In my last blog post here, I talked some ways to incorporate phonemic awareness into your classroom each day. I also touched on the current debate surrounding phonemic awareness. Long story short, the notion that teaching phonemic awareness a the advanced level (adding, deleting, and substitution) not connected to print, may not be as beneficial as we once thought. What we do know is that there is a strong connection between phonemic awareness (specifically blending and segmenting) and the alphabetic principle (letter sound knowledge)

So today, I am going to break down how I plan a lesson for those two components! In an effort to keep it simple, I am going to to stick with a set of sounds. You can change these sounds out depending on the needs of your students.

The lesson walk through-

Step 1: Visual Drills

Compile a stack of known letters and sounds and show them to the students. The students see the letter/sound and produce the sound.

Step 2: Auditory Drills

Provide students with cues- “What letter represents /mmmm/ the students then right the letter /m/ as they say its sound. **Note- This is an excellent time to tie in a multisensory approach. I love using sand trays and mesh screens!

Step 3: Phonemic Awareness

I love to include both blending and segmenting each day as we orally practice phonemic awareness.

Step 4: Explicit Sound Instruction

When introducing a new sound, it is important to follow these steps.

This letter d represents the /d/ sound. When I say the sound /d/ I place my tongue and mouth like this. Using mirrors can be extremely helpful for students during this process. I give each student a pocket mirror and let them practice saying the sound as they watch what their mouth and tongue look like.
Let's practice saying the sound /d/ /d/ /d/ - Have students practice pronouncing the sound several times as they point to the letter.
Let's see if we can find the letter /d/. Provide students with letter maps, magnetic letters or a white board with the letters. Have students cover the letter on the map, pull down the magnetic letter, or erase the sound on the whiteboard as they find it.
Practice the letter form. Students need explicit and repetitive practice forming the letters. It is important that we use the appropriate letter cues as it makes it concrete for them. It is also important that all teachers who work with students use the same verbal cues. For example: When we write the letter d we say “circle back, up, up and right back down).

Step 5: Begin to Merge Letter Sounds and Phonemic Awareness

This step may take time. It is important to allow students the time they need to master this while still applying that gradual pressure. It is also important to only begin blending and segmenting KNOWN sounds for this step. For example: If a group of student have mastered the sounds /b/ /m/ /t/ /s/ and /a/. An appropriate activity for them would be to blend words or rimes with those sounds.

bat, mat, sat, tab, sam

As you begin this process, students often struggle to apply speech sounds to print. If you notice this is an issue, practice blending and segmenting two sounds instead of three.