Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, substitute, and delete sounds in spoken words. A phoneme is a sound and we have 44 phonemes in the English language. This basic skill prepares your child to read.
Play this video to practice the letter sounds with your child.
Here is a list of activities you can explore at home to build your child's phonics awareness.
* Help your child appreciate the rich sounds of language through shared poetry, nursery rhymes, songs, chants, and finger plays, etc. Children develop the background they need to learn to read through language experiences we give them before they come to school. See youtube Nursery Rhymes Songs with Lyrics and Actions above.
*Help your child discover words can be divided into syllables. Use clapping, marching, naming or counting games to play with the sounds of language. Clap out the syllables of the names of the people in your family. Try clapping out syllables for familiar objects in your home.
Here are examples:
-lamp /l/ clap /a/ clap /m/ clap /p/ then say lamp
-mat /m/ tap /a/ tap /t/ tap then say mat
*Help your child learn to make a new word by adding a sound to an existing word.
Here is an example:
-Parent: What word do you have if you add/s/ to the beginning of the word park?
-Child: The word is spark.
*Pick poems to read to your child from Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky that are humorous for children and adults.
*Review the letters in the alphabet and the sounds those letters make. Write each letter on a small piece of paper. Put the letters in a container or bag. Have your child pick a letter out of the bag, say the name of the letter, and the sound it makes. If your child doesn't know the name or sound, tell him/her and put it back in the container. You can make this more challenging by adding digraphs (sh, ch, wh, ph, qu, ck, th) or consonant blends (tr, sw, st, sp, sn, sm, sl, sc, pl, gr, fl, dr, cr, cl, br, and bl.)
*Say the sounds in a word slowly /k/.../a/.../t/ and have your child blend the sounds to make the word cat.
*Make a word ladder. Draw two parallel lines with horizontal lines between them to create a ladder. Write a word such as "cat" on the bottom run. Have your child highlight or underline the rhyme "at" in the word and think of a rhyming word to write on the next rung. Keep adding more rungs as he/she thinks of more rhyming words.
*Help your child recognize individual sounds in a word.
Here is an example:
-Parent: What is the first sound in the word van?
-Child: The first sound in van is /v/. (Slashes around a letter indicate the sound the letter makes not the name of the letter)
*Help your child recognize the same sound in different words.
Here is an example:
-Parent: What sound is the same in fix, fall, and fun?
-Child: The first sound /f/ is the same in fix, fall, and
fun.
*Help your child recognize the word in a set of three or four words that have the “odd” sound. Here is an example:
-Parent: Which word doesn’t belong? bus bun rug
-Child: Rug does not belong. It doesn’t begin with /b/
*Help your child learn how to blend produced sounds separately into a word.
Here is an example:
-Parent: What word is /b/ /i/ /g/ ? Pronounce each sound slowly and separately.
-Child: The word is big.
*Help your child learn how to break a word into its separate sounds, saying each sound as he/she taps or claps the sounds.
Here is an example:
-Parent: How many sounds are in the word grab?
-Child: /g/ /r/ /a/ /b/. There are four sounds.
*Help your child recognize what word remains when a sound is removed from another word. Here is an example:
-Parent: Say the word smile. Now take away the /s/.
-Child: smile without the /s/ is mile
*Help your child learn to substitute one sound for another to make a new word.
Here is an example:
-Parent: The word is bug. Change /g/ to an /n/. What word do you have now?
-Child: The word is bun.
*Help your child substitute beginning sounds to make families of rhyming words.
Here is an example:
-Parent: How many words can we find that rhyme with your name, Bill?
-Child: hill, pill, dill, mill, fill . . .
LETRS Training recommends the following activities to boost early phonological awareness for Pre-K or beginning Kindergarten:
-Read Aloud: Read books aloud with rhyme patterns and alliteration. Let children chime in and supply the rhyme or extend the alliteration.
-Rhyme Judgment: Say: "words rhyme if the last part of each word sounds the same. Cake and bake rhyme; so do merry and cherry. Listen while I say the poem, and get ready to say the rhyming word. 'Jack and Jill went up the hill. ' What words rhyme?
-Alliteration: Say: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." Say: "Let's make a silly sentence with /n/ words. Neat Nancy...
-Syllable Blending: Say: "Silly Caesar speaks very slowly. What word is Silly Caesar saying?" ta - able, hos - pi - tal, tan - ger - ine, roll - er - blades, fire - truck, play - ground.
-Syllable Deletion: Say: "Let's play a game with words. We're going to break some long words into parts and leave a part out. If I say toothpaste, and then leave off the tooth, what's left? That's right: paste. Let's try some more." What's baseball without ball? What's butterfly without butter? What's paddle boat without boat? What's Sunday without day? What's power with 'er? What's telephone without tele-?
-Syllable Counting: Say: "Inside this treasure chest are lots of things with names that you know. when it's your turn, reach in and take something out. Then tap the syllables as you say the word." balloon, cricket, calculator, eraser, sharpener, stapler, candlestick, napkin
-Initial Sound Matching: Say: "Let's see whose name starts with the same sound as someone else's name. They can stand together. Tanya and Timmy. What sounds begins each of your names? That's right: /t/. Let's think of another name that starts with /t/."
-Rhyme Production: Say: "Let's play a game. I'll say three words that rhyme and sound alike at the end. You say one more word that rhymes. It can be a silly word. Let's start: hinky, pinky, slinky, ____________."
LETRS Training recommends the following activities to boost early phonological awareness for Grades K-1.
-What Sound? Say: "Say the word after me. We'll use a chip or block for each sound. Pet. What's the first sound? Answer: /p/. What's the middle sound? Answer: /e/. What's the last sound? Answer /t/.
-Final Sound Matching: Say: "Listen while I say two words. If they end with the same last sound, repeat the sound." moon, pen (/n/), bridge, page (/j/), witch, mash (two different sounds /ch/ and /sh/), brick, steak (/k/).
-Blending Phonemes: Say: "Listen. The robot can only say one sound at a ta time. What's the word?" /p/-/e short/-/g/, /ch/-/o short/-/p/, /sh/-/u long/, /w/ /e long/
-Initial and Final Sound Substitution- Say: "Let's see if we can make some new words by changing just one sound. If I change /b/in bat to /r/, what new word do I have?" (rat) "If I change /w/in wag to /t/, what new word do I have? " (tag) "If I change /l/ in shell to /f/, what new word do I have?" (chef)
-Tracking Sound Changes with Colored Blocks (Beginning Sound Chaining): Give your child five blocks or chips with four different colors (two blocks or chips will have the same color). Different sounds are represented with different colored blocks, but the blocks may represent any sound. Add, change, delete, or switch the order of sounds in the dictated words, one sound at a time. For example, when changing day to date, have your child add a third block of a different color. Occasionally, nonsense words or syllables must be used for transitions from one word to the next. These should be used sparingly. For example: day, date, dot, pot, spot, spit, sit, sits or me, mean, men, zen, zin, zip, chip, pitch, titch, stitch or ouch, out, shout, shoot, shoes, use, dues, twos, stews.
LETRS Training recommends the following activities to boost early phonological awareness for Grades 2-3 and Up.
-Blending Longer Words: /l/-/i short/-/f/-/t/-/i short/-/ng/, /s/-/l/-/a short/-/k/-/er/, /f/-/r/-/i long/-/t/-/e short/-/n/.
-Longer Sound Chains: Have children use colored blocks to mark changes to several words in a row, including words with blends. Substitute, add, or delete sounds. Three sounds chain: bit, bet, bat, sat, sit, mitt, mat, mad, sad, said, bed, bid. One to three sounds chain: rake, ache, make, take, took, book, hook, hike, hi, I, my, mine. Blend chain: train, rain, lane, lame, blame, claim, came, come, some, slum, slump, lump
-Sound Deletion: Syllable: "Say potato without the /po/." Initial sound: "Say peas without the /p/." Final sound: "Say sheet without the /t/." Initial blend: "Say stoop without the /s/." Final blend: Say wild without the /d/."
-Sound Reversal: "Say fine. Say the last sound first and the first sound last." (knife) "Say tube. Say the last sound first and the first sound last." (boot) "Say ted. Say the last sound first and the first sound last." (debt) "Say safe. Say the last sound first and the first sound last." (face) "Say park. Say the last sound first and the first sound last." (carp)
-Syllable and Affix Substitution and Deletion: "Say photograph. Change graph to cell." (photocell) "Say anytime. Change time to where." (anywhere) "Say naturalist. Now drop -ist." (natural) "Say invention. Now drop -tion." (invent)
-Pig Latin: Make a sentence by removing the first consonant from each word, putting the consonant at the end of the word, and adding -ay to it. Example: "Ello-hay, y-may, ame-nay, is-ay, teve-say" for "Hello, my name is Steve."
For Parents to read or watch:
Phoneme Awareness Practice:
What are phonemes?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBuA589kfMg