Hearing the sounds - Part 1 - Phonological Awareness
- Julie Feyereisen
- Sep 7, 2023
- 9 min read
Updated: Nov 7, 2023
If your child is struggling to read, it may be because one or more of the following techniques have not been learned. This awareness of hearing the sounds that we will explore together has been shown to create great readers.
There may be aspects they have absorbed and ones they may not have. The ones which they have not seemed to have mastered are areas in which you may wish to spend more time.
Remember that this is a journey. These ideas are designed to give you hope, empower you, and help you help your child.
Phonemic Awareness
You probably have heard words like telephone, microphone or phonics. “Phon” means sound. In this section, we will talk about phonemic awareness or sound awareness.
Phonemic awareness is very simple. You might not have ever heard this term before but it means that all words are made up of individual sounds. Phonemic awareness is auditory. Hearing individual sounds is very important for reading success. Understanding that all words are made up of individual sounds lends itself to a child who can sound out words quickly. Here are some examples:
When your student understands and knows the sounds of letters, he/she has a better grasp of how to spell correctly as well as read and write with confidence.
Again, Phonemic awareness is based on hearing the sounds. There are many activities you can do with your child to increase their awareness of the sounds within words. Some of these you may have already done. These activities go in order from Early to Basic to Advanced (but in this blog we will explore the Early ideas) . The goal is for your child to hear the different sounds within each word and to be able to interchange them.
For example:
Simple exercises can be done daily to build a strong foundation of phonemic awareness.
If your child does not have this foundation, it will hinder them. From this point on, they will get it! You as a parent can help them gain this understanding. You will have the knowledge to help them move forward, filling in the gaps that may have developed over the years.
It just starts with doing simple activities everyday.
Before you begin with activities to become aware of individual sounds, first you must make sure your child has a strong foundation with word parts. These simple activities lay the foundation for future phonemic awareness exercises. They build on each other. If your child gets these activities quickly, that is your clue you can move on to the basic phonemic awareness exercises.
Phonological Awareness Activities
The learning and awareness of sounds progresses from parts or chunks of a word to individual sounds within the word. For example: pot, hot, cot. All of these words have the same -OT word chunk. This makes them rhyming words. Your child can hear these parts of the words at a fairly young age. As your child becomes more aware of individual sounds, they will be able to tell you that pot is made up of 3 sounds - p-o-t. I will be sharing with you some simple activities you can do with your child to build their understanding of word chunks.
Later on, we will move onto identifying individual word sounds in the Basic and Advanced Phonemic Awareness activities.
Understanding Rhyming
Rhyming words are a very important piece of phonological awareness. Words rhyme when the last part of each word sounds the same. Hot and pot have the same ending sound. These are rhyming words. Children first learn to recognize rhyming words auditorily and then they can generate their own words as their vocabulary grows. Practice the activities. If your child seems to catch on quickly to matching words, go on to other activities. If your child seems to be struggling with this, take time to read books that have rhyme patterns.
If your child can hear all of the rhyming words easily, they are ready to move on.
Word Families are groups of words that have the same ending. Below are 36 of the most common Word Families.
36 Common Word Families
Hearing the Matching Words
When your child can think about, and recognize words that rhyme, this helps them to read more quickly.
If you were to try to teach your child every word they need to know to read, this would take a tremendous amount of time and effort. One simple way to streamline the process is to expose your child to word families. If your child knows the part of the word from the word family, they can add many different consonants to make up new words. This way, they can make so many words from just one word family.
This knowledge of word families can help increase your child’s sight word vocabulary and improve their ability to read and decode words quickly. As you read rhyming books, ask your child to tell you which words match. See if your child can pick out the word that rhymes. Your child can only listen to you say the words. Have them watch your mouth as you form the words. This will help them tremendously.
If they are not hearing the certain matching words, choose books from that word family and read those books together.
Additional activities:
Play the matching sound in the car. Choose a word family and make up words that end with
the same part so your child can hear more of those sounds.
AN Family: MAN, CAN, FAN, TAN, ...
Story Time with Rhyming Books
One of the best ways to hear rhyming words in action is to read aloud rhyming books to your child. This is a fun way for them to hear variations of rhyming patterns. While Dr. Suess' books are the most famous, many rhyming books provide this opportunity.
Find books that your child enjoys. Don’t be afraid to read them again and again. This is all part of the learning process and enjoying a book is a priceless experience for two. Remember reading to your child, and with your child, can create special bonding time. In '100 of the Best Rhyming Books' blog, we have listed lots of books to choose from. Each book has a link if you wish to purchase the book, however, going to the library with your child on a regular basis can be an exciting field trip as well. Plus, you’ll learn what additional events your library is hosting for all children.
Alliterations
I want to pause and remind you the goal is to help your child to be a better reader AND TO HAVE FUN WITH THE READING PROCESS! One of the ways to do this is to practice alliterations. An alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter sound at the beginning of two or more words. An example would be, Silly Sally sat by the seashore. It makes reading silly and fun. This is one of the greatest benefits of reading alliterations. Have fun with them.
Other benefits include helping with phonemic awareness. Hearing the initial sounds of words in a predictable pattern helps a child develop a listening ear for beginning sounds. This ability creates a foundation to hear all the individual parts of a word. Having your child repeat these silly phrases will help them understand similar sounds and have fun doing it!
Here are some ways to practice alliterations:
Read books with alliterations ('An Awesome Arrangement of Alliteration Books' blog)
Make up your own - Today we are going to make our own silly phrases. Let’s use the sound /m/ Maurice makes milkshakes for Marina (Have fun with it. Make a game of it when you are in the kitchen, driving in the car. See how many silly sentences you can make. Let your world/life be your inspiration!)
Alliterations are a great way to enjoy the reading process and build phonemic knowledge at the same time. It’s a win win! I hope your child likes these activities as much as I do!
Beginning Sound Recognition
Beginning Sound Recognition is identifying the first sound of a word. This may sound obvious but most parents don’t realize that students are taught to recognize the beginning sound, the ending sound, and then the middle sound. These other two we’ll discuss in blogs Part 2 & 3.
The goal is for your child to recognize the beginning sound of the words you may provide them. Read a list of words. Ask your child, “What is the beginning sound of each word?” Then ask them to come up with another word that has the same beginning sound. After going through the activity, you and your child can find names, objects, or any other words that begin with the same sound. Then, extend the activity. Ask them to tell you other words that start with /c/, /j/ etc.
Blending Syllables
Blending syllables is a great skill to help your child become a fluent reader. To understand syllable blending, let’s first explore what syllables are. Syllables are a unit of spoken language that have one vowel sound and any surrounding consonant sounds. They can form part of a word or the whole word.
One Syllable words:
Two Syllable words:
Blending syllables is when your child can hear the different parts of a word and put them together to make a complete word. This one simple exercise lays the foundation for your child to be able to decode words quickly and fluently.
Doing the following activity will expand your child’s ability to blend syllables. Say each syllable to your child. Pause for a moment between syllables. Ask your child to tell you what the word is. This is blending syllables.
Example:
Now it is your turn. Look around you and see what your child sees. Any objects or ideas.
Subtracting Syllables
Subtracting syllables is a great foundational skill to help your child look at word parts in a different way. Syllable subtraction means removing a syllable from the word to create a new word or word part. For example: cupcake - subtract cake - What’s the word? Cup. This ability to manipulate syllables will support your child in their awareness of word parts. The goal of phonological awareness is to have the ability to see words as a whole which then can be separated into parts (syllables) and eventually separated into individual sounds.
I think your child is going to enjoy this activity. I love this one.
Here’s the way to play - Subtract the Syllable - What do you get? Word goes through the machine and a part is taken off. What do you get?
Have fun with it.
Counting Syllables
Syllable counting is a way to count the syllables in a word. To understand syllable counting, let’s first explore what syllables are. Syllables are a unit of spoken language that have one vowel sound and any surrounding consonant sounds. They can form part of a word or the whole word. You can count how many syllables a word has by clapping it out. For example, inside - in and side. Feet - 1, mother - 2, banana - 3, hamburger - 3, watercolor - 4.
Here’s how to do an activity: Read a word to your child. Clap the syllables as you both say the word. First, read each word to your child. Then, say the word together a second time and clap the syllables as you both say the word.
Word Building
Word building encompasses 2 parts of a single syllable word. The beginning sound or sounds is normally from one or 2 consonants. This is followed by the second part of the word which consists of a vowel and the remaining consonants. For example:
Doing this type of activity will allow your child to continue to understand that words are made up of separate word parts. Recognizing the parts of words will eventually lead your child to learn that each letter or letters has their own corresponding sounds. This creates a successful reader. Great readers pay attention to every letter and sound.
Read the start of a word and then the ending. Pause between each part. Ask your child to build the word or blend the parts together. Word? Have your child say the word.
Enjoy building words with your child!
Rhyme Creation
To build on the emphasis of rhyming, creating rhymes is the next step. Rhyme Creation allows your child to make up their own rhyming words! This is a fun activity intended to expand their ability to recognize word parts that sound the same.
With this type activity, the words in each row rhyme. Read the 3 words and have your child create their own rhyming word. Some of the words are nonsense words. It is perfectly fine if your child makes up words as long as they rhyme. Nonsense words help children to concentrate on the sound and not the meaning. Since this is only an auditory activity, you will only focus on the sound and not the spelling.
Cake, zake, take, __stake__________
Sick, shrick, flick, __lick__________
Thread, head, wed, said, .....
Here is another fun way to play Rhyme Creation:
Say: “I say, night, you say - _________
I say, cold, you say - _________
Have fun creating rhymes!
On to Part 2
Remember, these are the beginning steps. You are looking to fill the gaps that exist in your child's learning. Some of these activities your child will breeze through. Others you may spend more time with and that’s okay. Help them enjoy the process.
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