Making the Most of Phonemic Awareness

Meet Sara! Sara is in a first grader who struggles to read. Here are the things her teacher notices about Sara as she reads.

Her reading is slow and labored. She often stumbles over words and she is unable to sound them out.
She uses ALOT of picture support.
She looks at the first letter and guesses the rest of the word.
She often gets stuck and waits for someone to tell her the word.

Does this sound familiar? We have all had a Sara in our class. If I had to guess, I would say that Sara did not have a strong background in phonemic awareness.

Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in a spoken language. It is the highest level of phonological awareness and has many components of it's own. These components are blending, segmenting, deletion, addition, and substitution

Phonemic Awareness serves as a prerequisite for phonics and reading. Without it, neither really make sense. So, I am sure that you are asking yourself- If it is so important, how do I make the most of it? Well, I am here to help! Below I am sharing some phonemic awareness activities that are both engaging and effective. These activities can be done in small group in less than 3 minutes!

Blend it! Flip it!

Give each student 2-4 picture cards. Call out the pictures segmenting each sound /c/ /a/ /t/. Ask the students to listen carefully for their picture. If they hear it, they have to blend it back together (cat) and flip over their card. The first student to have all of their cards flipped over wins!

Meet Penelope

Let me just say, Penelope and I are BFFS. The kids absolutely love her. The game is simple. Penelope says a words very slow (segmenting) and the students have to help her say it fast (blending)!

Spin a Sound

This activity is used to help students determine where sounds are in words. Students doing this activity should be very good a segmenting phonemes before they play! Use a pencil and a paper clip to spin the spinner. When the spinner lands, say a word or show the students a picture card. Ask the students to segment that word by touching the dots. Then ask them to tell you what the first, medial or last sound of that word is. Click the link at the bottom of this post to get this activity FREE.

Light it Up

If you want an engaging way to get your kiddos to practice segmenting, give them a couple picture cards and three push lights. Ask them to push the light for each sound they hear in the word.