Phonemic Awareness

Definition Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to segment and manipulate the sounds of oral language. It is not the same as phonics, which involves knowing how written letters relate to spoken sounds. Activities that develop phonemic awareness in children provide practice with rhyme and with beginning sounds and syllables. Research has shown that a child’s awareness of the sounds of spoken words is a strong predictor of his or her later success in learning to read. Teachers of young children can encourage play with spoken language as part of a broader literacy program. Nursery rhymes, riddles, songs, poems, and read-aloud books that manipulate sounds are all effective vehicles. International Reading Association

Difficulty of Skill Sequence Rhyme (recognition, production) Alliteration Syllable Counting (blending, segmentation, deletion) Phoneme Isolation (initial, final) Phoneme Blending Phoneme Manipulation (addition, deletion, substitution, transposition)

Activities Rhyme Read or sing nursery rhymes Take turns saying words that rhyme Bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, gnat, pat, rat, that, vat, chat They can be real or make-believe words Questions Does _____ rhyme with _____? What rhymes with __________?

Activities Alliteration Read aloud Tongue Twisters (Peter Piper) Create new ones A name and job (Teresa Teacher) A simple sentence (Dogs dive.) A sentence (Donuts dipped in dots is delicious.)

Activities Syllable counting, blending, segmentation and deletion A syllable is a push of breath (hand under chin to feel the mouth open or hand in front of mouth to feel the push of breath) Say a word and count the syllables. (jump=1, castle=2, elephant=3) Blending: Say sea, wait 1-3 seconds, say shell. What’s the word? (compound words) Say win, wait 1-3 seconds, say ter. What’s the word? (multisyllabic word) Segmentation: Say cupcake. The child tells you the parts. Deletion: Say cupcake without the cup. Say winter without the ter.

Activities Phoneme Isolation Initial What is the first sound you hear in __________? Final What is the last sound you hear in ___________?

Activities Phoneme Blending Read my mind: starts with /p/ ends with /eek/ What am I saying? /p/ /ouch/ Same as above breaking it down into each individual sound. /p/ /ee/ /k/ Same as above breaking off the last sound. /pee/ /k/ Troll talk story that can be used for each of the above activities. Once upon a time, there was kind, little troll who loved to give people presents. The only catch was that the troll always wanted people to know what their present was before giving it to them. The problem was that the little troll had a very strange way of talking. If he was going to tell a child that the present was a bike, he would say /b/ /i/ /k/. Not until the child has guessed what the present was would he be completely happy. Now I will pretend to be the troll. I will name a surprise for you. When you figure it out, it will be your turn to be the troll.

Activities Phoneme Manipulation Addition: say /est/ add /w/ to the beginning; say/wes/ add /t/ to the end Deletion: say meat, say meat without the /m/; say meat, say meat without the /t/; say clap, say clap without the /c/; say clap, say clap without the /l/. Substitution: Say hard. Change /h/ to /k/. Transposition: Sunshine changes to shinesun

Activities Just plain silly Reverse words: song a sing of sixpence Substitute words: baa baa purple sheep, twinkle twinkle little car Swap word order: humpty dumpty wall on a sat, jack fell down and crown his broke Swap word parts: one two shuckle my shoe, I’m a tittle leapot, the eensy weensy spider went up the spouter wat Switch order of events: little miss muffet eating a tuffet sat on her curds and whey, goldilocks went inside and knocked on the door, the first little piggy built himself a house of bricks

Websites Click the For Parents on the menu bar. Go to the left column. Find Information For. Click Parents. Click Parents and After School Resources. Search by key word. Type in Phonemic Awareness Includes the origin and history of the rhyme. Includes music.

Books The Book of Pigericks by Arnold Lobel The Classic Mother Goose edited by Armand Eisen Fall (Winter, Spring) Phonemic Awareness Songs and Rhymes-Creative Teaching Press Mary Had a Little Jam and Other Silly Rhymes by Bruce Lansky formally titled The New Adventures of Mother Goose The Random House Book of Mother Goose by Arnold Lobel The Real Mother Goose Book of American Rhymes Selected by Debby Slier Richard Scarry’s Mother Goose Runny Babbit by Shel Silverstein Sheep series by Nancy Shaw Six Sick Sheep 101 Tongue Twisters by Joanna Cole and Stephanie Calmenson Working Out with Phonological Awareness-Thinking Publications

Credits The Source for Dyslexia and Dysgraphia by Regina G Richards How to Reach and Teach Students with Dyslexia: Practical Strategies and Activities for Helping Students with Dyslexia by Cynthia M. Stowe Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz Dyslexia: Definitions and Services powerpoint by Tracie Young