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2. Phoneme Awareness Skills

Course

Course 1: Phoneme Awareness for Paraprofessionals

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In this video demonstration, teacher DeAngela Huggins works with students on segmenting words into phonemes. Notice how Ms. Huggins instructs students to "tap out the sounds" in each word with their fingers. Sound tapping is a multisensory teaching strategy that helps students isolate and count the phonemes in the words.  

Video thumbnail for Segmenting Words into Phonemes
Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book
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Students and DeAngela Huggins: [background noise]

DeAngela Huggins: ... All set and we are ready! Our next listening game, we're going to segment or break the word apart into sounds. So I'm going to give you the entire word, and then you're going to help me tap out the sounds. What are we going to do?

Students and DeAngela Huggins: Tap out the sounds ...

DeAngela Huggins: And then you're going to show me on your fingers how many sounds were in that word. Okay. So let's use my mystery word cat again. If we said /k/, /ă/, /t/. Let's tap it.

Students: /k/, /ă/, /t/

DeAngela Huggins: How many sounds are in that word?

Students: Three.

DeAngela Huggins: Three. So you're going to just show me so I can see that everyone is hearing all of these sounds okay. So you ready? All right. First word, we're going to segment it. The first word is far.

Students: far

DeAngela Huggins: Tap out the sounds.

Students: /f/, /ar/

DeAngela Huggins: How many sounds? [Students hold up two fingers.] There are two sounds in that word. Next word. Let's listen. Listen, very carefully. Chart.

Students: chart

DeAngela Huggins: Let's tap it.

Students: /ch/, /ar/, /t/

DeAngela Huggins: How many sounds? Three. Very good. The next word ... listen ... has a blend ... start.

Students: start

DeAngela Huggins: start

Students: [students count the phonemes with their fingers] /s/, /t/, /ar/, /t/

DeAngela Huggins: How many sounds?

Students: Ooh.

DeAngela Huggins: How many sounds Felix? [students hold up four fingers] Four. There are four sounds. You guys are doing so good! All right. Next word is block.

Students: block

DeAngela Huggins: Say the word block.

Students: block

DeAngela Huggins: All right. Let's tap the sounds.

Students and DeAngela Huggins: [Students count the sounds with their fingers.] /b/, /l/, /o/, /k/

Students: block

DeAngela Huggins: How many sounds? Four [students hold up four fingers]. Very good. In our last one, because you guys are so smart, the word's going to be smart. What's the word?

Students: smart

DeAngela Huggins: Let's tap all those sounds.

Students: [Students count out the sounds with their fingers.] /s/, /m/, /ar/, /t/

DeAngela Huggins: Smart. How many sounds? [Students hold up four fingers.] Good job you guys give your brains a big kiss.

Narrator: For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Burgess Peterson Academy and Atlanta Public Schools. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and two anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington DC, the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First book.

DeAngela Huggins: This is Reading Universe.

/l/ /ē/ /f/, leaf

Video thumbnail for Quick Look: Blending Phonemes
Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book
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Jenifer Rogers: Here we go. We're going to blend our phonemes. We're going to blend our phonemes. I'm going to give you the sounds separate. You're going to pull them all back together for me. Here we go: /b/, /ĕ/, /s/, /t/.

Students: Best.

Jenifer Rogers: /m/, /ă/, /s/, /k/

Students: Mask.

More Challenging Phonemes Skills 

Once students can easily segment and blend phonemes in words, you can introduce the challenges of adding, deleting, and substituting phonemes in words. Take some time to familiarize yourself with these engaging activities. Have fun!

  • 3. Adding Phonemes

    Adding phonemes is the process of adding an additional phoneme to a word to make a new word.

    For example, the /s/ phoneme can be added to the end of the word cat to make the word cats.

    Here’s some language you might use: 

    Say cat.

    Students repeat: 

    Cat.

    You say: 

    Say cat and add /s/ at the end.

    Students say: 

    Cats.

    You say: 

    Right! The cats were hungry!

    4. Deleting Phonemes

    Deleting phonemes is the process of removing a phoneme to turn one word into another word.

    For example, the /p/ phoneme can be removed word pant to make the word ant.

    Here’s some language you might use: 

    Say pant.

    Students repeat: 

    Pant.

    You say:

    Say pant again without the /p/.

    Students repeat:  

    Ant.

    You say:

    Good! No one likes an ant at a picnic.

    5. Reversing Phonemes

    The phonemes /p/, /ă/, /n/ in the word pan can be reversed to say the word nap

    Here's some language you might use: 

    The word is pan

    Say pan.

    Students repeat: 

    Pan.

    You say:

    What is the first sound in pan?

    Students say:

    /p/

    You say: 

    What is the last sound in pan? 

    Students say: 

    /n/

    You say: 

    Now put the last sound first and the first sound last. What's our word? 

    Students say: 

    Nap.

    You say: 

    Nice work! The cat takes a nice long nap

    The phoneme swap that turns pan into nap.

    6. Substituting Phonemes

    Substituting phonemes is the process of swapping out one phoneme for another to make a different word.

    For example, if you take the word bird and replace the ending phoneme /d/ with the phoneme /n/, you create the word burn

    Here’s how you would do this with students: 

    Say bird.

    Students repeat: 

    Bird.

    You say: 

    Say bird again, but change the /d/ to /n/.

    Students say: 

    Burn.

    You say:

    Nice work. Fire can burn you, so be careful!

Video thumbnail for Quick Look: Phonemic Awareness Practice With Sound Substitutions
Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book
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Ashley Powell: We are going to practice listening for individual sounds in words. Okay? And we are going to use each one of these squares to represent each sound and every word. So, listen to me tap out the sounds in the word big. What's my word?

Students: Big.

Ashley Powell: So, I've got the word big. /b/, /ĭ/, /g/. Big. My first, sound, /b/, my middle, /ĭ/, last sound, /g/. Sound good? Each one represents its own sound. Okay. So now we're going to practice changing some of these sounds in our word. Okay? If I want to change wig to fig, what do I want to change? Zanaya?

Zanaya: I want to change /w/ ...

Ashley Powell: Good ...

Zanaya: ... to /f/.

Ashley Powell: All right, let's do that. Change /w/ to /f/. Okay? Are we ready to tap?

Ms. Powell and students: /f/, /ĭ/, /g/, fig.

Ashley Powell: Good job.

Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.