Phoneme Awareness 101

Happy Monday Friends!

I was looking at my students this morning as they were coming in and preparing for their day and had a wonderful "they are finally getting the routines" moment!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! It's amazing how I always forget how much work the first month of school is. I feel like all I do is pound routines and procedures into those little brains day in and day out... actually, I know that's all I do. That first moment of "they are getting it" is one that gives me the energy to keep pushing through the next week to draw our first month back at school to a close! Wooohooo!

On that same note, I love being able to see my kids starting to get into our Reading routine. We do the same steps the first 15 minutes of our Reading block every day without fail to assure those kiddos are getting all the phoneme practice they possibly can. I took a video of a little one of mine today doing part of our daily routine and it made me want to write a blog about it... so here ya go!

Our Reading block is from 11:50-1:50, directly between lunch and recess, so it takes a lot to keep my little firstie friends staying on task. I like to take the first 15 minutes to work solely on Phoneme Awareness in some very hands-on ways. I do this for a few different reasons. First of all, it allows the kids to come in from lunch and have some hands-on things to get their attention. Secondly, it is a quick way for us to hit our phonics skill for the week. Thirdly, kids NEED to have phoneme awareness in order to become better readers and writers. IT IS SO IMPORTANT!!

The first thing the students do is come in from lunch and stand behind their desks. We "tap out" (segment and blend) words that follow the phonics skill for the week. This week we are talking about short "o" in CVC words, so all of the words I gave them fall into that category. I have them tap their wrist for the first sound they hear, elbow for the second, shoulder for the third, cheek for the fourth, and the top of their head for the fifth. I will say a word, they will repeat the word, then they tap out each sound, blend it all together and finally repeat the word again. We do this for 5-6 words.

Next, we get out our white boards. I bought the white boards I use from The Learning Circle in Murfreesboro, TN a few years ago and I LOVE them!! They have a handle which is great for the kids raising them up to show me their answers.You can find them here. 

We use them to do our "parking spaces" every day after we segment and blend. I will say a word, they will repeat the word then draw a line for each sound they hear. For example, if the word is "cat" they would draw _ _ _. After they have their parking spaces drawn, they will go back and park the letters in their spot where each sound is heard: c a t . They finish by stating the word again and raising their boards to show me what they had. This allows me a chance to give them corrective feedback if they messed up somewhere. It is important that they understand they are not writing a parking space for each letter in the word. For example, today I used the word lock. You hear the "l", "o" and "k" sounds so you would still only have 3 parking spaces even though the word has 4 letters. The c and k would be together in one spot since they say the "k" sounds together. l o ck.

After we have finished our segmenting/blending and our parking spaces, we move on to using our elkonin boxes. I found this simple but cute copy of one on the internet and decided to use it. I printed these on colored card stock and laminated them for each child. Each child also has a set of 4-5 plastic counters they use during this activity. They lay their mats flat on their table and place a counter under each box. I say a word, they repeat it, and move a counter from below the box into the box for each sound they hear then blend it together and say the word again. For example, if the word is "cat", they move a counter into the first box for the "c" sound, a counter into the second box for the "a" sound and a counter into the third box for the "t" sound. Same thing as with the parking spaces above, make sure they understand it's for each sound they hear, not each letter in the word. 

Lastly, we do a quick practice of some of our weekly high frequency/sight words. I have a template on my computer that I literally just change the word and print them off. They fold the paper in half so all they can see is the side with the words listed. First we point to each letter and spell it out loud as we point, then we air write it as we spell it out loud, then we trace it as we spell it out loud and lastly, they flip the page over where they cant see the word and they write it as they spell it out loud. I have a different word on each side of the paper, so we cover 2 words a day!

This whole routine takes us less than 20 minutes to complete each day. It is super easy to put into action and really keeps the students engaged and on task. They LOVE each and every step. On Friday's we assess and without fail I always hear "but Ms. Daniel, we are supposed to do our phonics first thing every day!". I'd love to hear what others do to aid their phonics lessons/skills during their daily reading blocks! If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Have a wonderful rest of your week!