Phonics & PA
Letter-Sound Knowledge and Phonological Awareness (PA)
Letter-Sound Knowledge and Phonological Awareness (PA)
Explore the links below to find "no-print" activities that your child can do at home to build letter-sound knowledge (phonics) and awareness of sounds and sound patterns in words (phonological awareness). Play some of the games together and talk about them. Have fun!
If you are unsure what skills your child was working on in their SLP sessions, please check in with your SLP. As well, refer to the skill development chart below to see what skills your child should have at their age.
What Phonological Awareness skills should my child have at this age? - Check out this chart of skill development
Check out this blog post by The Learning Spark to learn about phonological and phonemic awareness and why these skills are critical for reading success and to see the activities in action a classroom.
Phonological Awareness On-Line Activities
Please note: The most effective activities to help your child develop literacy skills are activities at the SOUND level. Rhyme, syllable and compound word activities are fun, and build awareness of sound patterns in words, but they will not translate directly into better reading and spelling skills.
Exercise and Rhyme with this active video from Jack Hartmann Music Channel!
Video of Segmentation and blending sounds -Use these cards to play the game demonstrated in the video with kids in grades Primary-2 to help with early literacy skills.
Fill in the Rhyme - Complete phrases and sentences with rhyming words. Your child will learn to rely on contextual cues to create rhymes.
Can You Make a Rhyming Word? - Produce the second of a pair of one-syllable rhyming words to insert in a song. This game introduces your child to the skill of coming up with a rhyming word on his own, without any contextual clues.
Pack the Plane with Rhyming Words - Complete a sentence with multiple rhyming one-syllable words. Your child will learn to create rhymes quickly with no contextual clues.
I Spy...a Rhyme - Play the classic game of I Spy, looking for an item in the room that rhymes with the clue you provide.
Word Count - Count the number of words in a sentence, reinforcing the concept of words and the idea that sentences are made up of words.
Which Sounds Longer - Compare two words and judge which sounds longer (has more syllables). This exercise will focus on the concept of a word as separate from the thing the word describes. You can make your own word length card!
Compound Words - Combine words to make a new word: a compound word. Listen for the parts of compound words.
Syllable Awareness - Several games to develop awareness of syllables in words. Your child will learn to divide words into their individual syllables by feeling and hearing the different parts. Children will also learn how to blend syllables into words. Many of these games do not require printing or can be adapted to "no-print" by using your own word lists.
Segmenting Sounds in Words - This lesson focuses on isolating each sound in a word using chips to represent the individual sounds. You can make your own mat and use checkers or coins instead of printing. Use these virtual segmenting boards!
Adding Sounds to Words - This lesson focuses on adding a new sound to an existing word using chips to create a new word. You can make your own mat and use checkers or coins instead of printing.
Break words into sounds with these ideas and videos.
Phonics On-Line Activities - Help your child learn how speech sounds are mapped to letters and letter combinations with these fun games and activities.
Workout to the letter sounds with this active video from the Jack Hartmann Music Channel!
Arcademic Skill Builders has a range of simple and fun games for developing spelling and language skills.
Practice the sequence of letters in the alphabet with Alphabet Bridge game.
Practice learning the speech sounds that letters represent with junk mail!
Letter-sound learning and word building. Use these cards or make your own!
Reading and spelling words with silent e and a word list for ideas.
Make a new word by changing sounds and a word list for ideas.
Play games for a variety of literacy skills at Toy Theatre (math games, too). Plus dice and spinners to use when practicing speech sounds.
Practice drawing letters that represent speech sounds, and draw pictures of things that start with specific letters and sounds on this interactive Whiteboard.
The speech sounds and their letters- a fun song to sing with your kids and lots of alphabet ideas and activities
ABCYa - Many free games for language, phonics and phonological awareness development available. No membership necessary.
Stop Guessing! - a video that shows you a game that encourages your young reader to use their phonics and phonological awareness skills when reading - so they don't guess!
Reading passages and strategies to learn how speech sounds are represented by letters and letter combinations
Free On-line Decodable Readers - Emergent Readers series from FlyLeaf Publishing and Academic Success for all Learners
PDF of Bonnie Kline decodable stories for specific phonics lessons/concepts
Reading League list of sources for Decodable Books. Not all are free but some are!
Half-Pint Decodable Readers are free right now and are suitable for students in early grades. The short books follow a sequence of introducing vowels and consonants with a systematic and cumulative approach. There are comprehension questions at the end.
A collection of decodable books found on line. Suitable for early elementary grades and early readers.
Decodable books and worksheets to assist with phonics skills by learning that speech sounds are mapped to letters, and letter combinations. These books introduce vowels and consonants with a systematic and cumulative approach.
BONUS - Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum
For those kids in Grade P-2 who have been using the Heggerty program, here are some helpful and informative links to help promote phonemic and phonological awareness skills at home. Not sure what the Heggerty is? Check out this video to see it in action!
Video explanation for parents about phonological and phonemic awareness and Heggerty activities (5 minutes):
Grade 1/2 - Week 21 video lesson (10 minutes)
Grade Primary - Week 21 video lesson (12 minutes)
Printable Lessons for weeks 18-20 for teachers to use and videotape for sharing
According to the website, no other video recording or weekly lessons beyond these ones will be shared at this point. If this is not the week that your child was on...not to worry...the skills are meant to be reviewed and it's OK to be out of sync with your previous lessons. Having some access at home is better than none!