5 Ways to Incorporate Phonemic Awareness Every Day
Phonemic Awareness is one of the most important skills we can teach to our early readers. David Kilpatrick says “The most common source reading difficulties is poor phonemic awareness.” He also says that there is no age limit on teaching phonemic awareness. It is important that we teach our students the skills they need to be successful, regardless of their age. If you want to learn a little more about what phonemic awareness is, you can click here and here.
Today, I am going to break down a five easy ways to incorporate phonemic awareness in your classroom, each day. These activities can be done in less than 5 minutes!
We all know that phonemic awareness is a hot topic right now. BUT.. we also know that without a doubt, it needs to be taught! It is one of the critical components to our readers journey! If you want to read more about the buzz, check out my friend Savannah’s Post over at Campbell Creates Readers! Let’s dive in!
Add Movement
I was working with a group of kindergarteners the other day. We were desperately trying to get them to segment words orally using mini erasers and segmentation boxes. They just COULD NOT get it. I decided to have them stand up in line. I had them step out to segment each sound in the word. For example: If the word was /cat/. Student one steps out and says /c/, student 2 steps out and says /a/, and student 3 steps out and says /t/. They all step back against the wall together and say (blend) the word back together /cat/.
This activity helped them to understand the process of segmenting. They were able then to go back to the table and segment words using the erasers and boxes.
Transition TImes
How many times do you call your students to line up, go to the carpet, or come to the small group table a day. My guess? More than 10. I love practicing blending during this time. I simply say: If you are wearing “r-e-d” please come to the carpet. If you are wearing “b-l-a-ck” please come to the carpet. Students are then forced to listen to the sounds I am saying, blend them back together, and decide if that is a color they are wearing. You can do this with names, table numbers, group names, etc.
Morning Meeting
Do you have a morning meeting time? Most kindergarten and first grade teachers have a time designated as “carpet time.” It is usually in the morning and all students come to the carpet for a quick lesson. Why not add in some phonemic awareness time here. Grab a brown bag and some picture cards. Say: I am going to pull a card out of my mystery bag. I want you to listen carefully as I say the word slow and I want you to see if you can hear the whole word. Like this (teacher pulls a card very mysteriously out of the bag and says /b/ /u/ /g/ all the students say BUG!
Hang man…well sort of.
Do you ever have just a few minutes before lunch, recess, or dismissal? Why don’t you play hang man. I have to be honest here and say, I feel certain I would get a parent complaint for playing hangman ( I know… it’s just the world we live in). So instead, I usually try to draw a picture. A great picture for this time of year is a snowman. While this is "technically” a phonics game, we are still incorporating phonemic awareness.
Here’s how you play:
Choose a word - ship
Draw the number of sounds ___ ___ ___
Provide support by giving students a small bank of sounds ( sh, a, t, p, c, m)
Ask students to guess sounds. If they get a sound correct, fill in the blank, if they don’t begin drawing your snowman.
Once students get the word, practice blending and segmenting several times together.
Blending Drills
Blending drills are a quick and easy way to practice phonemic awareness (and phonics). Grab a white board and practice with your students. First write the sounds, then write the word. Like this:
What’s this sound? /s/
What’s this sound? /a/
What’s this sound? /t/
Let’s put it together: /ssssssaaaaaat/ SAT!
Phonemic awareness is such an important skill to incorporate daily. It needs lots and lots of modeling and lots of review. Anytime we can squeeze it in and add a little phonics to it, we are helping our kiddos get one step closer to becoming proficient readers.
What ways do you incorporate phonemic awareness in your classroom daily?
