3.3 Use Multisensory Cues

Dr. Deborah Glaser: Okay. This is one of my favorite phoneme segmentation activities. It helps students hear the middle sound of words by tapping their head, waist, and knees. 

So when children are first beginning to segment the sounds in words, start with a three sound word, like bike or cup, and tap your head for the beginning sound, your waist for the middle sound, and then your knees for the end sound. This activity gets kids up and moving around, which for most of our students, that's a really positive thing. 

For example, now let's try it together. 

Let's separate the phonemes in the word moose. 

Word? Moose. 

What are the sounds? /m/, /o͞o/, /s/. 

What's that middle sound? /o͞o/. Right. 

This is an activity that can be done with your phonics words, so it helps you focus on the phoneme first for the words the students will be reading. 

Let's try another /o͞o/ word, moon. What's the word? Moon. It was a full moon last night. What are the sounds in moon? /m/, /o͞o/, /n/. 

What's that middle sound in moon? /o͞o/. Right. That's the sound we're going to be working on this week. /o͞o/.

Narrator: Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Hastings/Quillen Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the AFT, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and anonymous donors. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching Reading Universe is a service of WETA Washington, D.C., the Barksdale Reading Institute and First Book.

Dr. Deborah Glaser: This is Reading Universe.

Dr. Deborah Glaser: When we speak, the words come out of our mouth. So this activity, pulling the phonemes out of your mouth, makes a lot of sense to children. 

To help students segment the words into phonemes, let's pretend we're pulling those sounds out of our mouths. Starting at your lips pretend to grasp each isolated sound as you move your thumb and forefinger in a pulling movement away from your mouth. 

Let's try to separate the sounds of the word left by pulling the phonemes out of your mouth. 

The word is left. What word? Left. This is my left hand. What are the sounds in left? Pull those sounds out. /l/, /ĕ/, /f/, /t/. What's my word? Left.

Now let's try it with another word that shares a very similar consonant combination as left. The word is soft.

What's the word? Soft. My pet is very soft. 

Pull those sounds out. /s/, /ŏ/, /f/, /t/. 

Put it all together. What's the word? Soft. Great.

Narrator: Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Hastings/Quillen Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the AFT, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and anonymous donors. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. Reading Universe is a service of WETA Washington D.C., the Barksdale Reading Institute and First Book.

Dr. Deborah Glaser: This is Reading Universe.

Princess Watts-Blount: Your first word is train. Repeat.

Students: Train.

Princess Watts-Blount: All right. Let's tap it.

Students: /t/, /r/, /ā/ /n/.

Princess Watts-Blount: All right. Now do it with your pop-it.

Students: /t/, /r/, /ā/ /n/.

Princess Watts-Blount: All right. Can somebody give me the sounds in train? Yes.

Student: /t/, /r/, /ā/ /n/.

Princess Watts-Blount: How many phonemes?

Students: Four.

Princess Watts-Blount: Four. /t/, /r/, /ā/ /n/.