10 Super Fun Phonemic Awareness Activities

 

Rhythm and Rhyme Activities

Hearing and identifying similar word patterns (sound matching) and listening for and detecting spoken syllables (syllable counting)

1. Noisy Nursery-Rhymes

• Ask your child what it means when words rhyme.
• Ask your child to give you an example.
• Share some rhyming words with your child by saying three words, two of which rhyme, and have children identify the rhyming pair.
• Tell children the number of rhyming pairs in a nursery rhyme (e.g., Jill, hill) and challenge them to listen for and find them as you read aloud.
• (optional) Give your child a noisemaker or musical instrument (triangle, bell, etc.).
• Read the nursery rhyme again, and invite your child to use their noisemaker each time they hear the second half of a rhyming pair.

2. Sound Favorites
   • Have your child practice phoneme matching by asking them to name his or her favorite hobby or treat. Explain that “favorites” must begin with the same sound as the child’s name. (e.g., Patty and peanut butter)
   • Invite children to “introduce” people they know by telling what he or she likes. For example, Grace likes grapes and granola. Samantha likes swimming.

3. Hink Pink 
   • Explain to children the definition of hink pink – a pair of rhyming words that answers a riddle.
   • Read aloud the following riddles, and invite children to guess the hink-pink answer:
     • What do you call a chubby kitty? (fat cat)
     • What do you call a crying father? (sad dad)
     • What do you call a rabbit who tells jokes? (funny bunny)
   • Invite your child to think of other rhyming pairs.
   • See if you can use these words to make clues for new hink pinks.

 

Parts of a Word

Identifying onsets and rimes (syllable splitting) and blending individual sounds to form a word (phoneme blending)

An onset is all of the sounds in a word that come before the first vowel. A rime is the first vowel in a word and all the sounds that follow. For example, in the word flight , the onset is fl- and the rime is –ight.

4. Who Did You Catch? 
   • Practice blending onsets and rimes (e.g., r-at, bl-ock)
   • Then, teach your child how to sing the following verse to the tune of “A-Hunting We Will Go”

A-searching we will go, a-searching we will go,

We’ll find a /c/ and add a /ow/,

and now we have a cow!

• Repeat the verse using other onsets and rimes.
• To begin, use animal names (as these are typically more familiar for children), then switch to word families such as -at (bat, hat, sat) and -og (frog, bog, log). For more advanced learning, segment the word into individual phonemes or switch the sounds around. For example, We’ll catch an /at/ and add a /c/, and now we have a cat!

5. Mystery Code 
   • Tell your child you are going to say words in a “secret code,” and the key to “unlocking” the code is to extend and blend the sounds together. Give an example: If I say /h/ /a/ /m/, you say ham.
   • Provide additional words and see if your child can solve the mystery code.

6. Bubble Gum Words 
   • This helps children slow down as they pronouce words. By slowing down they are better able to hear sounds that make up words.
   • Say a word. (This could be a familiar word from their reading or thier environment.)
   • Have children repeat each word slowly, putting their hands to their mouths and pretending to s-t-r-e-t-c-h bubble gum out in front of them.
   • Repeat with other words.

 

Sequence of Sounds

Identifying where a given sound is heard in a word (approximation) and identifying beginning, middle, and ending sounds in a word (phoneme isolation)

7. Mystery Trip 
   • Choose a specific sound pattern such as the beginning sound /b/. Explain that you are packing a suitcase for a special trip, and only the items that have the “secret sound” in their names will fit in the suitcase.
   • Reveal objects and place them in the suitcase (all of which fit the secret sound pattern, such as bunny and ball). Invite your child to “pack” an object, when they think they know the sound. Make sure to have them say the name aloud. Tell your child whether or not their object fits (contains the secret sound).
   • Ask your child to name the secret sound.
   • Ask your child if they can think of any other objects that would “fit” in the suitcase.
   • Play again using other secret sounds.

Click here to check out the video of us packing for a “trip.”

 

Separation of Sounds

Counting the number of phonemes in a word (phoneme counting) and identifying individual sounds within a word (phoneme segmentation).

8. I Spy – helps children with phoneme counting and phoneme isolation
   • Have children identify “spied” objects by listening to your phoneme clues. Invite them to guess after each clue is give. For example,
     • I spy an object with three sounds in its name.
     • I spy an object with three sounds in its name and the first one is /b/.
     • I spy an object with three sounds in its name and the first one is /b/ and the last is /k/.
     • I spy an object with three sounds in its name and the first one is /b/, and the last is /k/, and it rhymes with look.
     • Repeat with different objects.

 

Manipulation of Sounds

Substituting beginning, middle, and ending sounds of a word (phoneme substitution) and omitting beginning, middle, and ending sounds of a word (phoneme deletion)

 

9. Change the Vowel –

• Choose a one syllable word (sat, car) and give your child each of the letters one by one. The letters can be magnetic letters, foam/felt letters, blocks with letters, or even bath letters.
• Encourage your child to say each phoneme (sound) separately as you give them each of the letters.
• Have your child blend all of the sounds together to say the word.
• Replace the vowel in the middle of the word, creating a new word (sat, sit, set, sot).
• Ask your child whether each new word is a real word or a “nonsense” word.
• Try again with other words (some examples: big, red, pig, ran, put, top) 

This same process can be used to explore how changing the beginning sound or the ending sound changes a word. The photographs above show how we used Letter Cookies from Learning Resources to make words by changing the ending sound. 

 

10.  Word-family Chain 

• Tell your child that you are going to make a word-family chain. (You can make this competitive and state that the last person to be able to give a new word is the winner or you can just play without having a winner.)
• Tell your child that you are going to say a word and then they need to say a new word in the same word family by changing the beginning sound. They also need to be able to tell what letter was added to make the new word. Tell your child that you will take turns giving a new word until no one can think of a new word to add to the “chain.”
• Choose a word family such as –ack, -ad, -ake, -ick, -ill, -it, -ot, -ug, -un
• Start the “chain” by saying a word in the word family.
• Your child will say a new word by changing the beginning phoneme and saying what letter they substituted at the beginning.
• Take turns until you cannot think of any more words in the word family.
• Continue playing with new word families.

 

We hope you enjoy these quick and playful activities! It is great to have these ready when we are in the car or waiting for appointments or out to eat. Please leave a comment and let us know what your favorite phonemic awareness activities are.