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Phonemic Awareness Digital Warm-Up Slides!

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DIGITAL PHONEMIC AWARENESS WARM-UP SLIDES! This download includes 500 phonemic awareness slides that come in the following versions:PDF- Allows you to have a printed version of the slides for classroom use. You can print 4 slides per page, laminate, cut out, and place on a ring.PowerPoint- Allows yo...

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TheLearningStation - Kids Songs and Nursery Rhymes

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Apples and Bananas with Lyrics - Vowel Songs - Kids Songs by The Learning Station

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Stretchy the Word Snake | Phonics Song for Kids | Segmenting and Blending Words | Jack Hartmann

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This post is long overdue! Phonemic awareness is a huge part of my curriculum. I wanted to share with you some things I do with my students to strengthen their phonemic awareness.

My introduction to phonemic awareness:

When I was a new teacher, I used to tutor over the summer. I was tutoring a student who was going to be in first grade. She had finished kindergarten knowing all of her letters and sounds, but not yet blending words together. I sat down with her and after five minutes I started sweating!

I had my handy dandy magnetic letters ready to go. I put out three letters to make a CVC word. Here's what I got: "/k/ /aaaaa/ /t/.... tap!" Huh? Okay, let's try this again. I sounded it out with her. Still no cat. So I tried another and another. Then I tried just two sounds. She would give me words that were close and sometimes words that weren't even in the ballpark. I'm pretty sure I got turtle for rat.

What I didn't know then is that she was lacking phonemic awareness skills. She knew her letters and sounds, but could not blend the sounds together to read the words. The same was true for spelling. She couldn't break up a word into its individual sounds in order to spell the word. Phonemic awareness skills need to be developed before reading can take place.
A Personal Story: (You can skip this if you want to get to the goods)
You have all seen my son on this blog before. He often tries things out for me now. Last year, I was so excited to start teaching him to read. He mastered his letters and sounds super early so I thought reading would be easy for him. Nope. He so easily memorized letters when he was 2 and "sight words" when he was four. I didn't want to push him before he was ready, but he seemed ready because of these things.

So I jumped right into CVC words. He really couldn't do it. So I stopped and waited. He was young, so there was no need to push. His brain could memorize words but not blend sounds together. Still, it was early. But then we were playing a game with his little brother when I discovered he could not even rhyme! He had just turned five. Now I was worried. Rhyming is supposed to be one of the earlier phonological skills. How did I miss this?! I realized he did in fact lack several phonological awareness skills. I guess I thought he'd get it naturally. We've read to him since birth and we have our fair share of rhyming books. The reality is although it comes naturally for many children, it does not for all. Many children need to explicit instruction and more practice to develop these skills.

To wrap up my long story, I got to work. After he developed that phonemic awareness, he was ready to sound out words using print (a.k.a. phonics). He had the two components: letter knowledge and phonemic awareness to actually blend the words. We need to do this for our students too. Make sure they have the phonemic awareness first- then move to phonics (decoding and encoding).

What is Phonemic Awareness

Phonemes are the individual sounds that make up words. For example, the word"chick" has 3 phonemes and the word flip has 4 phonemes.

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are made up of individual phonemes (sounds). When a child has phonemic awareness, he or she can hear and manipulate the individual sounds in words. Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve print.

Phonics is the study of the sound-symbol relationship (sounds and their corresponding letter or letters). Phonemic awareness is a precursor to phonics. Phonics does involve print.

Why is Phonemic Awareness Important?

Children need to be able to hear the sounds in words before they can begin to read or write them. When they are sounding out a word, they need to be able to blend those sounds together. They may know the letter-sound relationship and be able to sound out: /k/ /a/ /t/. They must have phonemic awareness in order to blend those sounds together to read the word "cat".

When spelling words, a child needs to be able to do the opposite. They must segment, or break apart, the sounds of the word. For some kids, those skills come more naturally. For many children, the ability to blend and segment words needs to be taught and practiced with guidance.

Several studies show that phonemic awareness is a key indicator of reading success.

Examples of Phonemic Awareness

Grouping words by similar sounds: Ball, bear, and bike all start with /b/.

Isolating Sounds: Identifying the first, middle, and last sounds in words.

Blending sounds into words: /w/ /i/ /sh/= wish

Segmenting words: wish has 3 phonemes and is broken up this like: /w/ /i/ /sh/

Manipulate sounds within words: Change the /w/ to /d/. What word? dish

You can get a printable version of this here.

Now onto the goods. Here are some activities that we enjoyed doing together.

Fun Phonemic Awareness Activities:

Stretching Sounds with a Slinky

I do this with my kindergarten small groups every day. There are three ways we do this:

I use the slinky to stretch a word and they guess the word. (They are blending sounds).

I give them a word and they stretch the sounds with the slinky (they are segmenting)

Make it a game: One student gets a picture card. They segment the word with the slinky and the group guesses the word.

Right after this, I call on a classmate to guess his word. This game never gets old!

Using Connecting Cubes

Click HERE for a video.

I know what you're thinking. Sarah, these are the same activities just with different manipulatives. Yep, you got it! Repetition for our students is good. They think they are doing something different when you put something new in their hands.

You can do this same activity with syllables or with onset and rime.

"Pushing" Phonemes with Manipulatives

I use this one the most. You've seen it before. You can use anything to push the sounds: pennies, pom-poms, mini-erasers math counters, etc. I like to change it up seasonally, too. You can use acorns in the fall, little hearts in February, and white pom-poms for snowballs in the winter.

I use these with my small groups every day! I say a word and my students "push" the sounds. Then, I ask the group to point out certain sounds.

For example: If you break up the word shop, then you ask question like, "Which color says /p/?" and "What sound was the blue chip?"

It's a great warm-up to small group instruction.

After they are proficient with segmenting and blending, you can start manipulating sounds. For example, you can take away the green and say, "I'm taking away /sh/ in ship and adding in /ch/" (put another chip in its place).

Add in a Puppet

This is a favorite! Get a favorite stuffed animal or little puppet. I got this idea from this amazing teacher I worked with years ago in North Carolina. Get your little puppet or stuffy.

Tell your students that he speaks a slow language and you need help figuring out what he is saying.

Ask questions like, "What is your favorite color?" Have your puppet answer, "/r/ /e/ /d/". A little dramatic flare gets their attention. "What?! I can't understand you! Say it again." Have your puppet do it again. Then call on a student to "translate" for you.

This is always a fan favorite! Click HERE for the video.

I already blogged about this a few days ago, but I wanted to include it here, too.

Click here for a video.

Hop out the sounds of a word! The more movement the better, right? This video shows jumping on spots, but you can just jump in place. Click here for a video. (Sorry, it's a bit blurry!) In this video, I used SitSpots. They can be easily moved around the classroom.

Tracking Sounds:

I have all these trains and tracks since I have two boys. I'm putting them to use! LOL!

Click HERE for the video.

In this video, I'm showing you different ways to use this track:

Isolating sounds

Segmenting Sounds

Manipulating Sounds

Phonemic Awareness Resources

I made a little "take-home" kit for some of the parents at my school. I ended up using these in my own classroom. The cards have ideas for parents and teachers on each card. You'll only need to add a few extras to go with this.

You can see more about this kit here:

I also have a huge pack of activities for RTI and small groups. These are hands-on activities. You can find this here.

Update: Now with Google Slides!

And this is similar to the pack above except it is ALL print and go. No laminating and no color. You can find this here.

There is also a bundle of all three. You can find these here.

I also have another detailed blog post about phonemic awareness here. There are several tips on how to teach phonological awareness for the whole class.

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Tips and Activities for Phonemic Awareness - Sarah's Teaching Snippets

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What is phonemic awareneess and why is it important? This post answers those questions and gives ideas for how to develop a student's phonemic awareness.

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Excited to learn more about first grade phonics? Use these learning resources perfect for first grade to start today!

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* Covers everything from letters and sounds to reading full sentences.

* Designed in collaboration with leading academics.

* Complements all synthetic phonics programmes used in schools.

* Computer version is 100% free.

The kids absolutely love this game - and they're learning!

John Hole, Phase 1 Leader, Wray Common Primary School

Frequently Asked Questions

The game has been funded by the Usborne Foundation, a charity set up to support initiatives to develop early literacy.

Our mission is to help as many children learn to read as possible. The computer version is 100% free and we put profits from the app back into the Usborne Foundation, to continue to create new and exciting ways for children to learn.

The charity was founded by Peter Usborne MBE and his children, Nicola and Martin, one of the world's leading children's book publishing companies and Children's Publisher of the Year 2012. He was previously one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye.

The game is for children in the first stages of learning to read, or for older children who need a bit more practice. Read more details about the three games.

The game takes children on a magical journey, meeting colourful characters along the way and collecting fantastic rewards. When children are engaged, they're motivated to learn.

As they progress, they rehearse a range of essential reading skills; matching letters to sounds, blending, segmenting, tricky words and reading full sentences.

Find out exactly what the game covers.

The game runs on any normal laptop or desktop computer (including Apple Macs) and the app works on iPhone, iPad, Android and Kindle tablets.

Peter Usborne is the founder and Managing Director of Usborne Publishing, one of the world's leading children's book publishing companies and Children's Publisher of the Year 2012. He was previously one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye, and was recently awarded an MBE for services to publishing.

An Exciting Adventure in a Magical World

Create a monster and take it on an adventure through a magical world. Travel to exciting places, meet fun characters, play games and win prizes as your monster learns the first steps of reading.

Minigames help children to develop speed and accuracy of letter recognition.

Lots of blending, segmenting and tricky words.

Read for purpose with magical little books.

A great way to help your children to learn to read.

Play Now

I was stunned to see how much they enjoyed this. It blew me away.

Matt Lovegrove, Cippenham Primary School

Information for Teachers and Parents

Complements existing learning

For young children in the first stages of learning to read; both those who are on track and those who need extra support and motivation.

The series complements Phases 2-5 of Letters and Sounds and other major systematic synthetic phonics programmes.

Keeps children focused on rehearsing and consolidating what they learn in school.

Easy and Secure

The series takes children on a journey through the graphemes; rehearsing recognition, blending and segmenting with each one.

Children rehearse tricky words, plus reading whole sentences and captions.

Can be played independently by children either in school or at home.

Each child has their own login so the game can track their progress over time.

This is a fun and engaging way to help your child learn to read. My son warmed to the game quickly and didn't want to stop playing it!

Sarah Fox, mum to Leon aged 5

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Covers everything from letters and sounds to reading full sentences. * Designed in collaboration with leading academics. * Complements all synthetic phonics programmes used in schools. * Computer version is 100% free. The kids absolutely love this game - and they're learning!

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

What is phonemic awareness?

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

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

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

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

Listening

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

The Listening Game.

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

"Moo-Moo," Where Are You?

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

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

Rhyming

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

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

In My Box

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

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

Syllables

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

Bippity Boppity Bumble Bee

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

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

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

The child responds, "Jennifer."

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

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

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

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

Old MacDonald

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

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

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

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

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5 Quick, Easy, and Fun Phonemic Awareness Activities

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

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Last updated on July 13, 2021

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

Phonemic Awareness Teacher Task Cards

WHY PHONEMIC AWARENESS?

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

1. Phonemic awareness can be done in the dark.

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

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

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

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

THE PHONEMIC AWARENESS ACTIVITIES

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

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

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

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

SETTING IT UP - ONE AND DONE

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

SKILL LEVELS

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

Beginner: Beginning Sound Discrimination through Alliterations

Intermediate: Onset and Rime through Segmenting Phonemes

Advanced: Deleting With Compound Words through Ending Phoneme Substitution

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

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Phonemic Awareness Teacher Task Cards: Keep Me On Track

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

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ABCya! • First Grade Learning Games, Ages 6 - 7

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Kids LOVE our free online games! Fly dragons, build dream houses, and explore while practicing addition, reading, and more 1st grade skills. Play now!

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Building Phonemic Awareness With Phoneme Isolation

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

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Letters are all around us! Here are some ideas on how to use print found in your everyday environment to help develop your child’s reading skills.

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Heggerty Phonological & Phonemic Awareness by Literary Resources

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Heggerty Phonemic Awareness is a research-based 35-week curriculum of daily phonemic and phonological awareness lesson plans.