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Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness

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Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness

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Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

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Because phonemic awareness is a necessary pre-requisite to reading, it is important that it is included in early reading or pre-reading instruction. While there are many ways to teach, the following proven strategies should be considered when teaching phonemic awareness to young children.

Timing and Grouping

Phonemic awareness should be a priority in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and early first grade reading instruction. Studies have found that young children benefit the most from short instructional sessions (up to 30 minutes long) offered in small group settings. Teachers working with small groups should focus on between 2 and 3 phonemic awareness skills at a time to help children solidify these important pre-reading abilities.

Teaching With or Without Letters?

While phonemic awareness is not dependent on print, children seem to benefit the most from instruction presented with written words. At its very core phonemic awareness is a listening and speaking skill rather than a reading skill. Phonemes are, after all, sounds. Still, research shows that teaching phonemic awareness using letters helps children solidify their skills. Print words allow them to see and apply the connection between sound and letters necessary for reading. Adults working with young readers on developing their phonemic awareness should make explicit connections between sounds and letters by not only including print words in instruction but also drawing the children's attention to sounds by saying and pointing to letters simultaneously.

Individualized Approach to Instruction

Children come to school with different phonemic awareness levels. Some may have a strong understanding of and ability to apply knowledge of how phonemes function in words while others may have little to no phonemic awareness.

Just as with phonics instruction, phonemic awareness instruction should be individualized to meet the specific needs of each child in the classroom.

Because it is the primary pre-requisite for reading and is such a strong indicator of future reading ability, the greatest attention should be paid to those students with little or no phonemic awareness.

Clapping and Tapping

One of the easiest ways to help children realize that words are made up of several sounds and syllables is to allow them to "break up" words by clapping or tapping out their syllables. Tapping can be performed with fingers, hands or an object such as a stick. When first introducing this concept, adults should model clapping or tapping. For example, a teacher can show a child that the word "balloon" has two syllables by clapping twice while reciting the word (/ba/ -clap- /loon/ -clap-). Once children understand the activity they should be encouraged to perform it independently on a regular basis. This kinesthetic connection allows children to become actively engaged with words.

Keyword Substitution

This activity aids children in developing an understanding of the role that phonemes play in the meaning of words. When a phoneme is changed in a word, more often than not, the meaning changes. Keyword substitution activities use familiar songs as a basis for "playing" with words. Adults can take the lyrics of a familiar song and create new lyrics that substitute words with small phonemic variations. For instance, the chorus of "Pop Goes the Weasel" could be changed to "Hop Goes the Weasel". After singing the song with the new lyrics adults should discuss how changing a phoneme shifted the meaning of the song.

Picture Flashcards

Picture flashcards are excellent tools for helping children who do not have strong phonics skills work on their phonemic awareness. Adults should create a series of flashcards featuring pictures that are familiar to the child. When using the flashcards the adult should ask the child to name the picture featured on each card. After saying the word the child should be asked to identify the first and second sounds (or phonemes) in the word. This activity helps children realize that words are made up of a series of independent sounds or phonemes.

Home-School Connection

Because phonemic awareness precedes actual text reading, it is most often developed at home. Parents play an important role in their children's phonemic awareness. Research has shown that children exposed to print-rich environments at home prior to entering school show much higher levels of phonemic awareness. A print-rich environment is one where reading and writing are evident and important. Parents can model phonemic awareness by reading aloud to their children and allowing their children to see them reading in authentic ways. They can also give their children opportunities to practice language by talking, singing, reciting nursery rhymes, playing guessing games and engaging in early writing activities. Almost any activity involving spoken or written language that parents engage in with their children benefits their development of phonemic awareness.

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Teaching Phonemic Awareness - Effective Strategies

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Because phonemic awareness is a necessary pre-requisite to reading, it is important that it is included in early reading or pre-reading instruction. While there are many ways to teach, the following proven strategies should be considered when teaching phonemic awareness to young children.

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Concepts and Research

Phonemic Awareness (PA) is:

1. the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992; see References).

2. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes. Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense.

3. fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon" begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run", he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word.

4. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system.

5. a strong predictor of children who experience early reading success.

An important distinction:

Phonemic awareness is NOT phonics.

Phonemic awareness is AUDITORY and does not involve words in print.

Phonemic Awareness is important ...

It requires readers to notice how letters represent sounds. It primes readers for print.

It gives readers a way to approach sounding out and reading new words.

It helps readers understand the alphabetic principle (that the letters in words are systematically represented by sounds).

...but difficult:

Although there are 26 letters in the English language, there are approximately 40 phonemes, or sound units, in the English language. (NOTE: the number of phonemes varies across sources.)

Sounds are represented in 250 different spellings (e.g., /f/ as in ph, f, gh, ff).

The sound units (phonemes) are not inherently obvious and must be taught. The sounds that make up words are "coarticulated;" that is, they are not distinctly separate from each other.

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Definitions of key PA terminology:

Phoneme: A phoneme is a speech sound. It is the smallest unit of language and has no inherent meaning.

Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words, and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992; see References). Phonemic awareness involves hearing language at the phoneme level.

Phonics: use of the code (sound-symbol relationships to recognize words.

Phonological Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of language. This is an encompassing term that involves working with the sounds of language at the word, syllable, and phoneme level.

Continuous Sound: A sound that can be prolonged (stretched out) without distortion (e.g., r, s, a, m).

Onset-Rime: The onset is the part of the word before the vowel; not all words have onsets. The rime is the part of the word including the vowel and what follows it.

Segmentation: The separation of words into phonemes.

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Examples of Phonemes

The word "sun" has three phonemes: /s/ /u/ /n/. The table below shows different linguistic units from largest (sentence) to smallest (phoneme).

The word "shut" also has three phonemes: /sh/ /u/ /t/.

Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills

Blending: What word am I trying to say? Mmmmm...oooooo...p.

Segmentation (first sound isolation): What is the first sound in mop? /m/

Segmentation (last sound isolation): What is the last sound in mop? /p/

Segmentation (complete): What are all the sounds you hear in mop? /m/ /o/ /p/

What Teachers Should Know

What Teachers Should Be Able to Do

Definition of phonemic awareness (PA).

The relation of phonemic awareness to early reading skills.

The developmental continuum of phonemic awareness skills.

Which phonemic awareness skills are more important and when they should be taught.

Features of phonemes and tasks that influence task difficulty.

Terminology (phoneme, PA, continuous sound, onset-rime, segmentation).

Assess PA and diagnose difficulties.

Produce speech sounds accurately.

Use a developmental continuum to select/design PA instruction.

Select examples according to complexity of skills, phonemes, word types, and learner experience.

Model and deliver PA lessons.

Link PA to reading and spelling.

Evaluate the design of instructional materials.

(modified from Moats, 1999; see References)

What Does the Lack of Phonemic Awareness Look Like?

Children lacking phonemic awareness skills cannot:

group words with similar and dissimilar sounds (mat, mug, sun)

blend and split syllables (f oot)

blend sounds into words (m_a_n)

segment a word as a sequence of sounds (e.g., fish is made up of three phonemes, /f/ , /i/, /sh/)

detect and manipulate sounds within words (change r in run to s).

(Kame'enui, et. al., 1997; see References)
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Phonemic Awareness Research Says:

"The best predictor of reading difficulty in kindergarten or first grade is the inability to segment words and syllables into constituent sound units (phonemic awareness)" (Lyon, 1995; see References).

The ability to hear and manipulate phonemes plays a causal role in the acquisition of beginning reading skills (Smith, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 1998; see References).

There is considerable evidence that the primary difference between good and poor readers lies in the good reader's phonological processing ability.

The effects of training phonological awareness and learning to read are mutually supportive. "Reading and phonemic awareness are mutually reinforcing: Phonemic awareness is necessary for reading, and reading, in turn, improves phonemic awareness still further." (Shaywitz, 2003, see References)

Phonological awareness is teachable and promoted by attention to instructional variables (Smith, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 1998; see References).
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University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning

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Phonemic Awareness: Concepts and Research

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Concepts and Research the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992; see References). essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes.

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Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals.

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Home › Classroom Resources › Lesson Plans

Lesson Plan

Grades

K - 2

Lesson Plan Type

Recurring Lesson

Estimated Time

Three 25-minute sessions

Lesson Author

Publisher

From Theory to Practice
OVERVIEW

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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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Yopp, H.K., & Yopp, R.H. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54, 130–143.
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Phonemic awareness, which is the awareness that speech consists of a sequence of sounds, should be a priority in early reading instruction.

Phonemic awareness instruction should provide students with "linguistic stimulation in the form of storytelling, word games, rhymes, and riddles."

Phonemic awareness instruction should move from rhyming words to smaller units of sound, and finally to individual phonemes

Phonemic awareness instruction can be strictly oral or may include some sort of concrete cue.

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Building Phonemic Awareness With Phoneme Isolation - ReadWriteThink

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Teaching Tools | Resources for Teachers from Scholastic

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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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Phonemic Awareness, Fluency, Sight Words and Comprehension

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Phonemic Awareness, Fluency, Sight Words and Comprehension

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Phonological awareness & Phonemic awareness activities

It has taken a while but we have finally completed our Phonological Awareness Activities Packet. This packet has been a huge undertaking but we wanted to accomplish a few things with it:

1. Align the phonemic awareness activities on this page below with the Common Core Standards.

2. Create new phonemic awareness activities for the standards we did not have existing activities for.

3. Put all the activities in one download!

What we ended up with is a 58 page Phonological Awareness Activities Download.
The file was so large that we could not upload it to our Download Central Page so we placed it in Katie's TpT Store. Here are some sample pics for you. Click any pic to enlarge.

This is our favorite part about the new download! You'll get a 30-page phonological awareness progression for ways to help your students at the word, syllable, and sound level. Simply cut the page down the middle, punch a whole in the corner, and bind with a metal ring! It's perfect to do with your students when you have a few free minutes...and it's super handy. Click to enlarge the pics.

Head on over to Katie's TpT Store to purchase this packet for just $3 or keep scrolling down for all of our FREE phonemic awareness activities.

Want an easy and effective way to track multiple students' phonological awareness skills? Print off this template! List the names of students in the left hand column and place check marks under the skills when a child has mastered them!

Syllable: Phonemic Awareness Activities

Using different items such as hand clappers, drums, or tennis rackets you can have children determine the number of syllables in a given word. For example, you would tap a drum two times for the word "sister" because it has two syllables. For increased difficulty, tap the drum (any number of times) and have your child think of a word that contains that same number of syllables.

Using the lyrics to "Hickety Pickety," have your child say, clap the syllables, and whisper their name to you.

Write the names of students in your classroom or members of your family. Have you child color a smiley face for each syllable in a given name and make a tally mark for each syllable.

Copy a "Classroom Syllable Graph" for each student in your classroom. Say the name of a student and have them color a square above the correct number of syllables. A fun way to combine phonemic awareness activities and math practice!

Help your child find items in different rooms in your home. Sort them by syllables. Write words (or draw pictures) for each object.

Beginning & Ending Sounds: Phonemic Awareness Activities

Tell your child you are going to teach them a song that will help them discover new words by taking off parts (sounds) of the word. Teach this song and let them fill in the last word. After a few verses using new words, invite the children to sing along. Other possible words to use include:

Beginning Sounds: boat (oat), farm (arm), meat (eat), bus (us), sled (lead), hand (and), & sit (it).

Ending Sounds: hammer (ham), soap (so), little (lit), meat (me), & boat (bow).

Segmenting & blending: phonemic awareness activities

Use these sound boxes to help children segment sounds in words. Simply print, laminate, and cut in half each card. Place one game chip under each box. Students say the name of each picture and then push up a chip for each sound in that word. Great for small group instruction!

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Give students a word with 1-4 phonemes (sounds). Have them stand up and touch their head, shoulders, knees, and toes as they are saying the sounds in words. For example, the word "cat" would be /c/ (head), /a/ (shoulders), and /t/ (knees). A great active, phonemic awareness activity for helping students with segmenting!

Tell your child that you are going to teach them a song that will help them hear all of the sounds in a word. Teach this song and let them blend the sounds together to make a word. Sing the song a couple times, substituting a new word each time. Scroll down on this page to open a list of words with 4-6 phonemes (sounds) for ideas!

Place the cards face-up in random order on a flat surface. Have your child put the pictures together. Say a sound for each picture part while slowly sliding the parts away from each other. Then have your child say a sound for each picture part while slowly sliding the parts together. Once they are back together, say the whole word and continue with other picture cards

Using the above template, write words with 1-5 sounds in the left-hand column. Have students count how many sounds they hear in each word and write that number in the middle column. Give your child 5 bean bags and place a basket in front of them (distance depends on their ability to throw). Children throw a bean bag for each sound they hear in a given word. A point is received for each bean bag that makes it into the basket. (Make sure your child is saying the sounds they hear as they throw the bean bag). When they are finished throwing, have them count up their points to determine the grand total.

Place a green, yellow, and red mat on the floor (in that order). Begin by giving your child a word with 1-3 sounds. Have your child say the sounds they hear as they jump from mat to mat. For increased difficulty, move the mats so they are further apart.

This template can be used similar to those of Elkonin boxes for segmenting words into sounds. Give your child a word with 1-5 sounds and have them move a token into a box for each phoneme. It's a good idea to use different colored tokens and make sure your child is moving from left to right, just as if they were reading a word.

Have your child look at each picture and determine the number of sounds in that word. Color a box for each sound.

Here you will find a list of short and long vowel words with 4-6 phonemes (sounds). Before you use this list with your child/class, make sure they have mastered segmenting 1-3 phoneme words. These words can be used with the following phonemic awareness activities for segmenting:

This segmenting activity is easy to do and it doesn't require any materials but your hands! Have your child/class place their hands together. Give them a word. Each time they hear a sound in a word, have them say it and move their hands further apart.

This is the same concept as the segmenting activity above, only using silly putty to stretch the sounds in words. Using the silly putty helps children to visualize words that have a few sounds and words that have many sounds. (Children really get excited when they find words with many sounds, causing the silly putty to break apart).

This way of stretching words is great for students who like movement! Use a yoga mat and begin by explaining that it's important to stretch your body before you can stretch your brain. Give your child a set of directions to stretch their body. For example, tell them to slowly touch their toes, reach high in the air, place arms out to the side, and roll their head slowly. Once they have stretched their bodies, they are ready to stretch words! A fantastic multi-sensory phonemic awareness activity.

Using inexpensive night lights is a great way to help children learn to say sounds in words. Line up the night lights and say a word. Have your child say the sounds in the word as they turn the lights on. Repeat this process with the same word, but have your child say the sounds while they turn off the night lights. (It's always a good idea to teach your child to work from left to right! This typically is best to do in the small group setting when working on 1-4 phoneme words).

Using magnetic bingo chips and a cut-apart egg carton, place a chip in each slot. Give your child a word with 1-6 phonemes and have them pick up a chip while they say each sound. Like in the previous activity, it's best to teach your child to work from left to right.

Rhyming: Phonemic Awareness activities

Rhyme Time Bingo

Check out our new rhyming bingo game to play with children in the small group setting or at literacy centers. Directions are attached!

Want a fun way to help children learn to rhyme? Try this game with 2-4 children...Great for small group instruction and centers! Directions are attached.

By cutting and laminating the following cards, you can provide a fun and easy way to help children increase their rhyming skills.

Each week and new chant or poem is introduced. Students practice reading these poems through various activities and send them home each Thursday to share with family members.

Mystery Bag

Using an old book bag filled with random objects is a great way to help children with rhyming. Find things that are of meaning to you or place objects in the book bag that will make them laugh. See how many words you can think of that rhyme with that object, even if it is not a real word!

Track your class student rhyming progress using the "Rhyming Groups Folder". Glue the following four tabs on the inside of a manila folder, laminate, and use Post-Its to move individual students' rhyming progression.

Can't Hear/Can't Produce Rhymes

Can Hear/Can't Produce Rhymes

Can Hear/Can Produce Some Rhymes

Can Hear/Can Produce Rhymes Consistently

Learning the Difference between letters, sounds, syllables, & sentences: phonemic awareness activities

By enlarging and laminating this template your students can determine the letters, sounds, and syllables in new words you are working on in the classroom. (Kinkos is a great place to have documents enlarged). This helps children visualize that some words might have a lot of letters, but not a lot of sounds and vice versa.

Letter, Sound, Syllable, Word, & Sentence Poster Template

Cut out the cards and glue each to the top of a large poster. Provide your students/child with old magazines and newspapers. Help them cut out uppercase and lowercase letters, sounds, syllables, words, and sentences and glue of the appropriate poster. For "sounds" and "syllables" have your child use pictures of objects. Cut the objects according to the number of sounds and syllables. For example, the word "cat" would be cut into three pieces to represent the sound /k/ /a/ /t/. A great multi-sensory phonemic awareness activity.
Return from Phonemic Awareness Activities Page to Home

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Free downloads for phonemic awareness activities

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"Phonological awareness," "phonemic awareness," and "phonics," are literacy terms we often hear used simultaneously, and maybe even interchangeably! However, as we work with children, helping them to develop a strong foundation of literacy and language skills, we must realize the important distinction between these terms.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate parts of spoken language. Skills are at a listening/auditory and spoken/verbal, level - NO print - spoken words requiring ears only!

It is a broad term and comprised of a group of skills that progress developmentally, but of course, overlap as children mature. As phonological awareness skills develop, children will begin to attend to, discriminate, remember, and manipulate (segment/blend) words and sounds at these levels or chunks:

Sentence
Understanding that the sentence they hear, "Thecatisfat" is comprised of four separate words "The cat is fat".

Word

Understanding the words "cat" and "fat" rhyme.

Understanding two words become one in a compound word: cat + fish = catfish

Syllable
Understanding the word "cat" as one syllable.

Phonemic Awareness
Understanding and manipulating the three sounds in "cat" = /k/ /a/ /t/

Let's take a closer look at phonemic awareness. It is a specific skill under the broad category of phonological awareness. If we put phonological awareness skills on a continuum, phonemic awareness is the most sophisticated and last to develop.

The following is a list of specific phonemic awareness skills. Keep in mind, all of these are done at the auditory/spoken level, NO print:

Recognize words in a set begin with the same sound (cat, cake, kite all begin with the /k/ sound)

Isolate and say the first/last/middle sound/s in a word (cat begins with the /k/ sound and ends with the /t/ sound, etc.)

Blend separate sounds (phonemes) into words (/k/- /a/ - /t/ = cat)

Segment words into sounds (cat = /k/- /a/ - /t/)

Delete/manipulate sounds in spoken words (What is "cat" without the /k/? - "at"

Basically, phonemic awareness skills include learning how to break apart (segment) and combine (blend) the sounds in words. Phonemic awareness should begin in Pre-K with the focus on the simpler phonemic awareness skills of isolation and identifying beginning and ending sounds. Because phonemic awareness is a more advanced phonological awareness skill, development continues into kindergarten and early elementary.

Why are phonemic awareness skills so important?

Well, children who cannot hear and manipulate the phonemes of spoken words will have a very challenging time learning how to relate phonemes to letters when they see them in written words, Phonics. Therefore, Phonological Awareness skills are foundational for Phonics.

What is Phonics?

Phonemic awareness, however, is not phonics.

Phonics skill development focuses on helping children understand the relationship between sounds of written letters, letter combinations, and words. Phonics deals with written language, therefore we need to use our ears AND eyes, where as Phonological Awareness (and phonemic awareness) involves NO print, just listening and saying sounds and words. To keep this straight in my mind, I think about phonological awareness activities as those which can be completed with the eyes closed, while phonics activities require us to see the written letters and words, so, eyes need to be open.

Both phonemic awareness and phonics are interrelated, foundational skills and necessary for reading. However, it is important to understand a foundation of all phonological awareness skills should built before intense concentration is given to phonics.

The Benefits of Phonemic & Phonological Awareness

PreK is the time to begin to lay the foundation for strong reading skills, and it is important to begin by concentrating on phonological awareness skill development. In addition, if we do not help children gain the foundational understanding of sounds that phonemic awareness brings, phonics (assigning a letter a sound, spelling, and reading) will make little sense. And research supports this.

In summary, Phonemic Awareness is critical for reading. It primes readers for mapping speech to print, connecting sounds with written symbols, and also gives children a way to approach sounding out, blending sounds to make and read new words.

Phonological Awareness Activities & Strategies

In Pre-K, Phonological Awareness skills most certainly need to be taught explicitly, but fun extra practice can be woven in anytime.
Activity 1: Games to Play While Lined Up
Here are a few ideas for some simple games to play while children wait in line:

1. Sentence game: say a sentence, "The cat is fat". Tap the first 4 children on the head as you say each word of the sentence. Ask, "How many words?", four! Repeat the sentence, or say a different sentence, as you go down the line of children.

2. Rhyme game: Say a few words that rhyme, "cat, fat, bat". Prompt children to join in the game. You may need to prompt by saying some initial sounds: /p/ - at, /s/ - at, etc. Include silly words (/z/ - at) and blends (/th/ - at)!

3. My Turn/Your Turn syllable count game: (My Turn) Model clapping/stomping/tapping the syllables for objects you see in the classroom (Ceil-ing, floor, ta-ble, com-pu-ter). (Your Turn) Prompt children to imitate you. Ask after each word, "How many syllables?"

4. Repeat the beginning sound game: /c/ - /c/ - cat, /c/ - /c/ - cake, /c/ - /c/ - car. Prompt children to join in with other words.

The Get Set for School curriculum offers many activities that support early Language and Literacy skill development for children in your Early Childhood classrooms.

Here are some additional sample activities and products to explicitly instruct young learners in some key Phonological Awareness skills.
Activity 2: Discriminate rhymes
Each of the four Mat Man books features the beloved character, Mat Man. Rhyming verses in all the books help children discriminate and learn about rhymes.

Mat Man helps students learn about shapes, professions, rhymes, while expanding their imaginations, exploration, and community awareness.

Click here to see more sample pages from the Mat Man Book Series.
Activity 3: Discriminate between environmental sounds and speech sounds
Children learn important social, math, literacy & language concepts as they move and sing to upbeat songs on the Sing, Sound, and Count with Me Music Album

For example, the song "Syllable Sound Off" helps to develop children's understanding of syllables as they listen for and move to identify 2, 3 and 4 syllable words... all in one song!

Rhymes are taught in a fun playful way in the song "Rhyming Riddles". In fact, most songs on the music album include verses with rhyming words!
Activity 4: Identify Sounds and their sources
The Sound Around Box is a versatile classroom tool that will help you teach early language and literacy concepts in a fun and hands-on way. It provides the opportunity for many group activities which will help children develop important social skills as they engage in multisensory play with rhymes, syllables, beginning sounds, alphabet knowledge, letters, word parts, and test their memory skills!
Activity 5: Develop early language, literacy, motor, and social skills
Line It Up engages children in fun interactive activities that develop early language, literacy, motor, and social skills. The set includes a mountable magnetic display bar to hold the Story, Letter, and Coloring Cards.

The 26 Coloring Cards each have simple picture. The picture can be colored, but also used to facilitate a "Syllable Chant" activity. For example, on the "A" card: al-li-ga-tor.

The 26 Picture Cards can be used for phonemic awareness activities as children name each picture and identify those that begin with the target sound. For example:

Show picture side of Letter Card A. Name each picture.

Alligator begins with /ă/. Say it with me, /ă/, alligator.

Does violin begin with /ă/? No, violin begins with /v/.

Does astronaut begin with /ă/? Yes, /ă/, astronaut.

Continue with banana and apple.

Let children circle beginning /ă/ pictures.

All of the Get Set for School products support a variety of learning opportunities for your developing children. The products and activities highlighted shown here are just a snapshot of the many skills these products can facilitate.

To learn more about these and other Get Set for School activities and products, visit our website.

A-Z for Mat Man and Me

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5 Phonological & Phonemic Awareness Activities

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"Phonological awareness," "phonemic awareness," and "phonics," are literacy terms we often hear used simultaneously, and maybe even interchangeably! However, as we work with children, helping them to develop a strong foundation of literacy and language skills, we must realize the important distinction between these terms.

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Sally Shaywitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia, asserts, "It is phonemic awareness and not intelligence that best predicts ease of learning to read. Even at the high school level, phonemic awareness is the best predictor of the ability to read words accurately and quickly."1

Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes, the individual consonant or vowel sounds. Dyslexia is a disorder or disruption in the phonologic module of the brain, resulting in the inability to hear and manipulate phonemes. Research shows that dyslexic students who receive intervention in explicit, systematic phonics can overcome dyslexic tendencies and can become skilled readers.

The following activities will help you assess and strengthen a student's phonemic awareness.

(Note: Letters within slash marks are to be pronounced as the letter sounds, not as the letter name.)

Sound isolation of initial and final phonemes is another important aspect of phonemic awareness.

Begin with isolating initial phonemes. For example, say, "What sound do you hear at the beginning of the following words?"

vet bed man fish dad cup

big, band, boy, ripe ten, ton, frog, test

rich, sing, red, right snake, sun, sand, ring

If the students do well, isolate the final phoneme. For example, you could say, "The final sound is the last sound you hear. What is the final sound in the following words?"

vet bed man fish dad cup

dog, frog, dig, wish hat, rat, find, mat

car, desk, star, far will, fill, bill, still, wet

If helpful, you can also isolate phonemes, using vowel sounds in the middle of words. Ask students whether the sounds in the middle of words are the same or different. Examples: bed/ bad, dog/ dig, cup/ cap.

Ask students how many sounds they hear in the following words.

rat dig jump stop plane

If students have difficulty with this activity, give them a coin, a poker chip, or some other object to represent each sound. Place the items in a row across their desks, and have the students pull down one object for each sound they hear. In the word plane, there are four sounds: /p/ /l/ /a/ /n/. Even though the word is spelled with five letters, there are only four sounds.

This is a more difficult skill. Ask students what sound they hear in seat but not in eat. (Answer: /s/.) Continue comparing with the following pairs of words. (Letters used within slash marks represent sounds.)

To fully develop phonemic awareness, it is essential to understand how many syllables are in a word. Knowledge of syllables will help students separate words into smaller pieces. Syllables are the largest units of sound that make up a word and are relatively simple for native speakers to identify and manipulate.

The number of working (sounded) vowels in a word will determine the number of syllables.

Some words are short and have only one syllable.

Other words are longer and are comprised of more than one syllable.

1. Ask students to clap syllables, using the names of class members.

chair e-lec-tri-ci-ty sub-ject

drum he-li-cop-ter per-son-al-i-ty

let-ter re-spon-si-bil-i-ty ap-ple

butterfly - take off fly (butter)

lipstick - take off stick (lip)

sunshine - take off shine (sun)

railroad - take off pancake - take off raincoat - take off road (rail)
pan (cake)
rain (coat)

Sensitivity to rhyme implies an awareness that words can be broken down into smaller segments of sound and that different words may share a sound in common; it is a very early indicator of getting ready to read. Students who demonstrate reading difficulties may show insensitivity to rhyme.

To increase awareness, engage the students in the following activities:

1. Show a picture ( ball, hat, cane, etc.), and ask the students to give a word that rhymes with the word the picture represents (e.g., wall, sat, rain).

2. Read several rhyme phrases aloud, emphasizing the word in bold. Stop when coming to the rhyming word, and allow students to fill in the word. Possible answers are in parentheses after each phrase below.

Write the numbers one to a ______. ( ten with a pencil or
pen)

3. Read any rhyming story or a familiar rhyme. Stop when coming to the rhyming word, and allow students to fill in the word.

Dictate the following sentences. Have students tap with their pencils the number of individual words they hear.

May I please have a cookie? (six taps)

The weather was windy and rainy. (six taps)

When will you come pick me up? (seven taps)

The children went to the lake to swim. (eight taps)

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Sally Shaywitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia, asserts, "It is phonemic awareness and not intelligence that best predicts ease of learning to read. Even at the high school level, phonemic awareness is the best predictor of the ability to read words accurately and quickly."1 Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes, the individual consonant or vowel sounds.

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Phonemic awareness is the recognition of basic speech sounds. Phonemic awareness activities help young children know that words are made of sounds.

It is the skill of noticing, thinking about and working with individual sounds in words. Separating a spoken word, like cat, into three distinct sounds (or phonemes) requires a child to exercise phonemic awareness.

As children learn to hear, copy and play with separate sounds, they begin to understand letter-sound relationships.

The three kinds of activities below stimulate early literacy in preschool and kindergarten and help children get ready for reading.

Children are learning to:

hear rhyming words e.g. hit, bit, sit, lit

break words into syllables e.g. hel i cop ter

hear some beginning sounds e.g. Peter Pumpkin picked...

blend sounds together to make words j-um-p

hear beginning and ending sounds e.g. pen starts with p; ends with n

delete a beginning or end sound to make a new word. e.g. meat eat or bump bum

Rhyme

Phonemic awareness early literacy activities are fun for children if you turn them into games. Begin with rhythm and rhyme as it helps children develop auditory discrimination and awareness. There are many commercial games and supplies available for rhyming activities.

Rhyming games

Use your imagination to make up simple games. A stack of rhyming cards and a title is generally enough to hold the students' attention when teaching phonemic awareness rhyming activities. See the example below.

Game - Build a Rhyming Road

Materials:

commercial or other rhyming cards

Procedure:

separate the matching rhyming cards into two piles, one pile would have hat, the other pile would have the matching card, rat

have the children sit in a circle on the carpet

give each child a rhyme card from the first pile

the teacher holds the other matching rhyming cards from the second pile

the teacher places the first card on the carpet, the child with the matching card places his/her card next to the teacher's card, starting a row

as each new teacher rhyming card is placed on the rug, the child with the matching card takes a turn placing his/her card beside it to "build a road"

the teacher prompts when necessary

the children like to make the roads twist and turn all over the carpet

Kindergarten children are easily motivated to play games, just change the names and format often to keep their attention.

Rhyming puzzles

Rhyming puzzles also help children to grasp the concept of rhyme. In the beginning of the year, remove all but 4 or 5 sets of cards from the puzzle boxes as some children get overwhelmed by the number of choices a whole box offers.

Pocket chart activities

Use your pocket chart for teaching rhyme. Use pictures that are clearly identifiable to children sitting the farthest away. Sit on the carpet yourself and check the pictures from a student's viewpoint. Children like to take turns placing their cards next to the correct rhyming cards in the pocket chart. Change the cards with themes, literature and seasons.

The pictures in many rhyming puzzles and games are clear, colorful images and are the perfect size for a pocket chart.

Although the cards and puzzle pieces may be designed for teaching rhyme, the individual picture puzzle pieces can also be used to teach many other aspects of phonemic awareness, such as beginning or ending sounds.

Other areas of phonemic awareness

I have only touched on a small portion of phonemic awareness here. For more information on rhythm, teaching parts of a word, sequencing sounds, separation of sounds and manipulation of sounds I recommend Getting Ready to Read: Independent Phonemic Awareness Centers for Emergent Readers (I Can Read! (Creative Teaching Press).

My class enjoyed playing these games and regular playing of the games ensured that all students got sequential teaching in phonemic awareness.

It is fairly time consuming to make the games but I had a wonderful parent who volunteered to construct and laminate most of the games.

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PHONEMIC AWARENESS - Kindergarten Lessons

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Phonemic awareness is the recognition of basic speech sounds. Phonemic awareness activities help young children know that words are made of sounds. It is the skill of noticing, thinking about and working with individual sounds in words. Separating a spoken word, like cat, into three distinct sounds (or phonemes) requires a child to exercise phonemic awareness.

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Activities, Pre/Post Assessments, Data and Organizing

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Activities, Pre/Post Assessments, Data and Organizing

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Phonemic Awareness Activities - Mrs. Richardson's Class

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Mastering phonemic awareness is a key factor in reading readiness. Teaching children to learn to read begins in two places--with developing concepts about print and with building phonemic awareness.

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Free App!

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Free Downloadable!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Words with two sounds and two letters: it, no

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author

About the Author

Kim Greene, MA is a managing editor at Understood. A former elementary teacher and a certified reading specialist, she has a passion for developing resources for educators.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Margie B. Gillis, EdD is the founder and president of Literacy How, which provides professional development for teachers on research-based reading practices in the classroom.

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Elkonin Sound Boxes: An Evidence-Based Literacy Strategy

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

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ABCmouse.com's reading curriculum spans the entire range of early reading, from learning the names of each letter and the sounds they represent to being able to read books, starting with a few words on a page and gradually advancing to paragraphs.

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Recognizing and counting numbers 1-120

The base ten system

Place value

Addition and subtraction

Names and attributes of 2D and 3D shapes

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Most downloaded kids' learning program on iOS and Android in Q2 2020. ABCmouse is amazing! My children are excited to learn and they don't want to stop. I'm so glad that I made the decision to invest in my children's education by signing up with ABCmouse.com. Thank you! I'm a happy mother!"

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Starfall Education: Kids Games, Movies, Books & Music for K-5 and above

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At Starfall, children have fun while they learn - specializing in reading, phonics & math - educational games, movies, books, songs, and more for children K-5 and above.

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What Letter Is It? | Random Order | Phonics Song for Kids | Phonemic Awareness | Jack Hartmann

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Managing a System

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RTI-those 3 letters that just make you want to pull your hair out sometimes. As elementary teachers, we already prep for so many content areas. Sometimes adding RTI to the plate is just too much. At least this is how I felt at times. Managing RTI was just going to send me to the looney bin some years! My reading intervention time was tricky to handle, but after a few years, I felt like I had a good flow.

Tip #1: Create a System

When RTI first rolled out at our school, it just seemed too hard to manage. There were so many steps and things to do and sometimes I "just knew" that this sweet little baby needed some extra testing. When it came to doing interventions, I needed a system that was simple to follow. At our campus, this is how it worked.

I needed it to make sense to me and I needed a process. I can work with a system! I am prepared when I have a system! I ended up creating interventions for my students who struggled with phonemic awareness that followed this system. If I had identified an area of struggle, set a measurable goal, completed an intervention and saw immediately that the students were "getting it", then I would skip other intervention activities and simply do the post-assessment. Now, you know your kids best and sometimes they get it, but you know it's not solid so you have to continue to practice. That's okay and that's NEEDED.

Tip #2: Make it Hands-On and Engaging for Students

You want them to look forward to it, not dread it. Often times the students who are in your RTI groups for academics can be a toot from time-to-time because they just don't want to be there anymore. At one of my schools, we did RTI time during recess. Once a week the child would miss recess to come work with me and while I loved the time, I didn't like that they had to miss recess. I never wanted it to feel like a punishment so it was my goal to make it fun!! I used a lot of songs and games for the kids! Even the assessments were simple and game-like! They worked in partners and we worked in small groups instead of always one-on-one. We sang songs, played cards games, and did lots of things that were quick and kept their attention

Tip #3: Stay Organized

Sounds easy, right? Not always; especially when you have multiple students, are doing interventions on different skills, and then have deadlines to meet. How on earth are you supposed to keep it all organized?

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Tip #4: Think Outside Your Classroom

Not every school is blessed with an RTI time in their master schedule; I have worked at both. When you are lucky enough to have that time built into your master schedule, then you can team up with other teachers and work to reach ALL learners. Sometimes a struggle is not simply with the learners who need Tier 3 interventions, but those learners who are on Tier 1 or 2. Sometimes you just don't know what to do with them.

For example, with a team of 4 teachers on your grade level, it could look like this:

1 teacher may take Tier 3 kids who need interventions on letter i.d. and sound

1 teacher Tier 3 kids who need interventions on deleting phonemes

1 teacher Tier 2 kids who need re-teaching on a story retelling

1 teacher Tier 1 kids who are ready to move on to enrichment on identifying conflict and resolution

Remember, you have a teaching team so that you can support each other so lean on each other and use each other! You also are all different and have different strengths! Simply put, don't be afraid to say "No thank you!" to the struggling babies but "Bring 'em on!" to the high achievers.

How do you manage it all and keep it all organized? I would love to hear your tips!

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4 Tips for Managing RTI - Mrs. Richardson's Class

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RTI-those 3 letters that just make you want to pull your hair out sometimes. As elementary teachers, we already prep for so many content areas. Sometimes adding RTI to the plate is just too much. At least this is how I felt at times.

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Phonemic Awareness Activities for Different Levels

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Phonemic Awareness Activities for Different Levels

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SUPER WHY, the animated television series and interactive website, helps children ages 3-6 learn key reading skills, including alphabet, rhyming, spelling and reading comprehension, through interactive storybook adventures.