Phonological Awareness

Isolating Phonemes

This strategy of isolating phonemes (or sounds of meaning) allows students to increase in their phonemic awareness skills. When utilizing this strategy, students can practice identifying the phonemes they hear, see, and read in the words based on position, such as, the first sound, middle sound, or ending/last sound in a word.

Learning Tasks:

• Tell how you would use this strategy in your teaching.
• Use a visual or graphic to depict how you would isolate phonemes. What might this look like on the board or on paper as you carry out this strategy for students?

Discussion Questions:

• What do you anticipate as being a challenge with implementing this strategy in your teaching?
• Had you heard of this strategy prior to reading about it here? Does it remind you of any other strategies?

Practice Blending Sounds, Diphthongs (oy, ey, ai), and Digraphs (ph, sh, th)

The ability to blend diphthongs and digraphs allows students to decode letter & sound combinations. Students should be able to understand sound/letter one-to-one correspondence prior to sound-symbol phonetic coding. It is important for students to understand the connections between letter names and the sounds made by them when implementing working with digraphs. Through this strategy, the students begin to understand that letters make words.

Learning Tasks:

• View video and read the checklist of how to use the strategy.
• Is it important that your students can “sound-out” dipthongs and digraphs? What is the definition of a dipthong and a digraph?
• After engaging in this activity using letter tiles; do the same activity with large cut out letters that you can spread out on the floor. Have the student jump to the appropriate letter that you call out, or ask the student to choose a letter, jump on it, and say the name and sound of the letter.
• Create a BDA (Before, During, and After) framework that utilizes this strategy. Think about the steps that will occur before the strategy, during the strategy, and after the strategy is incorporated into your instruction. Be explicit and list the steps you will carry out for successful implementation of this strategy in your teaching.

Discussion Questions:

• What sounds do the students already know?
• What can you do for a student who lacks confidence in sounding out words?
• Why is it important to turn this strategy into a matching game?
• Why is it important for beginning readers to learn phonological awareness skills at such a young age?
• Why do you think letter knowledge is considered an important cognitive foundation for students learning to read?
• How does analyzing the structure of words affect fluency?
• What is phonological awareness, and why is it important to beginning reading success?
• What are some effective principles that should guide phonological awareness instruction?
• What principles should guide the assessment of phonological awareness to help students understand sound/symbol association?

Clapping Out Syllables

This is a multisensory strategy that allows students to consider how many parts are in a word and to use kinesthetic learning to clap out the syllables of a word. Students should clap as they say the syllable or each part of the word.

Learning Tasks:

• Tell how you would implement this strategy into your teaching. Describe in at least four sentences.
• Use a visual or graphic to list the ways this strategy taps into multisensory learning.

Discussion Questions:

• What are other ways to incorporate multisensory learning into your instruction on syllables besides clapping out the syllables?
• Have you experienced this strategy as a student yourself or observed it in a classroom setting? Describe your experience(s) in three to five sentences.

Combine Word Patterns to Build Compound Words

Compound word strategies involve analyzing words and recognizing smaller or simpler words before connecting them together to form new words that are a bit more complex. This strategy incorporates building on previous student knowledge.

Learning Tasks:

• Create a list of short, simple, sight words. Jot down some word patterns you observe in the words. Next, combine words together to form new compound words taking note of any changes to the original words that may occur.
• Choose a specific content area or subject. Time yourself for 60 seconds as you generate a list of as many content area vocabulary terms you can think of during that timeframe. Once the time is up, use a highlighter to identify any words from your list that can be classified as a compound word.

Discussion Questions:

• What part of this strategy will help students to understand the word better and what parts of the strategy will perhaps make it harder for students to understand the word? Why?
• In your opinion, when utilizing this strategy, does it help to have hyphenated words or does it make it harder?
• Do you think that you will be able to try this strategy when reading a hard compound word on your own?

Compound Words

It is important for students to obtain  automaticity in reading; rather than always having to decode a word. Teaching students to recognize compound words is one strategy for improving word recognition and automaticity.

Learning Tasks:

• After presenting a mini-lesson on “compound words”, and modeling how to find compound words, have students engage in a Word Hunt.
• Supply a variety of resources (e.g., books,  magazines, newspapers, online links), and allow students to find compound words.
• Students write and share words found from a variety of resources.

Discussion Questions:

• Can you demonstrate how long it might take a person to decode an unknown compound word versus how fast it is to automatically know or recognize the word as a compound word?
• Is the strategy motivational for students as a multi-modal activity? If so, did you remember to model and provide the process for the Word Hunt (e.g., collaborate with partner or team, seek words, record words, share words)?

Search for Small Words Inside Big Words

Searching for shorter words inside bigger words is a strategy that allows children to break down sight words easily which assists with reading comprehension. This strategy involves word study thereby allowing students to analyze patterns in words.

Learning Tasks:

• Select a reading passage. Underline five to ten words in each paragraph. Now take a look at the words that were underlined and determine if any smaller words were present in the bigger words. Circle the smaller words. Consider how you might implement this sort of activity with your students. What are some considerations to keep in mind?
• Make a list of common word patterns that exist within the English language. Once you have five different word patterns you have thought of, look up a newspaper article of a current event. Within that article, see if you can locate any of the five word patterns. Next, as you see the word patterns, check to see if any of the words that contain the patterns are made up of smaller words in bigger words.

Discussion Questions:

• Have you used this strategy in your practice? If yes, describe when. If no, share how you might use this strategy in the future.
• Describe in three to five sentences the benefits of teaching students to search for small words inside big words when focusing on reading comprehension.

Mystery Bag

The Mystery Bag strategy is a multi-modal activity supporting phonemic awareness, including segmenting and blending. The student is involved in articulating the sound of each letter as he or she removes the letter from the bag. This activity can be used with a variety of individuals (e.g., the teacher, aide, paraeducator, or peer partner).

Learning Tasks:

• Children love the “mystery” related to this strategy. Think about how this activity can be useful peer-to-peer. What factors does the educator need to consider before implementing this strategy?
• Allow for partner practice by involving a child who has excelled in this skill to engage with a peer or group of peers.
• Involve a tutor, aide, paraeducator, and/or volunteer to assist with this activity. Train the person in how to implement the strategy with fidelity utilizing the checklist and ensure that individual can accurately record the data.

Discussion Questions:

• How does this activity relate to phonemic awareness?
• Would there be benefits in completing this activity with other tangibles?
• How could this activity be adapted to meet the needs of diverse learners?
• What strategies/methods would be useful to introduce to preschoolers and kindergartners to practice phonemic awareness?
• List two or three specific ways or strategies you can help a student who is struggling with blending phonemes.

Drawing a Phonetic Alphabet

Providing students with a phonemic sound and allowing them to draw pictures representing that sound assists in both phonemic awareness and letter/sound association. Children are motivated by the creation of “alphabet books”.

Learning Tasks:

• How could this activity benefit an English Language Learner?
• Think of pictures that are part of a theme or book you are reading with your student(s) to use with this activity. This will assist in building vocabulary knowledge as well.
• Create a mockup of a phonetic alphabet geared toward preschoolers. Create a template. Now, do the same for older students in 5th grade. Would you use the same template or would you draw a different phonetic alphabet? Why or why not?

Discussion Questions:

• Upon the completion of the activity, did you find that this kinesthetic and visual learning strategy aided your student’s or students’ phonemic awareness skills?
• Did you use an alphabet book in the completion of this activity? Did you find that this resource strengthened your student’s understanding of phonemic sounds and the alphabetic principle?
• What are other visual and kinesthetic learning strategies that could strengthen your student’s phonemic awareness? Think specifically about the individual needs and interests of your student(s).
• Do you feel this strategy helped your student with phonemic awareness?
• How can teachers ensure that their students have a strong foundation in phonemic awareness?
• What else can teachers use in addition to this strategy to help supplement phonemic awareness instruction?