Phonological Awareness
The school year has begun and the kindergartners are already building a strong foundation in pre-reading skills. One of the very first skill sets that we begin working on is phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is the foundation for reading: recognizing and manipulating sounds in spoken words. This important concept prepares emerging readers with the prereading skills they need to be ready to decode, blend, and ultimately, read! You may remember my previous post on the activities related to the book, “The Hungry Thing.” Here is that post again to refresh! (Click on the underlined words to take you to my Amazon Associates links.)
I loved the project we did last year, that I had to do it again this year. Look how cute our Hungry Things are:
We have been focusing on several areas of phonological awareness, including orally segmenting sounds in words, identifying the number of syllables in words, identifying the number of words in a sentence, and changing the beginning sounds in words. Here are some of my favorite tools to use to practice these important skills.
These super cool Pop It Blocks can link together! So, I can quickly change up the number a student needs. For example, if we are orally identifying sounds in the word pan, I would give the student a row of at least three Pop-It Blocks. Then, as they say each sound, they pop each block…/p/ /a/ /n/. Students can’t get enough! These can be used to pop syllables in words and even identify the number of words in a sentence.
Just like Pop It Blocks are a great way to practice phonological awareness, using Play-dough provides a kinesthetic learning experience as well…and using play-dough strengthens fine motor skills! To practice counting syllables in words, I have students roll some little play-dough balls. They then say the word, butterfly, for example. As they say the word, they then squish the corresponding number of play-dough balls. Squishing play-dough balls can be used for orally identifying the sounds in words and identifying the number of words in a sentence.
Another way to make practicing phonological awareness fun is to use a light table.
I have copied sound boxes onto old overhead projector transparencies. Students choose a CVC picture card and then move a fun, acrylic manipulative into each box to represent each sound. Or they can map the sounds and break apart each sound they hear by moving a transparent magnetic chip into each sound box. Then, students can use a magnetic wand to scoop up the chips. They LOVE this!
Phonological Awareness is a skill we will practice every day in Kindergarten! I will be sure to share some activities you can do at home in a future post.
