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Hearing and manipulating the sounds in language are important skills for learning to read. Phonemic awareness and letter knowledge have been identified in several research studies as the two key indicators of how well children will master beginning reading skills during the first two years in school. (The Threads of Reading by Karen Tankersly at ascd.org)

Understanding Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Both are about the ability to hear & manipulate the sounds in language…

• Phonological Awareness – in words & syllables
  • Phonemic Awareness – at the phoneme (individual sounds within words) level.

A Phonological and Phonemic Awareness tutorial at Wakelet includes videos to watch.

Printable Charts:

This chart runs top to bottom

Build a foundation of skills with increasing difficulty from bottom to top with this chart.

These Phonological and Phonemic Awareness charts are available free at the Super Tutor Tools store at Teachers Pay Teachers Super Tutor store.

More Resources

• Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Skills from Clever Classroom
• Developmental Sequence from Make, Take, Teach

Phonological Interventions for Struggling Readers from Learning at the Primary Pond has this illustration of the progression of skills, and lots of ideas for activities for developing them.

Phonological Awareness at Dyslexia Help and readingresource.net provide helpful explanations.

ACTIVITIES

Use CVC picture cards to rhyme, say the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd sound, or listen for the difference between two.

Sightwords.com has great resources for phonological and phonemic awareness. More activities for phonemic awareness at Reading Rockets. In phonological and phonemic awareness, the emphasis is on hearing sounds. The activities below can be helpful additions to a Phonics Kit.

Rhyming

• Rhyming Quilts from lakeshorelearning.com
• Play the Word Family Treasure game (free at the Super Tutor Tools store)

Syllable Counting: clap or tap, or feel your mouth drop.

• Syllable Sort from Peterson’s Pad
• Use animal flashcards from supersimple and sort by how many syllables.
• Play Syllable Softball from sightwords.com.

Compound Words

• Capture the Compounds from firstgradealacarte
• Compound word games from thisreadingmama
• Compound word list from allaboutlearningpress

Syllable Manipulation: WordList (pdf) to blend, segment or delete syllables.

Identify initial sounds

• Clip strips from the measured mom.
• Beginning Sound Picture Sorts from the measured mom. Match magnetic letters to pictures with Dig up the Letters.
• Another magnetic letter match with Beginning Sound Magnet Match from the kindergarten connection.
• Identify more sounds with grapheme match cards from getreadingright.com.au/

Phoneme blending

• Blend onset and rime with Clip Strips, Little Bunny phonogram sliders or other word family sliders.
• Short Vowel Sliders from themeasuredmom, Word Slider Cards from deceptivelyeducational. (put these in an envelope w/end cut off or a pencil box & slide out one sound at a time)

Phoneme segmenting

• Cards with Elkonin boxes from Kimberly’s Kindergarten.

Phoneme segmenting and manipulation

• Word list for deleting and substituting from ontrackreading
• Word Building and Substitution free from Super Tutor Tools at Teachers Pay Teachers. Start with a word, then change one sound at a time and identify the letter.

PLAY Online games: Phonemic Awareness Symbaloo

Some online games require flash, which is no longer supported after 12/31/2020. There is a workaround with the Ruffle fix at The End of Flash. Clever Learner and others are working with the work-around on a laptop. Some more mobile friendly games are collected at this Symbaloo. More online games at these Symbaloo collections Abcya is free on pc only.

• Rhyming: Alphabats at abcya, Partners in Rhyme at Turtle Diary, Rhyme Roundup at roomrecess, at cleverlearner, Words that Rhyme at Roy the Zebra.
• Alliteration: Alphabats at abcya
• Syllables: Alphabats at abcya, Silly Bulls at spellingcity.com. see more at syllables
• Compound Words: Slimezilla at abcya, matching at education.com with account
• Blending: Short vowel machines at starfall, short vowels at kizphonics. more advanced: Fuzz bugs farm at abcya. see more at blends and blending
• Beginning sounds: beginning sounds at roomrecess, Picture match from read,write, think, Clifford from Scholastic, Initial Sounds at funfonix (click on Game, then Collect the Stars), First Sounds at First Phonics
• Middle Sounds: Word Gobble at Funbrain Jr., Alpha-Cat at Room Recess, Middle & Ending Sounds from cleverlearner.com,
• Categorize: Odd Word Out at splashlearn.com and Odd Sound Out from phonicsbloom.com.
• Substitute: Viking at ictgames, word ladders and word chains at turtlediary

Archived-sadly, both Literactive and Professorgarfield seem to be no longer available.

At Professorgarfield: Rhyme-Meet the gang, Blending-Hayloft & Orson’s Waller, Categorize-Chicken Coop, Delete- Pumpkin Patch, Substitute-Lanolin’s Greenhouse. Beginning & Ending sounds- Fishing with Phonics.

At Literactive: Drums, Rhyming: Lovebirds and Fish, Initial sounds: Easel & Nine Squares,  Middle sounds: Sliding Beaver, Final sounds: Slides and Garden leaves. Odd one out: Laying Hens, Final: slides & garden leaves, Categorize: Laying Hens, Substitute: magic lantern.

Download a Chart with online games in the sequence to build phonological awareness skills.