Phonological

awareness in childrenBased on compilation by J. Sheils & Y. Sawyers

Contents Level 1: Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

Level 2: Word awareness

Level 3: Rhyme recognition and production

Level 4: Recognition and production of syllables

Level 5: Recognition and production of initial sounds

Level 6: Recognition and production of final sounds

Level 7: Blending Phonemes

Level 8: Phonemic segmentation

Level 9: Phoneme Manipulation

Level 1:Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

Hearing Learning Reciting

LITERACY SKILLS

Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

Process to help the children to develop an ear for

rhyme:

1. Telling them that the words sound the same at the

end

2. Reading aloud, reciting and encouraging them to

recite and sing.

Selecting rhymes, jingles, poems, etc.:

Rhyming words

Easier if rhyming words are situated in close proximity

to one another. I.e.: better AAAA or AABB than ABAB

Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

Questions about a rhyme:

Which word does NOT rhyme?

Can you think of a word that rhymes with _______?

Which word has a DIFFERENT end sound?

Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

Some suggestions

• One, two, three, four, five

• 1, 2, tie my show

• Five little monkeys jumping on the bed

• Number Rhyme

• Five little fishes swimming in the pool

Numbers

• It’s raining, it’s pouring

• Rain rain go away

• In Autumn when the trees are brown

• Red and yellow

Weather, seasons,…

Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

Some suggestions

• My hands upon my head I’ll place

• Read to me (for telling stories activities)

• Glue poem

• Everybody have a seat

• Sitting on the floor

• Our voices

• Birthday Chant (rhyme to ask someone’s birthday)

Classroom routines/ managing

• I have a little toothbrush

Hygiene

Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

Some suggestions

• Hey Diddle Diddle!

• Dickey, dickery, dare

• Hark, hark! The dogs do bark

• Doctor Foster went to Gloucester

• Hickory, dickory, dock

• Humpty Dumpty

• The kites go up

• … (pages 5 to 12 in the package)

Other suggested rhymes

Level 2:Word awareness

Word awareness

Awareness of words in spoken and

written language

Learning to read and write

Words in a sentence

Syllables in a word

Isolated phoneme synthesis and segmentation

Word awareness

• Words are part of sentences

• Tell a story (clapping words)

• Using familiar rhymes (reciting from right to left)

• Game: One potato

• Compound words (with pictures)

• Word counting

• Breaking sentences

Some suggested activities

Level 3:Recognition & Production of Rhyme

Recognition & production of

Rhyme

Visual representation of the words

Words presented completely orally

End-sound awareness

Metalingüisticundestanding

directly

common words

common letter

sequences

Indirectly

Intra-word segmentation (phonemes)

• Body name game

• Rhyming game (different variations: songs, poems, clap rap,…)

• Put your thumbs up

• Making Funny Sentences

• Pebble game

• You can come sailing on my ship

• Silly Rhymes Big Book

• Did you ever ever…?

• …

Some suggested activities

Recognition & production of

Rhyme

Level 4:Recognition & Production of syllables

Recognition & production of

syllables

Early stages

• Visual representations

Later

• Spelling

*Syllables can be represented by any number of letters from one to nine.

• Clapping syllables

• Silly syllable puppet

• Ticki Ticki Tembo

• Bibbity Bibbity Bumble Bee

• Clap Clap your hands

• Syllable groups

• Teacher may we?

• Feel the syllables

Some suggested activities

Recognition & production of

Syllables

Level 5:Recognition & Production of Initial

Sounds

Recognition & production of

Initial Sounds

Initial sound activities show children that:

• words contain phonemes

• introduces how phonemes sound

and feel when spoken in isolation

Individual phonemes are more difficult because

of “co-articulation”

• Phoneme train

• I’m thinking of Something

• Beds and boulders, bees and bows

• Simon says

• Ride the train

• Going shopping

• I went on a trip

• Personal tongue twisters

• Initial sound clap

• Circle swap shop

• …

Some suggested activities

Recognition & production of

Initial Sounds

Level 6:Recognition & Production of Final

Sounds

Recognition & production of

Final Sounds

Final sound activities show children that:

• words contain phonemes

• introduces how phonemes sound

and feel when spoken in isolation

Individual phonemes are more difficult because

of “co-articulation”

• Can you say?

• Final Sound Song

• Last Sound Last

• Secret sound

• Beginning, middle or end?

• Bag game

• …

Some suggested activities

Recognition & production of

Final Sounds

Level 7 & 8:Blending phonemes &

Phonemic segmentation

Blending phonemes &

Phonemic Segmentation

Blending phonemes

• A word is presented with the individual phonemes isolated. The child needs to put the phonemes together to make the word.

Phonemic segmentation

A child is given a word and is required to isolate the individual phonemes.

*Note: These tasks can be presented as onset and rime or phoneme by

phoneme.

•Guess it

•Mystery Sentences

•Mail Game

•Old McDonals had a box

•If you think you know

•Sound it out song

•Boingy Elastic Band Game

•Segmentation Cheer/Chant

•Using a Phoneme Frame

•Bag Game

•Phoneme blocks

•Drawing Lines on Pictures

•…

Some suggested activities

Blending phonemes &

Phonemic Segmentation

Level 9:Phoneme manipulation

Phoneme manipulation

Phoneme manipulation is the ability to:

• Delete initial and final phonemes in words.

• Delete the first phoneme of a consonant

blend as well as substitute one phoneme for

another.

It’s sited that approximately 7 years od age

children are able to perform phoneme deletion

tasks adequately.

• Simon says

• Row row your boat

• Consonant Riddles

• Alien Game

• Switcheroo

• Pick it out

• What’s missing?

• Help a puppet to say words correctly

• …

Some suggested activities

Phonemic manipulation

The end