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PA Lesson - Isolating Initial Phonemes (1)

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6_3_PA Lessons - Blending Onset-Rime (1)

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6_3_PA Activity Cards - English & Spanish (1)

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Examine a Lesson 3 Phoneme Manipulation Lessons

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Can you find my picture Introduction to Phoneme Blending Practice 1

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Can you find my picture Introduction to Phoneme Blending Practice 2

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Can you find my picture Introduction to Phoneme Blending

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Can you find my picture Introduction to Onset-Rime Blending Practice 2

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Can you find my picture Introduction to Onset-Rime Blending Practice 1

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Can you find my picture Introduction to Onset-Rime Blending

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Blending Syllables into Words Theme Words (Ocean)

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6_3_PA Lesson - Isolating Initial Phonemes (1)

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Scaffolds for Developing Phonolgogical Awareness (1)

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Most kids don't need to be taught phonological awareness. They pick it up by being exposed to a rich language environment. But some kids need to learn the skills through explicit instruction and practice.

Many teachers teach phonemic awareness in kindergarten and early first grade. The best way to teach these skills is by using structured literacy instruction. This type of step-by-step instruction teaches skills in a logical order.

Kids start by rhyming and identifying beginning sounds in words. They end by learning to add, subtract, and substitute sounds to make new words.

Learn more about structured literacy .

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Most kids don't need to be taught phonological awareness. They pick it up by being exposed to a rich language environment. But some kids need to learn the skills through explicit instruction and practice. Many teachers teach phonemic awareness in kindergarten and early first grade.

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More Examples Phonological Awareness Wprd Play

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Examples of Phonemic Awareness Instruction

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Cross-Language Connections for English Learners’ Literacy Development (2)

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

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A reader sent us these questions about phonics and phonological awareness:
What is phonics? Is it not sounding out words? How does this differ from phonological awareness?
I get this question frequently. First, let me define phonics:

Phonics is the method of teaching beginning readers to connect the sounds of spoken language with letters or a group of letters and yes, part of phonics instruction involves the teaching of children to blend the sounds of letters together to form words (technically referred to as decoding skills).

Phonics instruction typically starts with letters first and children are taught the sounds that those letters "stand for" or "make".

It is NOT the same thing as phonological awareness. The terms are not interchangeable.

Phonological Awareness is the awareness of sounds only! It is void of print. No letters are introduced, no sound to symbol correspondence is taught.

I like to use the following example.

Phonics involves the eyes AND ears. Phonological awareness involves just the ears. You can have phonological awareness without phonics but you cannot have phonics without phonological awareness.

Phonological awareness skills are prerequisite skills for phonics!

Katie and I both think it is best to start with teaching sounds first; teaching children to hear, identify and manipulate the sounds in our language. Of course, the sooner you can establish the Alphabetic Principle the better but good phonological awareness skills help children to make sound letter connections more readily.

Skilled reading teachers can explicitly teach both phonological awareness and phonics skills (alphabetic principle) almost simultaneously in their instruction.

Thanks for the questions. Hope this information helps.
- Steve

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A reader sent us these questions about phonics and phonological awareness: What is phonics? Is it not sounding out words? How does this differ from phonological awareness? I get this question frequently.

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6_2_Voiced and Unvoiced Sounds Chart (3)

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Phonemes are the basic vocal gestures of a language, recycled to form all our spoken words. English has about 42 distinct phonemes. These 42 mouth moves compose the interchangeable parts from which all our spoken words are constructed.

In talking about phonemes as distinct from letters, we symbolize them with Roman letters inside slash marks, for example, /t/. Since diacritical marks are hard to type, I try to use the most common spelling of the phoneme as a symbol, for example, /ch/ for the first sound in chair. For the short vowels, I use lowercase letters (e.g., /a/ as in hat), and for the long vowels, I use capitals (e.g., /A/ as in rain). Letters are italicized without slash marks around them.

Here's a challenge: What words could we make using all four of these phonemes: /a/, /k/, /s/, and /t/? Note that you don't have to use the letters a, k, s, and t. For example, the word asked is made from these phonemes (/a/s/k/t/). Counting homonyms, I found 13 different words constructed of these phonemes in different orders.

[Scroll down for answers.]

Reading teachers must have expert ability to count phonemes because they must help children connect letters to phonemes in phonics and spelling work. However, counting phonemes is surprisingly hard in English because there is rarely a neat one-to-one match between phonemes and letters.

Also, phonemes are pronounced with amazing speed, enabling us to communicate our thoughts rapidly. How fast can you say, "He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum"? That takes me about 3 seconds to say normally. That sentence contains 28 phonemes. That means I am saying over 9 phonemes every second!

Rich has 3 phonemes, even though it has 4 letters. The combination ch stands for the mouth move /ch/ at the beginning of chop. But pitch also has 3 phonemes; you can tell because it rhymes with rich. Don't be fooled by the tch spelling, which represents /ch/ after most short vowels.

Two kinds of spellings get teachers messed up: digraphs and clusters.

A digraph is a multi-letter spelling (usually 2 letters) for a single phoneme. Digraphs can be consonants ( ck, ll, tch, ng) or vowels ( ee, ew, igh, ow). Either way, the combination stands for one mouth move.

Consonant clusters (a.k.a. blends) ( dr, pl, st, spl, nk) are combinations of single consonants pronounced in a rapid sequence. Each consonant retains its distinctive mouth move, but sometimes the individual phonemes are blurred a bit to make a smooth sequence. For example, the /d/ and /r/ at the beginning of drive, when clustered, veer toward /jr/, which is how they sometimes appear in children's invented spellings.

In counting consonant clusters, you must break the cluster into separate phonemes to get an accurate count. A common problem in counting phonemes is failing to split clusters into separate phonemes, thus getting an undercount.

The trickiest clusters seem to be those involving the phonemes /r/ and /l/, which are common in many consonant clusters. Note the tongue and lip positions for /r/ and the tongue position for /l/ behind the upper front teeth.

A good strategy in distinguishing a digraph from a cluster is to stretch it. No matter how slowly you say a digraph, it is still one mouth move. But by stretching a cluster, you should be able to identify its individual mouth moves and count each one.

Let's examine the word stretch. If you elongate the beginning of the word, you should find three separate phonemes, /s/, /t/, and /r/.

If you can recognize digraphs and clusters, you'll be able to count phonemes successfully.

[Scroll down for answers.]

If you had any trouble, let's take another look at digraphs and clusters.

Before I go further, I'm going to introduce a useful term: grapheme. A grapheme could be either a single letter or a digraph. It is a letter or letter combination that represents a single phoneme within a word. A grapheme is a spelling of a phoneme.

Digraphs are graphemes spelled with more than one letter, usually two. We need many digraphs because English has more phonemes (42) than letters (26).

Our most popular consonant digraphs in English involve the letter h: ch, ph, sh, and th. Other digraphs have silent letters, for example, kn, wr, and ck. Let me remind you once again about the trickiest of digraphs: ng. Say sing. Say the last phoneme in sing. Feel where your tongue is? That is ng's mouth move. We spell the same phoneme with the grapheme n before k in words like think and bank.

Most vowel combinations are digraphs. All the long vowels commonly use digraph spellings in one-syllable words, e.g., brain, speak, speed, fight, float, glow, shoot.

I'm going to count phonemes in some words for you, explaining my thinking.

One more: throat. The th is a digraph, so it counts as one. Also, oa is a vowel digraph. Stretching throat, I find /th/r/O/t/, 4 phonemes.

[Scroll down for answers.]

Clusters are blends of consonants that can be separated, but resist separation. Clusters always blend together either 2 or 3 phonemes.

Here's a helpful rule for counting the phonemes in clusters: If you can break 'em up, do break 'em up. You can't break digraphs like /sh/ because they represent one single mouth move. Slow it down all day, and your mouth is still just doing one thing. But slow down a cluster, and you'll find a succession of mouth moves.

Many clusters involve l ( bl, cl, fl), r ( fr, gr, pr), and s ( sp, st, sw). Some people say the phoneme /l/ sounds like a flying saucer: /lll/. Others compare its sound to a blender: /lll/. Stretch these words and listen for /l/: flop; splash. As you say those words slowly, you should hear that blender at work.

The phoneme /r/ sounds like a chainsaw, /rrr/. Others say it sounds like a growling dog, /rrr/. Say these words and listen for /r/: bring; grape. You have to growl a little as you say each word.

Let's count the phonemes in grape. Stretch it, /grrrAAAp/. /g/rrr/ - there's the growly one. /g/r/A/p/. 4 phonemes.

One other common phoneme in clusters is /s/, an easy one to spot because it makes a distinct sound like air leaking out of a flat tire.

I'll count the phonemes in slow. Stretching it, /sssllllOOO/. Easy, /s/, /l/, and /O/ for 3.

Here's a harder one: sprout. Stretching that cluster, /sssprrr/, 3 so far. If you can break 'em up, do break 'em up. What's left? /ou/t/, 2 more, for a total of 5.

[Scroll down for answers.]

Digraphs and blends are often found together.

[Scroll down for answers.]

More Help Learning to Count Phonemes

Now make a chart of the phonemes. Print out the phoneme chart below and fill in all the phonemes you can think of. I've started you out with some examples.

Consonants always involve some friction. You can stretch continuants like /f/ and hold them until you run out of air. In contrast, stops like /t/ are made by blocking off air and then releasing it with a mini-explosion.

With voiced phonemes like /l/, you make sound with your vocal cords. With unvoiced phonemes like /k/, you don't use your vocal cords. Fricatives are continuants like /s/ that leak air. Nasals are continuants like /m/ where the air comes out your nose.

Vowels are really different mouth shapes we make as we vocalize. Long vowels are the sounds of letter names like /A/. Short vowels can be spelled with one letter. The short vowel sounds are found at the beginning of each word in this sentence: "Ask Ed if odd's up." They are difficult vowels to recognize because they are defined by relatively slight differences in the shape of the mouth. Other vowels like /oi/ are neither long nor short. Most of them are diphthongs, meaning that your mouth changes shape as you are saying them.

Now add all the phonemes you can come up with to the map. You can get ideas by clicking here: http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/spellings.html

Answers: Mapping the 42 English Phonemes

Ready for more practice? Now that you've identified phonemes, it should be easier to spot them in words and include them in your count. Remember that some phonemes are spelled with 2- or 3-letter digraphs. In other cases, several consonants are blended quickly in a cluster. If you can break them up, do break them up. Exercise #5: Count the phonemes in the following words.
cloud stretch trunk brush paste
train stamp plow

[Scroll down for answers.]

Remember why accurate phoneme counting is so crucial: In phonics and spelling lessons, teachers help children link the phonemes in spoken words to the graphemes in written words. If your phoneme count is not accurate, you cannot help children understand and remember spellings. In this case, most children will try to memorize spellings, which is much, much more difficult.

Final Exam: Count the phonemes in the following words.
ten bath best shoot stripe truck show
and threw beach state high splash

[Scroll down for answers.]

Answers to the Exercises

13 right - You're ready to teach phonics and spelling. You're a phoneme counting expert!
11-12 right - A little review and you'll have it done. You've almost got it.
8-10 right - Go back and read about digraphs and clusters, and then try the exercises again. Good start.
0-7 right - Don't give up. This time, make your own phoneme map. Afterwards, read though the examples and try the exercises again.

Return to the Reading Genie homepage.

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How to count phonemes in spoken words - Bruce Murray, College of Education

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Phonemes are the basic vocal gestures of a language, recycled to form all our spoken words. English has about 42 distinct phonemes. These 42 mouth moves compose the interchangeable parts from which all our spoken words are constructed. In talking about phonemes as distinct from letters, we symbolize them with Roman letters inside slash marks, for example, /t/.

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Fostering Literacy Development in English Language Learners

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Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print: The MIT Press. Anthony, J. L., & Lonigan, C. J. (2004). The nature of phonological awareness: Converging evidence from four studies of preschool and early grade school children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96 (1), 43-55. August, D. (2002).