Phonics awareness activities for homeschool readers is essential
Have you ever wondered what phonics awareness activities truly are and why this phrase pops up so much? This concept is missed by many and yet holds its weight in gold when teaching a child to read. Phonics awareness can be broken down into many different parts, but the essential first part is phonemic awareness. Phonemes are sounds within a word. For example, the word cat can be broken into three phonemes which are /c/ /a/ /t/. Therefore, phonemic awareness is the ability of a child to recognize that words are broken into different sounds.
Does your child sound out words correctly (decode) and then when asked to blend the word they say something unrelated or inaccurate? Or does your child not yet know their letter sounds and you want to set them up for success from the get-go? If so, I’ve got you! Click here to grab phonics awareness activities that strengthen your child’s phonemic awareness ability with no prep.
The importance of phonics awareness activities
I taught Kindergarten for many years and early in my career, I often observed students entering kindergarten having memorized most letter sounds yet once phonics instruction began they struggled to blend and decode words. Children would sound out the word perfectly and yet couldn’t accurately say (blend) the word. For example, the word cat was sounded out as /c/ /a/ /t/ but then stated as the word cantaloupe. As a new teacher, I scratched my head and felt very puzzled. I didn’t get it. They sounded out the word correctly and then completely stated a different, very non-matching word. I attended professional development training and realized this small problem could easily be addressed.
After learning that students knowing their letter sounds doesn’t necessarily mean they are ready to learn phonics, I realized I had skipped a crucial step in the reading process. The strategies to address this are strategies that actually should be first taught to all students regardless if they know the letter sounds of our alphabet or not. Therefore, I reconfigured my literacy instruction at the beginning of the year. I always spent the first several months deliberately excluding phonics instruction, even if some students knew the letter sounds. My only focus during literacy time for several months was to develop and build all students’ phonemic awareness abilities.
The importance of phonics teaching order when using phonics awareness activities
Teaching a child to read with letter rhymes and poems and assembling sounds to create words is how many people envision teaching their child to read. These are all wonderful steps and steps in the correct order, however, teaching your child letter sounds is step #2. Step #1 is building their phonemic awareness ability. This is step #1 for all readers. While some children master this quicker than others, it is always the first step.
As experienced readers and writers ourselves, we can easily forget that each word is composed of multiple sounds that work together to create a word. However, for many young readers, this skill needs to be explicitly taught and doesn’t necessarily come naturally to all. If this step is skipped, you may find that once you begin introducing letter sounds and the decoding process, your child will struggle to master blending and be unable to keep up with any curriculum you purchased. Step number one will always be to train your child’s ear to notice the different sounds within each word and you can do this by using phonics awareness activities.
Example of homeschool curriculum steps that develop through phonemic awareness activities
Like with reading, there is a progression when teaching phonemic awareness. I will go in-depth about each step and how to build it with ease. A good way to develop these skills is to practice daily and follow the progression below. Continue practicing a skill until mastered and then teach a new skill. Continue to include the previously taught skills as you introduce and practice the new skills. The order to introduce them are rhyming, beginning, ending, and medial sounds.
Rhyming
It has been stated before that children who can rhyme and produce rhymes are predicted readers. This is because rhyming is a big part of phonemic awareness and understanding phonemes within words. Rhyming words have an on-set, which is the beginning part of the word, and a rime, which is the ending sound. In the example of the word cat, the on-set is /c/ and the rime is /at/. When asking a child to create a word that rhymes with cat, you are asking them to change the on-set of the word. To make a word rhyme, the rime must stay the same.
Children love stories and especially nursery rhymes. Reading nursery rhymes or rhyming books is a great introduction to rhyming and training your child’s ear. Pause throughout the story and have your child guess the next rhyming word. For example, the book may read that the cat sat in a _____. Leave a pause and have your child guess what the cat may sit in that rhymes with cat.
While driving to the grocery store or soccer practice, play a quick game of “Finish the rhyme”. You state a word and your child will think of a word that rhymes with it. Continue stating rhyming words (real or nonsense) until you need a new word to begin the game again.
You can easily play a game of “I’m thinking of _____”. Tell your child you are thinking of a word that rhymes with ____ (ex. fan) and ask if they can guess your word. Switch turns and have your child be the one to create a word.
Beginning sounds
Teaching children in a specific order that aligns with how they naturally isolated sounds is important. Students recognized beginning sound first, followed by the ending sound and last students isolate medial (middle) sounds. Like with rhyming words, ask your child the sound they hear at the beginning of certain words. I always begin by giving an example. I say, “At the beginning of cat I hear the sound /c/. What do you hear at the beginning of sun?” Or you can say “At the beginning of cat I hear the sound /c/. Can you think of a word that also starts with the sound /c/”. Finally, take the rhyming picture cards I mentioned above and show one at a time and ask what sound your child hears first.
Ending sounds
After children can easily isolate the beginning sounds of words, next they are ready to isolate the ending sounds. Use the same techniques for teaching ending sound identification as mentioned above for beginning sound identification.
Medial sounds
Finally, maybe the most challenging is for children to identify medial sounds. I teach this with simple cvc (consonant vowel consonant) words like sun, run, cat, dog, etc. Again, give children an example by saying, “I hear the /i/ sound in the middle of the word kid, what do you hear in the middle of ____(ex. fun)?”.
Please note that while you may be using picture visuals to support phonemic awareness development, you are NEVER using written letters. Once you incorporate letters you are no longer teaching phonemic awareness but instead are now teaching phonics. With phonemic awareness, we are training the ears and not the eyes.
Phonics teaching order in phonics awareness activities
Now that your child can create rhyming words and identify and isolate beginning, ending and medial (in that order) sounds, it is time to move on to manipulating the phonemes in words. Children need to learn to add, delete, and substitute sounds within words. Below are examples of these three components of sound manipulation. After mastering phonemic awareness, students are ready to begin phonics instruction. Never overlook and skip laying a beautiful and invaluable phonemic awareness foundation for your child. Remember, this skill takes time and I believe more than anything that when teaching reading you should always remember you go slow to go fast.
Addition
Children practice adding sounds to a phoneme or rime to make a new word. For example, if you said the sound is “at” and I add /c/ before it, what word would I make? Answer: cat. You might ask your child to add a different sound before that same rime.
Deletion
Deletion is just as it sounds, you are asking a child to delete a sound within a word. State a word, for example, “ran” and ask your child to get rid of the /r/ sound and tell you what it makes. Answer: an. You can do this with several words.
Show a picture card, such as a sun and ask your child to delete the/s/ sound and ask what is left. Answer: un.
Substitution
My favorite phonemic awareness manipulation strategy is substitution. Children love this one because they can be creative and silly. For this, you are substituting one phoneme (sound) with a different phoneme and asking your child to state the new word. For example, the word is bug and you want to change the /b/ sound to a /t/ sound. The new word is tug. Have your child quiz you as well to add a level of engagement and fun. Being silly and sometimes answering incorrectly is a quick way to check your child’s understanding.
Phonics Awareness Activities for Assessing and Keeping Track
It can feel like a lot to build and keep track of your child’s phonemic awareness ability. I get it, so I’ve got you! Click the link for a free assessment and tracking sheet. You can easily see what your child has mastered and what needs more practice. I recommend assessing them every 2 weeks, but not more. Make the assessment fun. Turn it into a game. Children are more likely to show you what they know in a low-stress environment when they don’t feel like they are truly being assessed.
When teaching a child to read remember you go slow to go fast. I have seen the reward of this year after year, child after child, when I take the time to go through the process of setting aside time each day for explicit phonemic awareness instruction. You will see this reward too and I hope you feel empowered to use the phonics awareness activities listed above. For more information on teaching reading at home, click the image below for my free guidebook.
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