Phonemic Awareness Activities Can Be Fun

So many children on our caseloads today need to develop phonemic awareness skills. Among the skills that children develop when learning to read are: 

•     determining the number of syllables in a word
•     blending syllables
•     recognizing rhyme
•     generating rhymes
•     stating onset rimes

Presenting activities that are fun, interesting, and instill the desire to learn can be a challenge.

Jennifer Shamberger from Speech Universe. has created a delightful set of phonemic awareness activities to accompany the book There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books by Lucille Colandro. The Little Old Lady books are wildly popular with children. Linking phonemic awareness activities with the vocabulary from the story provides rich, literacy-based intervention.

And now onto the activities

    

•  How Many Syllables
Students clap and use dot markers to mark the number of syllables in words
       said by the teacher/therapist. This provides a motor component to the activity 
       and provides print on a worksheet for the student to have a visual match to 
       the word heard.

•     Blending Syllables   
Children chooses a card. After the teacher/therapist reads the syllables, he 
         student says the word then moves a token ahead on a game board the
         number of spaces written on the card.

•  Recognizing Rhyme
A card is chosen and the two words are read to the student who determines  
       whether they rhyme or not. The card is then placed on either a “Rhymes” mat 
       or a “Does Not Rhyme” mat. 

• Generating Rhyme
Children, roll a dice, then generate a rhyming word for the word on a numbered 
     mat.

•    Onset Rime
A card with a consonant, pause, an open syllable is read. The student says the 
word from the story, then moves ahead the number of spaces on the game  
        board that Granny says.

This packet is available on Jenn’s TPT store for $3.50.

Kathy