• Students who lack strong phonological awareness skills often struggle with learning to read. These skills can be directly taught, leading to better outcomes in reading and writing.

• Provide many opportunities to hear and practice the target skill throughout the day

• Ensure practice is explicit by defining the target skill (E.g., “Let’s practice segmenting words by breaking the word into it’s individual syllables”)

• Use manipulatives (small items that children touch and move) to help your child focus on and sequence sounds during phoneme awareness tasks (E.g., stack a block for each sound you hear in a word)

• Incorporate a kinesthetic component to practice (E.g., clap out the syllables in a word or hop for each sound when segmenting a word into individual sounds)

🧠 Phonological Awareness Activities

Help children build foundational literacy skills through fun, interactive language play.

🔤 Word Awareness

Encourage children to notice and count words in their environment:

• 📚 Book Titles: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

• 📅 Calendar Sentences: Today is Tuesday

• 🎶 Repetitive Phrases: This porridge is too hot

👏 Syllable Awareness

🤖 Blending

• Say names like a robot: Er-i-ca

• Play guessing games: lo-lli-pop

🕺 Segmenting

• Clap, tap, or jump syllables in names and calendar words: Mon-day

• Group by syllable count:
  
  “Students with 2 claps in their names, please line up.”
  Jen-ny, Ahmed, Ni-gel, Wen-dy

✂️ Deleting

• Practice with compound words:
  
  “Say sunshine, but don’t say sun.”

• Use theme words: snowsuit, gingerbread

🔊 Sound Awareness (Phonemic Awareness)

🧩 Blending

• Stretch short words: h-e-n, d-o-g, p-i-g

🎯 Sound Identification

• Ask: “What’s the first sound in dog?”

• Build word lists: Daniel, down, dinner, duck

• Transition by sound:
  
  “If your name begins with /p/, please go to your desk.”

🧵 Segmenting (Stretching)

• Stretch words: mmmmmaaaaaaannnnn

• Compare sounds vs. letters:
  
  fox: /f/ /a/ /k/ /s/
  show: /sh/ /o/

🚫 Deletion

• Try: “Say goat. Now say it again, but don’t say /g/.”

• Use magnetic letters to show sound changes: goat → boat

🧪 Examples in Action

🚒 Firefighter

• Clap it out: Fi-re-figh-ter

• Robot talk: “Fi-re-figh-ter”

• First/last sounds: /f/ and /r/

• Delete parts:
  
  “Say firefighter, but don’t say fighter.”
  “Say firefighter, but don’t say fire.”
  
  

🦊 Sly

• Define: Sly = sneaky

• Clap it: Sly (1 clap)

• Stretch it: Ssssssslllllliiii

• First sound: /s/

• Word list: Susie, Sam, sun, soup, same

• Delete first sound: Sly → ly

🎶 Play with Sounds

Lay the foundation for reading through fun, everyday phonological awareness games!

🍎 Snack Time Activities

🔍 Sound Identification

• Talk about snack names and their first sounds: ch-eese, s-alad

• Find other kitchen items that start with the same sound

🤪 Sound Substituting

• Pick a favorite food: soup, milk

• Create silly versions using the same initial sound: s-omato, s-ilk

👏 Syllable Blending & Segmenting

• Break snack names into syllables: to-ma-to, a-pple

• Guess the word or let kids “play teacher”

• Identify short names (1 clap: milk) vs. long names (many claps: pine-a-pple)

🚗 Take a Walk or Drive

🔍 Sound Identification

• Talk about what you see: sign, grass, house

• Identify first or last sounds and find matching words

🤪 Sound Substituting

• Choose an item: sun, grass

• Make silly names: s-ar, s-ouse

👏 Syllable Blending

• Break up words: chim-ney, cro-ssing guard

• Guess the words or switch roles to lead the game

🎤 Other Fun Activities

🎵 Sing Songs

• Use nursery rhymes to teach rhyming

• Highlight how rhyming words sound the same at the end

📚 Read Rhyming Books

• Encourage kids to repeat rhymes

• Make up silly rhyming words together

💡 Tip: Add these activities to daily routines like bath time or cleaning for extra fun!

Adapted from Toronto Preschool Speech and Language Services