First things first... What is phonemic awareness? Is it the same as phonological awareness?
The answer? Phonemic awareness is under the umbrella of phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of words, Phonemic awareness is the ability to manipulate the sounds or phonemes in a spoken word.
Learning to read starts with phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness simply is listening to, producing and playing with sounds… If you are old like me, you may have developed most of your phonemic awareness skills from your parents singing nursery rhymes to you or by watching Sesame Street. I know my own kids developed a LOT of phonemic awareness from Blue’s Clues.
Where do I start teaching phonological awareness?Rhyming is usually the first skill that a child develops. They learn rhyming by hearing rhyming is books and songs. They start to hear that some words sound the same at the end. Nursery Rhymes are the absolute best way to practice rhyming.
After rhyming I find it easiest to think that there are two main goals of phonemic awareness…blending sounds together, and segmenting sounds apart. It is good to practice both skills daily.
Blending and Segmenting are the Big Picture
There are subcategories below each of these but if you start with blending and segment words, they might just get it with practicing at that level. If they cannot blend a word after a while independently, then try breaking it down to saying the syllables in a word, the first sound in the word and blending the onset and rime of the words.
Same with segmenting if they cannot segment all the sounds in the word then try segmenting off the first sound in the word. The ultimate goal is to be able to blend and segment words, and the quicker they can get to that goal the quicker they will become readers.
If your student can blend and segment 2-3 sound words, get them into text! Do not hold them back because they cannot do earlier phonemic awareness skills. The earlier skills are just steps to help to the blending and segmenting. Some kids might not need the steps, they can just jump to the top.
How to Teach Phonemic Awareness
When I first started learning about phonemic awareness, it was thought to be something that is can be “done in the dark”. There is more research out now that encourages you to included print into your phonemic awareness practice as early as possible. This helps get that brain firing.
This can be as simple as using words that you will be teaching in your phonics lesson.
SEGMENTING:
Your script could be...
Tell me all the sounds you hear in the word…
Say a word to the student and have them break the word into sounds.
Example:
Teacher: Tell me all the sounds you hear in the word cat.
Student: /c/ /a/ /t/
Segmenting Ideas
Segmenting "Mother May I" : Have two to three students stand side by side. Give the first students a word. They can take a step for each sound in the word. Give the next student a word they can take a step for each sound they hear. The student that reaches you first is the winner.
Hop the sounds: Instead of having the students just say the sound. Have them hop out the sounds like a rabbit. Get them up and moving. Gross motor activities always gets the brain wiring!
Pull apart the sounds: Use a slinky. Pull is slowly apart as you say the sounds in a word.
BLENDING:
Your script could be...
I’m going to say the sounds in the word, you tell me the word...
Say the sounds of a word to the student...
Example:
Teacher: I'm going to say the sounds in the word, you tell me the word, /c/ /a/ /t/.
Student: cat
Blending Ideas:
Get them moving: Have students hop for each sound in the word then blend the word, jumping jack the sounds, squat the sounds…
Give each student a letter in a word have them stand in front of the class and each say their sound and have the class blend the word.
**MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE activity to do with both segmenting and blending is to line students up by calling out the student's name in letter sounds and having them try to figure out who the student is. It is also fun for students to break apart the sounds in their friends' names.
Phonemic Awareness Lesson Plans
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