Welcome to our Phonological Awareness blog series, an important series for parents and teachers that covers phonological awareness, phonological sensitivity, and phonemic awareness.
This week’s topic is the most important subset of Phonological Awareness: Phonemic Awareness.
You can also read this information in a convenient, easy-to-print eBook. Check it out here!
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS TOPICS
Check out the other topics in this Phonological Awareness blog series:
- Phonological Awareness Overview
- Word Awareness
- Syllable Awareness
- Rhyme Awareness
- Phonemic Awareness (You are here)
- Phonological Awareness Games
You can also check out my Phonological Awareness playlist on YouTube for more information:
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS: PHONEMIC AWARENESS
Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sound properties of spoken words. It can sometimes be called an “umbrella term” because it can be broken down into two separate groups:
- Phonological Sensitivity: the ability to hear and manipulate units of language larger than phonemes, including words, syllables, and rhymes
- Phonemic Awareness: the ability to hear and manipulate individual phonemes in spoken words.
Today’s topic is all about the most important (and most challenging) level of Phonological Awareness: Phonemic Awareness.
WHAT IS PHONEMIC AWARENESS?
Phonemic Awareness is the highest and most complex level of phonological awareness. It’s the ability to hear and manipulate individual phonemes in spoken words.
Phonemic awareness is the MOST crucial area for reading and writing success.
There is plenty of research suggesting that preschool-aged children CAN develop phonemic awareness, so there’s no need to wait until children are in kindergarten to begin work at the phoneme level.
There’s also no need to wait until children have mastered their alphabet. You can work on phonemic awareness right now since it focuses on oral sounds.
However, once children have mastered their alphabet, using letters during phonemic awareness activities increases their effectiveness according to the National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000).
Helping little ones match the sounds to the letters that spell those sounds increases reading and spelling outcomes and strengthens their understanding of the alphabetic principle.
HOW DO WE PRACTICE PHONEMIC AWARENESS IN PRESCHOOL, PRE-K, AND KINDERGARTEN?
Here are 10 fun activities to practice phonemic awareness in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten.
These activities go from least complex to most complex and should be incorporated into your daily routines.
The more you can point out sounds in words during your everyday life, the better!
BASIC PHONEMIC AWARENESS ACTIVITIES:
- ALLITERATION:
- Multiple words that all begin with the same sound
- Say three words that all begin with the same sound. Ask your little one to identify the beginning sound.
- “Which sound do you hear at the beginning of these three words? bell, bee, bat” (/b/)
- Select a target sound, and ask your little one to name words that begin with that sound.
- “The sound is /t/. Do you know three words that start with /t/?” (tiger, tape, today)
- Say three words that all begin with the same sound. Ask your little one to identify the beginning sound.
- Multiple words that all begin with the same sound
- PHONEME CATEGORIZATION:
- The ability to determine which word does not belong in the group based on the beginning sound
- Say three words and ask your little one which word does not belong.
- “Which word does not belong? jump, fly, jack” (fly)
- Say three words and ask your little one which word does not belong.
- The ability to determine which word does not belong in the group based on the beginning sound
- PHONEME LOCATION:
- Identifying where in a word a sound in located
- Select a target sound and ask your little one to name where the sound is found in the word (beginning, end, middle)
- In general, the initial (beginning) sounds are easiest for our little ones to hear. Then we move on to final (ending) sounds. The medial (middle) sounds are usually the trickiest.
- They can touch their head if it’s at the beginning, their toes if it’s at the end, or their belly if it’s in the middle
- “The sound is /n/. The word is nice.” (beginning-touch head)
- “The sound is /m/. The word is slam.” (end-touch toes)
- “The sound is /a/. The word is bag.” (middle-touch belly)
- Select a target sound and ask your little one to name where the sound is found in the word (beginning, end, middle)
- Identifying where in a word a sound in located
- PHONEME ISOLATION:
- The ability to isolate the initial, final, and medial sound within words
- In general, the initial (beginning) sounds are easiest for our little ones to hear. Then we move on to final (ending) sounds. The medial (middle) sounds are usually the trickiest.
- Select a target sound, such as /j/. Say a list of words, and have your little one do a jumping jack each time they hear the /j/ sound at the beginning of the word.
- joke (jumping jack)
- jab (jumping jack)
- rock (no jumping jack)
- jelly (jumping jack)
- Movement is great to add into phonemic awareness activities!
- The ability to isolate the initial, final, and medial sound within words
- PHONEME COUNTING:
- The ability to count the number of phonemes in a word
- Say a word and help your little one break it up into sounds. Then have them count the number of phonemes in the word.
- “Your word is dog. /d/ /o/ /g/. How many phonemes?” (3 phonemes)
- “Your word is ship. /sh/ /i/ /p/. How many phonemes? (3 phonemes)
- Remember we’re counting sounds, not letters.
- Say a word and help your little one break it up into sounds. Then have them count the number of phonemes in the word.
- The ability to count the number of phonemes in a word
- PHONEME BLENDING:
- The ability to blend phonemes orally to say a word
- part —> whole
- Play “Mystery Words” as much as possible!
- Say the individual phonemes of a word, and have your little one tell you the word.
- “What’s my word? /b/ /e/ /d/” (bed)
- “What’s my word? /k/ /ar/” (car)
- Say the individual phonemes of a word, and have your little one tell you the word.
- PHONEME SEGMENTATION:
- The ability to break apart the phonemes in a word
- whole —> part
- the opposite of blending
- Give your little one a word and have them segment the sounds they hear.
- Have them touch their head for the first sound, their shoulders for the second sound, their knees for the third sound, and their toes for the fourth sound.
- “What are the sounds in the word jet?”
- /j/ = touch head
- /e/ = touch shoulders
- /t/ = touch knees
- “What are the sounds in the word jet?”
- Have them touch their head for the first sound, their shoulders for the second sound, their knees for the third sound, and their toes for the fourth sound.
- They can also use manipulatives, such as balls of play dough, fidget poppers, legos, magnetic tiles, or any small object. Each object would represent one sound. Have them place one object on the table for each sound they hear (going from left to right).
ADVANCED PHONEMIC MANIPULATION ACTIVITIES:
According to David Kilpatrick, author of Equipped for Reading Success, typical achieving readers will master phoneme manipulation in 1st-3rd grade. So if your little one can’t do these yet, that’s okay! You can still practice and model these skills. With time & experience, they’ll get it!
- PHONEME ADDITION:
- Add a sound to either the initial or final position of a word.
- “Say at. Now say at and add /k/ at the beginning. What’s the word?” (cat)
- “Say ben. Now say ben and add /d/ at the end. What’s the word?” (bend)
- Add a sound to either the initial or final position of a word.
- PHONEME DELETION:
- Delete a sound from either the initial, final, or medial position of a word.
- “Say moon. Now say moon without /m/. What’s the word?” (oon)
- “Say and. Now say and without /d/. What’s the word?” (an)
- “Say slope. Now say slope without /l/. What’s the word?” (soap)
- Delete a sound from either the initial, final, or medial position of a word.
- PHONEME SUBSTITUTION:
- Substitute one sound for another in either the initial, final, or medial position of a word.
- “Say dog. Now say dog but change /d/ to /l/. What’s the word?” (log)
- “Say in. Now say in but change /n/ to /t/. What’s the word?” (it)
- “Say pen. Now say pen but change /e/ to /i/. What’s the word?” (pin)
- Substitute one sound for another in either the initial, final, or medial position of a word.
- BONUS: CHALLENGE ACTIVITY: PHONEME SWITCH:
- Switch or reverse sounds within a word
- “Say eat. Now say eat backwards.” (tea)
- “Say cheap. Now say cheap backwards.” (peach)
- “Say chum. Now say chum backwards.” (much)
- This one is super tricky, even for some adults! That’s why I’ve included it as a bonus challenge.
- Switch or reverse sounds within a word
Looking for a resource that has all of these games included in it? Check out my Phonological Awareness Sound Games! I’ve created games to go along with all the holidays and seasons.
PHONEMIC AWARENESS ON YOUTUBE
Want to see a video explaining this topic? Head to my YouTube channel to watch these videos: Phonemic Awareness, Test Your Phonemic Awareness Skills, and 6 Tips of Make Phonemic Awareness Fun:
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS E-BOOK
Would you rather have this information as a PDF download so you don’t have to navigate to all the different pages on my website? Check out my Phonological Awareness eBook and save yourself time!
If these phonemic awareness activities are helpful to you, let me know! You can comment below or find me on Instagram (@littleslovelearningblog).
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Happy Learning!