• Children should begin learning print concepts at age 3 and mastered book concepts, reading concepts, directionality concepts and concepts of letter and word by end of Kindergarten.

• By the end of First grade they should master the final couple skills of print concept which is punctuation marks.

  The understanding of print concepts is foundational to further literacy progression.

"Can you show me a letter?", "Can you show me the front and back of the book?", "Can you show me a sentance?'

• Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize that the words that we say are made up of sounds. Students will also be able to manipulate spoken language to make different sounds for different words. An example of phonological awareness is a student being able to identify that "hat" and "bat" rhyme. Another example is a student being able to identify the number of syllables in a three-letter word.

  (Reading Rockets, 2023)

• The skills developed from this foundational skill include word awareness, rhyming, alliteration, syllables, onset and rime, and phonemic awareness.

• By the end of Kindergarten, students should have mastered these skills (5-6 years old):

  • identify the phonemes in a word

  • produce and recognize rhyming words

  • blending and segmenting syllables

  • blending and segmenting onsets and rimes of single-syllable words

  (Arizona Department of Education, 2016)

• By the End of 1st grade, students should have mastered these skills (6-7 years old):

  • identify long and short sounds by verbally hearing single-syllable words

  • segment spoken words with 3-4 phonemes

  • be able to delete, substitute, and add phonemes to create new words from the initial word

  (Arizona Department of Education, 2016)

Say It and Move It Strategy

• Materials: Small tokens, counters, or buttons and a segmented board (with boxes or spaces for sounds).

Activity Steps:

• The teacher orally pronounces a word slowly, stretching out each phoneme (e.g., /m/ /a/ /p/ for "map").

• Students listen carefully and move a token into a box for each sound they hear.

• After all sounds are placed, students blend them together and say the full word aloud.

• The process is repeated with new words, gradually increasing difficulty as students master the skill.

This strategy is supported by research showing that explicit, hands-on phonemic awareness activities improve literacy outcomes, especially for English learners (ELs) and students with dyslexia. The visual and kinesthetic components help reinforce sound-symbol connections, making it easier for struggling learners to grasp phoneme blending.

• Having an activity like this would help build the students ability and then can see which ones add up for them all. In an article it says that this learning helps children become acquainted with several identities for each letter, including its graphic shapes, namely in uppercase and lowercase forms, its name, and its sound (or sounds) (Foulin, 2005).

• Having an activity like this will help them grow the ability to know upper and lowercase letters and knowing and growing the "a" sounds in a word including alligator, ant, and axe.

1. Have students all grab a book of their choice

2. Show them how to find an author on a book

3. Have them point out the author of their chosen book

4. Share their finding with their shoulder partner

(Reading Rockets, 2025)

State Standards:

• In the state standards in Kindergarten it says that students shall be able to recognize and be able to know all upper and lowercase letters and say the sounds of all of them.

• In the state standards in First Grade it says that students shall be able to generate a series of words that rhyme using a variety of phonograms (e.g., -ed, -ake, -ant, ain) and consonant blends (e.g., /bl/, /st/, /tr/)

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Assesses their sound recognition, sound matching, and visual/auditory connection. The pictures make it less intimidating and can help engage the students. It also shows their ability to identify without a verbal response.

Onset and Rime

Musical Mnemonics

This activity would utilize a song the students and teacher could create together. It would be called the Eye Spy Song. The song's melody would be similar to "If You're Happy and You Know It" song. It would go something like this...

If you see it and you know it clap your hands.

If it starts with the same sound, clap your hands.

If you see it and you know it then your voice will surely show it,

if you see it, and you know it, say it now

I spy a pencil (teacher)

I spy a paper (student)

I spy a puzzle (teacher)

I spy a park (student)

If you see it and you know it clap your hands.

If it starts with the same sound, clap your hands.

If you see it and you know it then your voice will surely show it,

if you see it, and you know it, say it now

I spy a book (teacher)

I spy a backpack (student)

I spy a bus (teacher)

I spy a bird (student)

If you see it and you know it clap your hands.

If it starts with the same sound, clap your hands.

If you see it and you know it then your voice will surely show it,

if you see it, and you know it, say it now!

*This is a great way to get your student engaged and to look at the things that are commonly used or seen in their everyday classroom. Learning commonly used vocab is the first start to helping your students recognize that certain words can have the same sound. Utilizing songs helps students remember things more easily and adds meaning to recall examples later on (Gardiner & Thaut, 2014). You can vary this exercise to fit the needs of what you are trying the student to find. Whether that is teaching them to rhyme or find the beginning sound, or the end sound of a word.

To differentiate for an ELL student, I would break the song down. The entire song might be a bit intimidating for a student who is still learning the words to commonly used items in a classroom. I would still use the eye spy strategy with the song, but I would give them manipulatives to be able to hold and touch. This way, the student can play the eye spy song game but can focus on the selected group of manipulatives that you show them. They can then group different manipulatives together. This also allows them to ask you clarifying questions on how a certain word might be pronounced. The use of manipulatives is crucial to use concrete objects to help students match what they see to what they are thinking. This goes along with the concrete operational stage from Piaget's theory of child development (Willingham, 2017).

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