Students listen (with closed eyes) for any sounds they can hear for a few minutes. The teacher lists them. Could also make an audio recording. Try in different locations.

Eyes closed. The teacher makes a single sound, e.g. blowing, tapping a wall, etc. Students identify the sound. Then move to sequences of 2 sounds. They have to identify in the correct order. Move to 3 sounds that they identify in order. Repeat a sequence of sounds but warn them that one sound is going to be missing – they identify the missing sound. This is getting them ready to listen to phonemes in words and that ability to manipulate and identify each phoneme.

Make a game of this. One student is chosen to do actions. Teacher says the complete instructions once and the student has to perform, e.g. “Hop to the door, say ‘Boo!”, then walk 3 steps back.” The rest of the class also listens to the instructions and gives thumbs up or down to judge how the student performed.

Phoneme substitution involves the students manipulating spoken words by substituting certain phonemes for others. This has often been described as one of the hardest phonemic awareness skills as students need to complete multiple steps to get to the new word. This is why it’s often one of the last skills as students need to be able to do the phoneme addition and deletion skills first.

Here's an easy phoneme blending game you can play while talking a walk. For blending, you can say, “I see a sign that says s-t-o-p” Then your child has to blend the sounds to guess your word — stop. (Remember to say only the sounds in the word — not the letters.) Keep the words short, moving from two to three to four sounds depending on your child’s skill level.

Academic

Students will be able to isolate and pronounce initial, medial, and final sounds by using a method of stretching out words.

Language

Students will be able to isolate the initial and final sounds with grade level words using written and visual supports.

Introduction