What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the sounds in spoken language.
It includes:
Identifying rhyming words
Counting syllables in words
Identifying beginning and ending sounds of words
Blending words
Segmenting words
Here are ideas of activities you can do to practice phonological awareness at home (Reading Rockets, 2022).
Rhyme time
“I am thinking of an animal that rhymes with big. What's the animal?” Answer: pig. What else rhymes with big? (dig, fig, wig)
Road trip rhymes
While you're out driving in the car, spot something out the window and ask your child, "what rhymes with tree or car or shop?" Then switch roles and have your child spot something and ask you for a rhyme. This can turn into a game of nonsense rhymes ("What rhymes with tree stump?") but that's great for practicing sounds, too!
Word families
Word families are sets of words that rhyme. Start to build your family by giving your child the first word, for example, cat. Then ask your child to name all the "kids" in the cat family, such as: bat, fat, sat, rat, pat, mat, hat, flat. This will help your child hear patterns in words.
Silly tongue twisters
Sing songs and say silly tongue twisters. These help your child become sensitive to the sounds in words.
Tongue ticklers
Alliteration or "tongue ticklers" — where the sound you're focusing on is repeated over and over again — can be a fun way to provide practice with a speech sound. Try these:
For M: Miss Mouse makes marvelous meatballs!
For S: Silly Sally sings songs about snakes and snails.
For F: Freddy finds fireflies with a flashlight.
Syllable shopping
While at the grocery store, have your child tell you the syllables in different food names. Have them hold up a finger for each word part. Eggplant = egg-plant, two syllables. Pineapple = pine-ap-ple, three syllables. Show your child the sign for each and ask her to say the word.
"I spy" first sounds
Practice beginning sounds with this simple "I spy" game at home, on a walk, or at the grocery store. Choose words with distinctive, easy-to-hear beginning sounds. For example, if you're in the bathroom you can say, “I spy something red that starts with the "s" ssss sound (soap).”
Sound scavenger hunt
Choose a letter sound, then have your child find things around your house that start with the same sound. “Can you find something in our house that starts with the letter “p” pppppp sound? Picture, pencil, pear”