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The ability to identify and hear sounds in spoken words, otherwise, phonemes, the smallest unit of sounds.

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Phonemic Awareness skills are crucial for students when learning to read and decode words.

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50 Fun Phonological Awareness Activities

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Phonological awareness is an essential skill, without which students cannot become strong, independent readers. The Science of Reading identifies phonological awareness as one of the critical elements of reading, along with phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

However, because phonological awareness primarily deals with spoken language, rather than written language, it can be challenging to find classroom-friendly activities that provide students with engaging, targeted practice with this foundational skill.

Luckily, we've collected 50 of our favorite phonological awareness activities in one guide! These ready-to-use activities are the perfect addition to any kindergarten, first grade, or second grade classroom.

Complete the short form on this page to access your free copy of 50 Fun Phonological Activities for the full list of activities, or keep reading to see 15 sample activities from the guide.

What is phonological awareness?

At a high level, phonological awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the sounds in the spoken language.

Broken down into more detail, phonological awareness encompasses five key skills:

Word Awareness: Understanding that sentences and phrases can be broken down into individual words; counting words in a sentence or phrase

Rhyme awareness: Identifying and later producing words that rhyme

Syllable awareness: Dividing a word into its component syllables; counting syllables in a word; manipulating syllables

Onset and rime awareness: Identifying words that start (onset) or end (rime) with the same sound, often practiced via alliteration

Phonemic awareness: The term phonemic awareness comprises six discrete skills

What is phonemic awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (or phonemes) in words. Phonemic awareness is part of the larger category of phonological awareness.

Phonemic awareness describes six distinct skills:

Isolation: Identifying the specific phonemes within words

Segmenting: Dividing a word into its component phonemes

Blending: Combining sounds to form syllables or words

Deletion: Removing a phoneme from a word

Addition: Adding a phoneme to a word

Manipulation or substitution: Replacing one phoneme in a word with another phoneme

Try these fun phonological awareness activities!

1. Word Awareness: Clap Along

Before children can start identifying the sounds in words, they need to be able to divide sentences and phrases into individual words.

One fun activity is to have students clap once for each word in a sentence. Start by speaking a simple sentence out loud, such as " He walks." Clap as you say each word. Then model the activity again, this time with a longer sentence such as " He walks to school. "

Now have students practice by clapping once for each word as you speak simple sentences out loud.

Tip: Make this more motivating for children by using their names in the sentences. For example, "Jayden waves to his friend." or "Kali rides her bike."

2. Rhyme Awareness: Rhyme Match

For this, you will need picture cards with common animals and objects on them, such as bat, cat, can, fan, man, pan. Show the cards one at a time and identify the word each picture represents.

Now, hold up two picture cards at the same time. Say the words out loud or have the students say the words out loud. Ask students to stand up if the words rhyme, or sit down if they do not rhyme. Repeat until you have gone through all card combinations.

3. Rhyme Awareness: Stand and Rhyme

You will need one set of picture cards for this activity. One at a time, hold up a picture card. Have students stand if they can think of a word that rhymes with the word represented by the picture card.

Ask a student who stood up to share the rhyming word they thought of. Tell students to sit down if the word shared was the rhyming word they thought of, but remain standing if they thought of a different rhyming word. Have students share rhyming words one at a time until the entire class is sitting, then repeat the activity with a new picture card.

Tip: If a student provides a rhyming nonsense word, explain: "That word rhymes, but it is a silly word! It doesn't have a meaning that we know."

4. Syllable Awareness: Syllable Sort

Kids can do this activity independently or in pairs. Provide a set of picture cards representing one-, two-, and three-syllable words such as ball, baseball, basketball, sun, sunset, bag, banana, pan, potato. Have children sort the picture cards into piles based on how many syllables each word has.

5. Onset and Rime Awareness: Lost Beginnings

Explain to children that you found a bunch of words that are missing their beginning sounds. Can children find beginning sounds that will make these words complete again? Practice with the following onsets (example answers provided in parentheses):

6. Phonemic Awareness - Isolation: Initial Sound Sort

Separate students into pairs or small groups, and give each group a set of picture cards for simple three-phoneme words. Explain to students that they will first say the name of each picture card, and then identify the beginning sound in each word.

Next, working as a group, students will sort the picture cards according to their initial sounds. For example, map, man, and mug should together be in one pile, and pan, pig, and pen should be in another pile.

Tip: Use this activity to practice medial and final sounds, too!

7. Phonemic Awareness - Isolation: Medial Sound Match

Identifying medial sounds can be more challenging for children than identifying initial sounds, so it can be beneficial to give children extra practice with this skill. In your classroom, display picture cards: pan, men, wig, hot, and mug. Work with children to identify the medial sound of each word: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/.

Now, one by one, give each student a new picture card, such as fan. Help the student sound out the word, and then ask the student to identify the middle sound in the word. Have the student stand next to the displayed picture card with the same middle sound (so the child holding the fan picture card should stand next to the displayed pan picture card).

8. Phonemic Awareness - Isolation: Final Sound, Activate!

Explain to children that they are on the hunt for the final sound /k/, like in duck. You are going to say a list of words out, and if the word ends with the final sound /k/, the children should act out that sound. (Remind children to stay in their own spaces as they act out words.) If the word does not end with the final sound /k/, children should remain still.

One by one, say the following action words: walk, hop, sit, look, write, shake, bake, stand, run.

9. Phonemic Awareness - Segmenting: Team Sound

Divide the class into three teams: Beginning, Middle, and Ending. Say a three-phoneme word such as pen or duck. Ask Team Beginning to pronounce the beginning sound, then have Team Middle pronounce the middle sound and Team Ending pronounce the ending sound. After several rounds, mix up the teams so students have to listen for sounds in different word positions.

10. Phonemic Awareness - Blending: Simon Says Blend

Tell students that you're going to play a special version of Simon Says. Instead of telling them what to do, Simon is going to sound out the commands! For example, you'll say: "Simon Says /s/ /i/ /t/" and students will need to blend the sounds. Once they have blended the sounds into a new word, they should act out the word (sit). (Remind children to stay in their own spaces as they act out words.) Use commands like hop, spin, swim, run, look, eat.

11. Phonemic Awareness - Addition: Sound Thief

Tell children that a thief came in and stole the /t/ sound from a group of words, and you need their help restoring the /t/ sound to these words! Ask children to help you decide if the /t/ sound should be added to the beginning or end of each word. One by one, go through the following words: pan (pant), ten (tent), rain (train), rap (trap), in (tin), win (twin), car (cart), and rim (trim).

Tip: Add extra challenge by including words where the /t/ sound could be added to the beginning or end of a word. For example, an (tan / ant) and are (art, tar).

12. Phonemic Awareness - Deletion: Beanbag Toss: Remove /s/

Explain to children that they're going to practice removing /s/ from the beginning of words. When a child catches the beanbag, you're going to give them a word, and they will remove the /s/ from the front of that word. The child can then (gently) toss the beanbag to another child. For this activity, use: slow (low), slip (lip), sand (and), seat (eat), snap (nap), sold (old), stop (top), spin (pin), span (pan), slap (lap), scan (can), sink (ink), self (elf), scar (car), spot (pot), and spit (pit).

Tip: Reinforce vocabulary by having children discuss the meaning of each word. Explain any words students are not familiar with.

13. Phonemic Awareness - Addition & Deletion: Concentration

For this game, you will need pairs of picture cards where a phoneme has been removed or added, such as leg and egg, deer and ear, mice and ice, pot and spot, lip and clip. Put children in pairs, then have partners play "Concentration" by turning over two cards and making matches when they find two words where one word in the pair is made by adding a sound to the beginning of the other word in the pair. When children make a match, they keep the cards. When they don't, children return the cards where they were, facedown. Play continues until children have matched all the cards.

Tip: You can also plan this game with final phonemes, using words like car and cart, bell and belt, bee and bead, ten and tent, pass and past.

14. Phonemic Awareness - Manipulation & Substitution: Backwards Words

Oh no! You had a list of words, but somehow the sounds in your words have been put together backwards. One by one, ask children to help you sound out each word, then put the word back together in the reverse order. Practice with these words: tab / bat, sick / kiss, pit / tip, lime / mile, pack / cap, pot / top, sale / lace, tell / let, back / cab, net / ten, feel / leaf.

15. Phonemic Awareness - Manipulation & Substitution: Word Creation

Give students a starting word, such as pan. Put students in small groups and ask them to work together to come up with as many new words as possible by changing one sound in the starting word. For example, pan can become ban, can, fan, man, ran, tan, van (initial phoneme substitution), pen, pin, pun (medial phoneme substitution), and pad, pack, pal, pat (final phoneme substitution).

Tip: Reinforce phonics by having students write down the new words. Depending on students' skill level, accept approximate spellings.

Ready for more phonological awareness activities, games, and fun?

Be sure to complete the form at the top of this page to get your free copy of 50 Fun Phonological Awareness Activities!

You can find even more activities - plus interactive digital practice, educational games, articulation videos, and so much more - in Savvas Essentials™: Foundational Reading, a new supplemental program designed just for Grades K-2.

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Help students master phonological awareness and phonemic awareness with these 50 fun, free activities!

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Used when teaching reading and writing to show the relationship between sounds and their spellings. Students begin to make connections between letters and sounds.

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Phonics help students to decode new words easier, increase fluency, help them to read, helps them to write and increases spelling skills.

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Teaching phonics is one of the most effective ways to help children learn how to read. A key component of the Science of Reading, phonics instruction teaches children how to correlate sounds with letters or groups of letters, empowering them to decode and encode words. Phonics instruction is essential to helping students learn how to read and write; without this foundational reading skill, students will struggle to read with fluency and comprehension.

Unfortunately, phonics instruction also has a reputation for being boring, repetitive, and dull.

The good news is that it doesn't have to be! There are a wide variety of activities that can make phonics practice fun and engaging for all learners. We've collected 50 of our favorite phonics activities for you to try in your classroom.

Whether you need phonics activities for kindergarteners that build letter recognition, phonics activities for first graders that teach decoding and encoding vowels and consonants, or phonics activities for second graders that focus on syllable and spelling patterns, you're sure to find a fun activity to integrate into your lesson planning.

Complete the short form on this page to access your free copy of 50 Fun Phonics Activities for the full list, or keep reading to see 15 sample activities from the guide.

1. Letter Labels

Post images of different animals, foods, and other objects around the room. Give students sticky notes with letters on them. Have students attach the letter sticky notes to the images whose names start with that letter (so the sticky note with the letter C would be attached to the image of a carrot).

Tip: Repeat this activity, but using final sounds (now the sticky note with the letter T is attached to the image of the carrot).

2. Go Fish!

Create a set of flash cards with the uppercase and lowercase for 8 letters (16 cards total per set). Separate students into groups of two or three, with each child receiving three cards, with the remaining cards going into the pile. Have children play Go Fish. Each child should ask another member of their group for a letter to try to make a match. If there is no match, they draw a new card from the pile to add to their hand.

3. Letter Says

Try this phonics-friendly version of Simon Says: Give each child a card with an uppercase or lowercase letter (limit to no more than 6 total, such as C, c, S, s, O, o). Give instructions based on letters: "Simon Says, if you're holding an uppercase C, touch your nose!"

Tip: For an easier version, use only uppercase (or only lowercase) letters.

4. Letter Swap

Write a word on your board, such as POT. One by one, let kids erase one of the existing letters and replace it with a new letter to form a new word. For example, POT could become COT, PIT, or POD. COT could become CAT, PIT could become SIT, or POD could become NOD. Continue until kids are unable to form new words.

Tip: Add complexity by allowing students to add or delete letters (POT could become SPOT or POST).

5. Letter Line Up

Many letters are formed with straight lines, such as A, M, and T. Create a set of uppercase letters, and challenge students to sort them according to how they're formed: only straight lines (like X and W), only curvy lines (like S and C), and a mix of straight and curvy (like B and P).

Tip: Repeat this activity with lowercase letter cards. Have kids discuss which letters only use straight lines in uppercase, but use curvy lines (or a mix of straight and curvy) in lowercase (like A / a and E / e).

6. Spelling Challenge

Get a little friendly competition going on in the classroom! Put students in small groups. Give each group the same set of letter cards (for example, a, d, g, h, i, l, r, u). Set a timer and have each group come up with as many words as they can with the provided letters. At the end, have each group read and spell their words aloud. The group with the largest number of correctly spelled words wins!

7. Vowels Up, Thumbs Up!

To help children differentiate between vowels, pick a vowel and then instruct children to put their thumbs up when they hear the vowel. For example, for short vowel o / o/, use words like pat, pot, pod, pad, sad, sod, tap, top, lot, lit. After the game, have students help you write the words on the board to reinforce spelling.

8. Silent Simon

This is a version of Simon Says that's completely silent! Create large cards with decodable action words (such as stand, sit, wave, spin) and body parts (such as hand, face, nose, chest, leg). One by one, silently display the cards. If it's an action word, students should perform the action. If it's a body part, students should point to the corresponding body part.

9. Eyes on OO!

The vowel digraph oo can be challenging for some children. Slowly read aloud a list of words, and have children form the two o's with their hands and hold them up to their eyes like binoculars when they hear the sound. For example, your list may contain ruff, roof, room, rope, hop, hoop, bat, and boot. Go through the list a second time, asking children to help you spell each word.

10. Reading Hopscotch

Use masking tape to create squares on the floor. Next to each square, place a card with a decodable word. Have children line up and play hopscotch one by one, jumping forward one square for each word they read correctly.

Tip: This is a helpful activity to strengthen students' proficiency with tricky spelling patterns, such as - le (as seen in candle, sample, table, tickle, etc.).

11. Human Syllable Bee

Have a small group of students come up to the front, and give each one a letter card. First challenge the group to spell a word with their letters. Then have one more student come to the front and give them a card with a slash on it. Have the remaining children determine where the syllable break is and direct the "slash" to stand in that position. Swap out the letter cards and repeat with a new word.

Every few words, have children change positions (between holding cards and sitting at their desks).

12. Syllable Boxes

To help students strengthen their understanding of closed syllables, give them a worksheet with a list of words with a closed syllable, such as lemon, visit, model, and topic. Have students draw a box around the closed syllable.

Tip: Include words that do not have closed syllables, such as hero and baby. Have students try pronouncing these words with closed syllables (such as her/o and bab/y) to see how silly they sound!

13. Word Bingo

Create a 4 x 4 grid. Have students write high-frequency words (such as he, be, we, go, so, no, me) in the spaces; encourage students to put the words in a random order. Then read the words aloud one by one, having students marking off a word when they hear it. When a student has a straight line marked, they have BINGO!

14. Flash Card Race

Write or print high-frequency words on a set of flash cards. Distribute one set to each student. Say a high-frequency word and challenge children to hold up the corresponding flash card as fast as they can.

15. Mystery Sentences

At the beginning of the week, display a "Mystery Sentence" in your classroom. This should be a sentence that is missing the phonics components that you will be teaching that week. For example, for the week that you are teaching diphthong ou and the vowel sound that appears in ball (spellings: aw, au, al, ough), the Mystery Sentence could be: "I s__ a sm___ m__se, and it made no s__nd. It might h__l away my lunch or put its p___s on my desk. What ___t I do?"

As the week goes on and skills are learned, fill in the missing blanks. For example, this sentence would be revealed: "I saw a small mouse, and it made no sound. It might haul away my lunch or put its paws on my desk. What ought I do?"

Ready for more phonics activities, games, and fun?
Be sure to complete the form at the top of this page to get your free copy of 50 Fun Phonics Activities!
You can find even more activities-plus interactive digital practice, educational games, articulation videos, and so much more-in Savvas Essentials™: Foundational Reading, the new supplemental K-2 curriculum. Take a quick interactive tour today to see all that Foundational Reading offers!

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Access your free copy of 50 Fun Phonics Activities for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade.

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The ability to read a text smoothly. The reader conveys accuracy and expression at an appropriate speed.

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Words and definitions that students need to know in order to communicate effectively through reading, writing, and speech. Students need to be able to recognize the word and use it correctly in context.

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The ultimate goal of reading. The ability to understand and make sense of what you are reading or speaking. Requires a large developed skillset to be successful.

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Mastering fluency allows readers to shift form decoding words to pronounce them accurately to understanding and comprehending the material they are reading.

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21 Reading Fluency Activities Your Students Will Love!

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These 21 hands on and engaging reading fluency activities will help your students become better readers while still having fun!

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Strong vocabulary increases students comprehension skills and allows the to communicate more effectively.

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Early elementary teachers can use these fun activities to help make vocabulary lessons accessible for all of their students.

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It helps students to develop critical thinking skills and make connections to their readings and speech.

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First graders are quickly developing impressive skills as active readers! Here are some of the things your first grader can do:

Independently read and retell familiar stories.

Notice when a text doesn't make sense, and begins to use strategies such as rereading, predicting, and questioning to understand it.

Read and understand fiction and nonfiction and know the difference between made-up stories and facts.

Predict what will happen next in stories.

Think about and share prior knowledge before reading a nonfiction book.

Discusses how, why, and what-if questions in sharing nonfiction texts.

Answer simple written comprehension questions.

Here are some basic things you can do to boost your child's comprehension skills:
Just 15 minutes each day makes a big difference! Although your first grader may be reading independently, reading aloud allows you to introduce your child to more sophisticated vocabulary and stories, including chapter books. It's also one of the best ways to help children learn about the world and make connections between their own lives and what's in the book - and that helps children see the world with empathy. And last but not least, it's a wonderful time to snuggle up with your child and share the experience of reading and discovery together.

Remember that reading together should spark curiosity, joy, and a desire to explore and learn. Conversations about books should be enjoyable, and not a set of quizzes and questions. As you try some of the activities listed below, remember to keep it light and lively for your child.

Sharing family stories out loud and listening to audiobooks are wonderful ways to expose your child to language, how stories are built, and knowledge about the world.

There are so many great nonfiction and informational books for very young kids (such as the popular DK Eyewitness series and National Geographic series). Try to include some of these during your next trip to the public library. Children love learning about the real world and are proud to share what they know!

Even a walk around the neighborhood or a trip to the grocery store can be a rich learning experience for young children. On a walk, your child may watch what's going on at a construction site, and then be able to connect it to stories about building and the big machines that make it happen - bulldozers, cranes, cement mixers, and more. These personal connections help children connect what they read with what they know - a powerful way to build comprehension skills!

Try these comprehension activities at home

"I predict ..."

When you sit down for a read aloud, look at the book's cover together. Ask, "What do you think this book might be about? Why? Can you make some predictions?" Guide your child through the pages, discuss the pictures, and brainstorm what might happen in the story. Talk about any personal experiences your child may have that relate to the story.

Five-finger retell

After reading a story together, have your child tell you five things about the story, using her fingers to talk about each one:

1. Characters: who was in the story?

2. Setting: where did the story take place?

3. Events: what happened in the story?

4. End: how did the story end?

5. Favorite character or part of the story

Active reading

Model active reading when you read with your child. Talk about what's happening as you're reading. Stop and discuss any interesting or tricky vocabulary words. Help your child make pictures of the story in his mind. Ask your child, "What just happened here? How do you think that character feels? Have you ever felt like that? What do you think will happen next?" Not only will this develop your child's comprehension, but critical thinking skills as well.

Mind movies

When you come to a descriptive passage in a book, have your child close her eyes and create a mental movie of the scene. Encourage her to use all five senses. Read the passage over together, looking for details that bring the scene to life. Ask questions like, "How do you know it was a hot day? Which words help you understand that the child was lonely?"

Tell me about it

After a read aloud, one of the best and easiest ways to check for understanding is to ask your child to summarize what the book was about in their own words. You can ask a question or two to help your child clarify her thinking or to add more detail.

Think alouds

Connect the book to your child's own life experience. For example, A River Dream: "This book reminds me of the time my father took me fishing. Do you remember the time we went fishing?"

Connect the book to other books they have read. For example, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: "This story reminds me of Cinderella. Both stories are about sisters. Do you know any other stories about nice and mean sisters? Let's keep reading to find out other ways the stories are similar."

Connect the book to big ideas/lessons. For example, Stellaluna: "This story helps me understand that we are all the same in many ways, but it's our differences that make us special."

Wordless

Wordless picture books provide your child with practice using clues to create meaning. There are no wrong stories with wordless picture books, only variations based on what the "reader" sees and puts together. Rosie's Walk, Good Dog, Carl, and Beaver Is Lost are all interesting and fun wordless picture books to explore. Find more wordless books on BookFinder.

Map this book!

Draw a map of the book's setting, and be sure to include the places where the main action happens!

Beginning-middle-end

This is a great way to see if your child understands the main parts of a story. After reading a book together, give your child three sheets of paper, with "beginning" on one sheet, "middle" on the second sheet, and "end" on the third sheet. Ask your child to think about the three parts of the story, and then draw what happened on each on the sheets. Arrange the sheets in order, left to right. What happens if you re-arrange the sheets? Does the story still make sense?

Words, words, words

Be sure to include books with rich vocabulary in your read alouds and call attention to interesting words and phrases from the story. This may include repeated phrases or idioms (such as "get cold feet" or "I'm all ears"). Offer a kid-friendly definition and connect the new word or phrase to something your child already knows.Talk about how the author used language or words to make the text interesting, informative, funny, or sad.

Illustrated timelines

After reading a story, have your child create an illustrated timeline of events from the story. Tape together five sheets of paper along the 8-1/2-inch side to create one very wide sheet that is 55 inches X 8-1/2 inches. To help plan the timeline, your child can add numbers that mark important points of the story. Then it's time to fill in the sequence of events with words and pictures. Once the timeline is complete, ask your child to re-tell the story - acting it out is okay, too! Variation: Create the timeline using Post-Its on a wall or outside using sidewalk chalk.

Talk show

Set up a talk show set with two chairs facing each other. If you like, make two microphones out of paper tubes or other craft supplies. You are the host and your child is a character from the book. Ask questions about the character, such as who you are, why you are important to the story, what happened to you in the story, what is the craziest interaction you had with another character, etc. Then switch roles!

Book trailer

Using a cell phone camera or other recording device, make a short video of your child talking about about why he recommends this book. Encourage your child to show the book cover and some of the inside pages when talking about a certain character or action sequence. Share the book trailer with family and friends!

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Comprehension: Activities for Your First Grader

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First graders are learning to think actively as they read. They use their experiences and knowledge of the world, vocabulary, a growing understanding how language works, and reading strategies to make sense of what they're reading.

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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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1st Grade Phonics Worksheets & Free Printables | Education.com

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Sound it out with our first grade phonics worksheets. Vowels, word families, blends and more, we've got everything you need to teach your first grader phonics.

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Guidelines for instruction

Provide children with opportunities to read and reread a range of stories and informational texts by reading on their own, partner reading, or choral reading.

Introduce new or difficult words to children, and provide practice reading these words before they read on their own.

Include opportunities for children to hear a range of texts read fluently and with expression.

Suggest ideas for building home-school connections that encourage families to become involved actively in children's reading development.

Encourage periodic timing of children's oral reading and recording of information about individual children's reading rate and accuracy.

Model fluent reading, then have students reread the text on their own.

What students should read

Fluency develops as a result of many opportunities to practice reading with a high degree of success. Therefore, your students should practice rereading aloud texts that are reasonably easy for them – that is, texts containing mostly words that they know or can decode easily. In other words, the texts should be at the students' independent reading level.

A text is at students' independent reading level if they can read it with about 95% accuracy. If the text is more difficult, students will focus on word recognition and will not have an opportunity to develop fluency.

The text your students practice rereading orally should also be relatively short – probably 50-200 words, depending on the age of the students. You should also use a variety of reading materials, including stories, nonfiction, and poetry. Poetry is especially well suited to fluency practice because poems for children are often short and they contain rhythm, rhyme, and meaning, making practice easy, fun, and rewarding.

Model fluent reading

By listening to good models of fluent reading, students learn how a reader's voice can help written text make sense. Read aloud daily to your students. By reading effortlessly and with expression, you are modeling for your students how a fluent reader sounds during reading.

Repeated reading

After you model how to read the text, you must have the students reread it. By doing this, the students are engaging in repeated reading. Usually, having students read a text four times is sufficient to improve fluency. Remember, however, that instructional time is limited, and it is the actual time that students are actively engaged in reading that produces reading gains.

Have other adults read aloud to students. Encourage parents or other family members to read aloud to their children at home. The more models of fluent reading the children hear, the better. Of course, hearing a model of fluent reading is not the only benefit of reading aloud to children. Reading to children also increases their knowledge of the world, their vocabulary, their familiarity with written language ("book language"), and their interest in reading.

Activities for students to increase fluency

There are several ways that your students can practice orally rereading text, including student-adult reading, choral (or unison) reading, tape-assisted reading, partner reading, and readers' theatre.

Student-adult reading

In student-adult reading, the student reads one-on-one with an adult. The adult can be you, a parent, a classroom aide, or a tutor. The adult reads the text first, providing the students with a model of fluent reading. Then the student reads the same passage to the adult with the adult providing assistance and encouragement. The student rereads the passage until the reading is quite fluent. This should take approximately three to four rereadings.

Choral reading

In choral, or unison, reading, students read along as a group with you (or another fluent adult reader). Of course, to do so, students must be able to see the same text that you are reading. They might follow along as you read from a big book, or they might read from their own copy of the book you are reading. For choral reading, choose a book that is not too long and that you think is at the independent reading level of most students. Patterned or predictable books are particularly useful for choral reading, because their repetitious style invites students to join in. Begin by reading the book aloud as you model fluent reading.

Then reread the book and invite students to join in as they recognize the words you are reading. Continue rereading the book, encouraging students to read along as they are able. Students should read the book with you three to five times total (though not necessarily on the same day). At this time, students should be able to read the text independently.

Tape-assisted reading

In tape-assisted reading, students read along in their books as they hear a fluent reader read the book on an audiotape. For tape-assisted reading, you need a book at a student's independent reading level and a tape recording of the book read by a fluent reader at about 80-100 words per minute. The tape should not have sound effects or music. For the first reading, the student should follow along with the tape, pointing to each word in her or his book as the reader reads it. Next, the student should try to read aloud along with the tape. Reading along with the tape should continue until the student is able to read the book independently, without the support of the tape.

Partner reading

In partner reading, paired students take turns reading aloud to each other. For partner reading, more fluent readers can be paired with less fluent readers. The stronger reader reads a paragraph or page first, providing a model of fluent reading. Then the less fluent reader reads the same text aloud. The stronger student gives help with word recognition and provides feedback and encouragement to the less fluent partner. The less fluent partner rereads the passage until he or she can read it independently. Partner reading need not be done with a more and less fluent reader. In another form of partner reading, children who read at the same level are paired to reread a story that they have received instruction on during a teacher-guided part of the lesson. Two readers of equal ability can practice rereading after hearing the teacher read the passage.

Readers' theatre

In readers' theatre, students rehearse and perform a play for peers or others. They read from scripts that have been derived from books that are rich in dialogue. Students play characters who speak lines or a narrator who shares necessary background information. Readers' theatre provides readers with a legitimate reason to reread text and to practice fluency. Readers' theatre also promotes cooperative interaction with peers and makes the reading task appealing.

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Fluency: Instructional Guidelines and Student Activities

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The best strategy for developing reading fluency is to provide your students with many opportunities to read the same passage orally several times. To do this, you should first know what to have your students read. Second, you should know how to have your students read aloud repeatedly.

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Kindergarten and First Grade | Florida Center for Reading Research

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Kindergarten and First Grade Student Center Activities Phonological Awareness | Phonics | Fluency | Vocabulary | Comprehension

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30 Meaningful Vocabulary Activities for Every Grade

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Learning new words is like adding to your writing toolbox.

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What is Comprehension?

Reading comprehension refers to the ability to understand what one reads. It is the ultimate goal of reading instruction. ( Definition from University of Oregon)

In 1st grade, readers can demonstrate a variety of comprehension skills including making predictions, retelling a story, and answering questions related to the story. They are also able to identify fiction from nonfiction texts and share their background knowledge of a topic prior to reading.

What Does it Look Like?

Learn how to actively read with children.

Practice Activities

Think Aloud: Make connections while reading to or with the child. Connect the story or information to the child's life experiences. Connect the book to other books the child has read. Connect the book to big ideas and lessons. See a Think Aloud example.

Check for Understanding: Ask questions to determine the child's understanding of the story or information read. Questions can be asked during reading and/or after reading. Watch Check for Understanding.

Story Charades: Act out a story silently to retell it in a creative way. Have the child guess which story you are acting out. Take turns acting out and guessing.

Comprehension Ball: Write comprehension elements (e.g., central message, lesson, characters, problem, solution) on a ball. Toss the ball to the child. The child describes the story element their right pointer finger (or other designated hand/finger) touches based on a book recently read.

Practice Activities (with Printables)
If you don't have a printer, your child's school will print these for you.
Retell Wheel for a Story: Support the child in retelling a story by using the questions provided on a retell wheel. Retell Wheel for a Story

Retell Wheel for Summarizing Information: Support the child in summarizing information learning from reading by completing sections of the retell wheel. Retell Wheel for Summarizing Information

Character Compare: Identify similarities and differences between characters by listing shared and unique characteristics. Character Compare

Picture the Character: Use a graphic organizer to describe characters from a recently read story. Picture the Character

Story Question Cube: Use a dice-like cube with questions on each side to review elements of a recently read story. Roll the cube and answer discuss the question on top. Story Question Cube

Online Activities

Storyline Online: This resource provides access to many illustrated read alouds narrated by famous individuals. Use the ABCs of Reading (ask questions, build vocabulary, and connect to the child's world) as you listen to the story with your child.

ABCs of Reading: This resource provides access to videos and explains the ABCs of Reading (ask questions, build vocabulary, and connect to the child's world.).

Interactive Read Alouds: This video provides information on interactive read alouds, including asking intentional questions, writing prompts, and drawing prompts.

When You Read to Me: This video shows a caregiver listening to a child read a book and asking questions to support oral language, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Story Elements: This Classroom Connect lesson teaches children how to identify story elements. Access an extension activity here.

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Reading comprehension refers to the ability to understand what one reads. It is the ultimate goal of reading instruction. ( Definition from University of Oregon) In 1st grade, readers can demonstrate a variety of comprehension skills including making predictions, retelling a story, and answering questions related to the story.