cut out pictures from magazines and use those. Once your child is successful at matching beginning sounds, work on ending sounds.

Your child can also tap on the desk for each sound or stomp their fists. I like to use sound tokens. The child listens to a word and then moves the sound token into a box for each sound in the word.

Phonological awareness skills are the basis for reading and without this important skill, potential reading difficulties might occur in the early reading stage. A child who has strong and solid phonological skills will have a strong reading foundation to develop with.

Thank you for reading my post today. You might also enjoy reading my previous post:
How to Teach Letters and Sounds Correctly How to Teach Beginning Blending in Reading
Please don't leave without checking out the PRIDE Reading Program. The PRIDE Reading Program is an Orton-Gillingham curriculum that is used by teachers, tutors, and homeschooling parents worldwide with great success.

The PRIDE Reading Program

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Strategies for Teaching Phonological Awareness - Structured Literacy | Pride Reading Program

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds of spoken language. This is the beginning foundation of reading and is a critical component to future reading skills, especially for children with language processing disorders (dyslexia, auditory processing, speech deficits, etc.).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Activities for Your Kindergartener

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sound Reading and Reading Sounds: The Case for Phonemic Awareness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify, hear, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words. Manipulating the sounds in words includes blending, stretching, or otherwise changing words.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Efficacy of Online Learning Modules for Teaching Dialogic Reading Strategie...