Phonological awareness skills are prerequisites to learning how to read. Typically, all of these skills are mastered by the end of 2nd grade.

Students who have a strong phonological awareness can do the following skills:

• Match pictures that rhyme and produce words that rhyme - it's ok if the words are nonsense words - or what we like to call "silly words."
• Clap syllables and count the number of syllables in words. We ask students to clap the parts they hear.
• Tell you the beginning, ending, and middle sounds in words. Middle sounds are the hardest sounds for kindergartners to hear.
• Manipulate the sounds in words - add, remove, or substitute sounds in words.
• Segment sounds in words - have your child tell you all of the sounds they can hear in the word dog....d...o...g. Students are stretching apart the words.
• Blend sounds together - for early learners this can be difficult. Many times they will be able to "hear the word" if mom or dad sounds it out, but they have difficulty sounding out the word by themselves. They can say the sounds, but they don't always "hear" the word being sounded out.

*******Rhyming*******

1. Have your child find 5 items in your house and think of words that rhyme with those objects - remember they can be silly words, too!

2. Use word families (see below) and play a back and forth game of rhymes. See how many words you can think of! "What words can you think of that rhyme with -at?" Cat! Sat! Mat! Hat! Fat!

3. Read a Dr. Seuss book, nursery rhyme or poem and listen to find the rhyming words.

4. Play "I Spy" with your child. "I spy something that rhymes with _______." Take turns with your child.

5. Give your child three words - have them tell you the two words that rhyme.

The most common word families to help you rhyme are:

A - at, an, ap, ash, ank, ack, ain, ake, ale, ame, ate, ay, all, aw

E - ell, est, eat

I - ick, ill, in, ip, it, ice, ight, ine, ing, ink

O - op, ot, ock, oke, ore

U - un

My favorite reading website is https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/rhyming_games Please visit this site for videos and several games to play.

*******Clapping and Counting Syllables*******

A syllable is a word part that contains a vowel or, in spoken language, a vowel sound (e-vent; news-pa-per; ver-y).

If your child is struggling to hear the syllables in words, have them place their hand under their jaw. Every time their jaw drops it is a syllable!

1. Have your child clap the names of family members and friends. Then have them count the syllables using their fingers.

2. Find pictures in magazines, cut them out and sort them by the number of syllables they have.

Please visit:

https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/syllable_games

For older students, it's important to teach syllable types.

1. Closed-short vowel. Example: pig.

2. Open-long vowel. Example: we.

3. Vowel-Consonant-e, silent e creating a long vowel. Example: came.

4. Vowel teams. Two vowels creating one sound, ee, oy, ay, etc. Example: boy.

5. R-Controlled vowels, ar, or, er, etc. Example: for.

6. Consonant-le, ble, gle etc. Example: marble.

******Phoneme (Sound) Manipulation*******

Being able to isolate the beginning sounds in words is so important for students' reading and writing abilities.