Phonemic Awareness

The ability to identify individual sounds, think about individual sounds, use sounds, and manipulate sounds orally. It NEVER involves print. Phonemic awareness is the basis for reading. Students need a solid understanding and awareness of the sounds of speech before any printed words can begin. Being able to listen carefully is the key. Listening needs to be explicitly taught.

Building phonemic awareness is a step in the reading process that cannot be skipped. In particular, for struggling students, skipping this critical step will limit the child’s ability to progress in reading. ~Marilyn Adams

Activities that support Phonemic Awareness

Listening to sequences of sounds

Objective

To develop the memory and attentional abilities for thinking about sequences of sounds and the language for discussing them.

Materials needed

Objects that make interesting, distinctive sounds. Some examples follow:

banging on wall/table/lap, blowing, blowing a whistle, blowing nose, clapping, clicking with tongue, closing purse, coloring hard on paper, coughing, crumpling paper,

cutting with a knife, cutting with scissors, dropping (various things), drumming with fingers, eating an apple, folding paper, hammering, hopping, noisy chewing

opening window or drawer , pouring liquid, ringing a bell, rubbing hands together, scratching, sharpening a pencil, slamming a book, smashing crackers

snapping fingers, stamping, stirring with teaspoon, tearing paper, tiptoeing, turning on computer, walking, whistling, writing on board,writing with a pencil

Activity

In this game, the children are challenged first to identify single sounds and then to identify each one of a sequence of sounds. Both will be very important in the language games to come. The children are to cover their eyes with their hands while you make a familiar noise such as closing the door, sneezing, or playing a key on the piano. By listening carefully and without peeking, the children are to try to identify the noise.

Once the children have caught on to the game, make two noises, one after the other. Without peeking, the children are to guess the two sounds in sequence saying, "There were two sounds. First we heard a ____, and then we heard a ____."

After the children have become quite good with pairs of noises, produce a series of more than two for them to identify and report in sequence. Again, complete sentences should be encouraged.

Remember that, to give every child the opportunity to participate mentally in these games, it is important to discourage all children from calling out their answers until they are asked to do so. In addition, both to support full participation and to allow assessment of individual students, it is helpful to switch unpredictably between inviting a response from the whole group and from individual children of your designation.

Note: Because of the importance of the skill exercised through this game, it is important to annotate the progress for every child and their areas of difficulty. Extra opportunities should be created to work with children who are having trouble with the concept of sequences or in expressing their responses.

Variations

• With the children's eyes closed, make a series of sounds. Then repeat the sequence, but omit one of the sounds. The children must identify the sound that has been omitted from the second sequence.
• Invite the children to make sounds for their classmates to guess.
• These games also offer good opportunities to review, exercise, and evaluate children's use of ordinal terms, such as first, second, third, middle, last. It is worth ensuring that every student gains comfortable, receptive, and expressive command of these terms.

Nonsense

From chapter 3: Listening games

Objective

To develop the children's ability to attend to differences between what they expect to hear and what they actually hear.

Materials needed

Book of familiar stories or poems

Activity

Invite the students to sit down and close their eyes so that they can concentrate on what they will hear. Then recite or read aloud a familiar story or poem to the children but, once in a while, change some of the wording so that it is nonsense. The children's challenge is to detect such changes whenever they occur. When they do, encourage them to explain what was wrong. As the students become more proficient, the game is replayed with more subtle variations throughout the year. This activity helps to sharpen the student's awareness of the phonology, words, syntax, and semantics of language.

As illustrated in the following list, you can change any text in more or less subtle ways at a number of different levels including phonemes, words, grammar, and meaning. Because of this, the game can be revisited again and again throughout the year. Even so, in initial plays of the game, it is important that the changes result in violations of the sense, meaning, and wording of the text that are relatively obvious. Following are some examples of the "nonsense" that can be created within familiar poems and rhymes: Reverse words Song a sing of sixpence

Substitute words Baa baa purple sheep Twinkle, twinkle little car

Swap word order Humpty Dumpty wall on a sat Jack fell down and crown his broke

Swap word parts One, two shuckle my boo I'm a tittle leapot

Switch order of events Five, six, pick up sticks One, two, buckle my shoe Little Miss Muffet, eating a tuffet Sat on her curds and whey

Switch order of events The first little piggy built himself a house of bricks.

Note: Don't forget to switch unpredictably between asking the whole group or individual children to respond. C chapter 6: Awareness of syllables

Clapping Names

From chapter 6: Awareness of syllables

Objective

To introduce the children to the nature of syllables by leading them to clap and count the syllables in their own names.

Activity

When you first introduce this activity, model it by using several names of contrasting lengths. Pronounce the first name of one of the children in the classroom syllable by syllable while clapping it out before inviting the children to say and clap the name along with you. After each name has been clapped, ask "How many syllables did you hear?"

Once children have caught on, ask each child to clap and count the syllables in his or her own name. Don't forget last names, too! It is easy to continue clapping other words and to count the syllables in each. If a name has many syllables, you may need to let children count the syllables as they are clapping.

Variations

• Ask the children to clap and count the syllables of their first and last names together.
• After determining the number of syllables in a name, ask the children to hold two fingers horizontally under their chins, so they can feel the chin drop for each syllable. To maximize this effect, encourage the children to elongate or stretch each syllable.
• As follows, this activity can be done to a rhythmic chant, such as "Bippity, Bippity Bumble Bee":
• Bippity, bippity bumble bee, Tell me what your name should be.
• (Point to a child; that child responds by giving his name. Class repeats name out loud. Continue with one of the following:)
  • "Clap it!" (Children repeat name, enunciating and clapping to each syllable.)
  • "Whisper it!" (Children whisper each syllable while clapping.)
  • "Silent!" (Children repeat name, silently enunciating syllables with mouth movement.)

Finding things: Initial phonemes

From chapter 7: Initial and final sounds

Objective

To extend children's awareness of initial phonemes by asking them to compare, contrast, and eventually identify the initial sounds of a variety of words.

Materials needed

Picture cards

Activity

This game should be played as an extension of Activity 7B: Different Words, Same Initial Phoneme. [Editor's note: this activity is found in the authors' book]. Spread a few pictures out in the middle of the circle. Then ask the children to find those pictures whose names start with the initial sound on which they have just been working. As each picture is found, the child is to say its name and initial phoneme as before (e.g., f-f-f-f-ish, /f-f-f-f/, fish).

Variations

• As the children become more comfortable with the game, spread out pictures from two different sets, asking the children to identify the name and initial phoneme of each picture and to sort them into two piles accordingly.
• Pass pictures out to the children; each must identify the initial phoneme of her or his picture and put it in the corresponding pile. This game works well with small groups.
• Sound-traition: Pass pictures of objects or animals to the children, naming each picture and placing it face down on the table or carpet. Children take turns flipping pairs of pictures right side up and deciding if the initial sounds of the pictures' names are the same. If the initial sounds match, the child selects another pair; otherwise, another child takes a turn. This game works well with small groups.

These and other activities can be further explored by visiting Marilyn J. Adams, Barbara Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, Terri Beeler -

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-activities-preschool-or-elementary-classroom

GAMES

Listening

Who can spot a sound with their ears?

“Moo-Moo,” Where Are You?

How to play: All the children sit in a circle. One child lies down in the middle of the circle and covers his or her eyes. The teacher chooses another child to go somewhere in the room and pretend to be a cow by making a “moo-moo” sound. The child in the middle of the circle – with eyes still covered – points in the direction of the animal sound. This game is great because it gets children to listen closely for sounds and for where the sounds are coming from. It also prepares their ears to listen more closely to sounds in words. When the child in the middle correctly identifies the sound and direction, he or she gets to go next and make a different animal sound.

Rhyming

Using word-play with rhyming helps children notice that sounds in our language have meaning and follow certain patterns. Again, this is a precursor skill to seeing sound patterns reproduced in print – as a phonemic awareness practice, it is purely auditory.

The absolute best way to introduce rhyming to your students is by reading lots of fun rhyming books, poems, and songs. Act silly and have fun! The more fun you have with the rhymes, the more the kids will notice the rhymes and enjoy the activities. Exaggerate the silliness of the rhyme. The poem “Down By the Bay” and the book “Silly Sally” are perfect examples of how rhyme can be super fun!

In My Box (Students must understand rhyming to play this game)

How to play: Get a small box and place some pictures in it with pairs of familiar words that rhyme (like box/socks, cat/hat, or chair/bear). Use enough pictures so that everyone in your class has a turn. Sit in a circle with your students. Start with a child you know is strong in rhyming. Hold the box and choose a picture. If the picture shows a cat, say “In my box, there’s a cat”. Call on him or her to come up with a rhyming word. The child might say, “In my box, there’s a hat” (or some other rhyming word). After he or she answers with a rhyming word, hand him or her the box. Now he or she gets to choose a card and continue the play.

Syllables

The ultimate goal is for the child to work with individual phonemes (vowels or consonants) It is easier to start with the larger parts of words and work down to the individual sounds and build on that until the student can work with individual sounds of phonemes.

Bippity Boppity Bumble Bee

How to play: Sit in a circle with your students. I have a little stuffed bee that the kids love to hold. You could also use a printable bumble bee. The teacher begins the chant and walks around to a child: As the children become more familiar with the activity you can add words with more syllables.

Teacher: “Bippity Boppity Bumble Bee, Will You Say Your Name For Me?”

The child responds, “Jennifer.”

Teacher: ” Let’s all say it.” And the class says her name out loud, while clapping once for each syllable.

Teacher: “Let’s all whisper it.” And the class whispers her name, while quiet-clapping the syllables again, once per syllable.

Teacher and class: “Bippity Boppity Bumble Bee, Thank You For Saying Your Name For Me!”

Repeat with another student and his/her name. As students become familiar with the game, you can allow students to take on the “teacher” role.

Old MacDonald (use the song Old MacDonald)

How to play: The teacher begins by telling the students they are going to learn a new game – it’s a different version of Old MacDonald, and it’s kind of a silly version. The teacher begins singing, “Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a /ti/ /ger/, E-I-E-I-O”. Of course, the kids think the introduction of the tiger is wildly funny, but notice what they have actually done: Without being told, they have mentally combined the syllables /ti/ and /ger/ to realize what the animal was! It’s huge! Then I show the children a picture of a tiger and they feel proud that they figured out the animal – and they think it’s too funny! Again it’s lots of fun, and they really think we are just playing a game.

The most important thing to keep in mind as an early childhood teacher is that phonemic awareness can be such a fun time! It shouldn’t be long drawn-out lessons. All you need is five-to-ten-minute pockets of time each day. Phonemic awareness activities are also great to use during transition times throughout the day. I often use the ten minutes before lunch, and sometimes during group restroom breaks, to practice and reinforce listening and oral language skills. And the payoff is big! If you give phonemic awareness the attention it deserves, your students will be richly rewarded when it’s time for them to start reading!

These and other activities can be further explored by visiting Ms. Jeannie Partin -

http://www.earlychildhoodteacher.org/blog/5-quick-easy-and-fun-phonemic-awareness-activities/