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By Wiley Blevins
Young children who
have difficulty learning to read and spell may be hampered by poor phonemic
awareness. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are made
of discrete sounds (not the same as phonics, which involves the relationship
between sounds and written symbols.) If youngsters cannot distinguish
individual sounds, or phonemes, within words, they will have difficulty
as they learn to read and write.
Giving pre-readers in kindergarten and first grade a solid foundation
in phonemic awareness is crucial to ensuring their later success in phonics-based
reading and spelling instruction. Fortunately, it's easy and fun to integrate
phonemics into your classroom routine. The following are aimed at teaching
two basic phonemic awareness tasks: oral blending and oral segmentation.
In each one, begin by breaking down words according to onset (the part
of the syllable that comes before the vowel; for instance, the sound /k/
in cat) and rime (the vowel and any consonants that follow it in
a syllable; e.g., at in cat). As children master this, move on
to phoneme-by-phoneme blending and segmenting (/k/ /a/ /t/).
Oral
Blending
Oral blending exercises
help children hear how sounds are put together to make words so that they
can begin sounding out words independently as they read.
Guess It In this activity you orally segment words and have
the class try to guess what they are. For example, you might tell children
that you are thinking of the names of farm animals. Teacher: "I'm
thinking of an animal. It's a /p/... ig. What am I thinking of?"
Children: "A pig!" Continue with other categories such as zoo
animals, classroom objects, numbers, colors, or household items.
Blend Baseball Divide the class into two teams. As the "pitcher,"
you say aloud a word in parts, such as /s/ /a/ /t/. If the child who is
"at bat" can successfully blend the word, he or she goes to
first base. Proceed just as in baseball, with each team earning a point
when a child makes it to home plate.
Oral
Segmentation
Oral segmentation
activities help children separate words into sounds, helping kids build
skills that will support spelling.
What's the Sound? Write the song "What's the Sound?"
(below) on chart paper. Singing to the tune of "Old MacDonald,"
point to the words as you say them. Sing the song several times, encouraging
the class to join in.
What's the sound that these words share?
Listen to these words.
Sad and silly are these two words.
Tell me what you've heard. (ssssssss)
With an /s/, /s/ here and an
/s/, /s/ there.
Here an /s/, there an /s/,
everywhere an /s/, /s/.
/S/ is the sound that these words share.
We can hear that sound!
As you continue to sing the song, replace the words "sad and silly"
with other pairings such as "mop and money"; "leaf and
lucky"; and "ten and table."
Where Is It? This activity helps youngsters differentiate
sound position in words. Have children draw three boxes, connected horizontally,
on a sheet of paper. Distribute some sort of counter or marker to each
child (bottle caps or checkers will do). Explain that you are going to
say a list of words. Each word contains the sound /s/, some at the beginning,
some in the middle, and some at the end. If students hear /s/ at the beginning
of the word, they are to place the counter in the first box; if they hear
it in the middle, the counter goes in the second box; at the end of the
word, in the last box. Begin with the following word list: send, missing,
sock, bus, less, passing, messy, safe. Continue the game with other sounds.
As you integrate phonemics into your teaching, you will be taking a vital
step toward ensuring your students' long-term reading success.
This lesson is adapted
from Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Reading, by Wiley
Blevins (Scholastic Professional Books, 1999). To order this book, phone
1-800-SCHOLASTIC.
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