Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic Awareness is the ability to manipulate the smallest unit of sound in a word. According to Reading Rocket, children need to learn the different sounds in words before they can read. Also according to Reading Rockets, children must understand that "words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes." Some of the ways to manipulate words includes: segmenting the words, isolating the sounds, blending the sounds together, deleting sounds, and substituting. Segmenting words is when words are separated by sound, or phoneme. For example, the word "hat" is three phonemes. Isolating the sounds is when one phoneme is isolated from the rest of the word. For example, /h/ is isolated from "hat". Blending the sounds together is when the sounds come together to make a word. For example, /h/ /a/ /t/ equals "hat". Deleting sounds is when one or more sounds are taken from a word. For example, if /h/ was deleted from "hat", the word would now be "at". Substituting is when a sound is substituted from a word with another sound. For example /m/ is substituted with /h/ to make "mat" instead of "hat".
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-awareness-introduction
Examples of Activities for 4th Grade
Medial Phoneme Dominoes
Phoneme Counting Sort
Good activity for EEL students.
In this activity, the teacher needs a set of cards that have numbers on them (the headers ) as well as different types of pictures.
​
First, the teacher hands out the cards with the numbers on them to the students and then hands out the cards with the pictures. The number cards are placed on a surface with the picture cards in a pile face down. The student then draws the first card, "taps out" the number of phonemes in the word and then places it under the correct number. For example, "book" has three phonemes, /b/ /oo/ /k/, and so it would be placed under the number three.
This can be done as a whole group, small group, partners, or by themselves.
In Comprehension from the Ground Up chapter 6, it mentions a phonemic awareness game that uses Elkonin boxes to isolate the phonemes. Phoneme count sort is similar in that it isolates the phonemes of a word and then the picture is placed under the amount of phonemes it has.
This is a good activity for ELL students because it helps them understand how many phonemes are in a word. They can also see the number of phonemes better if the pictures are sorted by the number of phonemes they have. It will also help them figure out what words have the same amount of phonemes. I would give them Tier 1 words first (like bed, which has three phonemes, and dog, which also has three phonemes) sense they are the most common words when talking. Then,as they begin understanding the Tier 1 words, I would give them pictures of Tier 2 words and so on. This is crucial in helping them to understand English as well as helping them to understand what they are reading.
One thing that I would change is that I would do this with the class first by using a smart board so that they can see what to do. I would also use fourth grade words that they are starting to learn instead of second or third grade words. This is a good activity for when my students are first learning new words that they haven't come across yet as well as practicing the words that they already know.
​
http://www.fcrr.org/documents/sca/G2-3/2-3PA_2_Phoneme_Segmenting.pdf
In this activity, the teacher needs cut outs of dominoes with pictures already on them and the "Start" and "Stop" on them as well.
​
First, the teacher hands out a set of dominoes to the students (mixed up) and then tells them that the dominoes have to connect to each other; meaning, the last picture on a domino and the first picture of another domino. After that, the teacher tells them if they will be using initial, medial, or final phonemes to connect the dominoes together. For example, if the teacher wanted them to do medial words, then the medial of "fork" is /or/. The picture that would match "fork" is "corn" because of /or/. The other side of the domino that contains "corn" is a "seal" (so /ea/ would be the medial) and so the match would be "heel" (the medial would be /ee/. Note: the medial doesn't have to be the same spelling, but must sound the same which is why "heel" would connect to "seal".
This can be done as a whole group, small group, partners, or by themselves.
​
According to Phonics They Use in chapter 1, it mentions that phonemic awareness is important before a child can start reading. This game would help children be able to read because they are understanding that some words have the same sounds even if the part of the word that sounds the same isn't spelled the same.
One thing I would change for this game is that I would use pictures that relate to the vocabulary that my fourth grade students would be learning instead of using second or third grade words. However, this would be a good game for the beginning of the year to see what third grade words they can pronounce correctly and go from there. I would use this game when I am first introducing a new set of vocabulary words that they might have never heard of before. This would give them a chance to learn how to say the word before seeing the word and learning the definition.
http://www.fcrr.org/documents/sca/G2-3/2-3PA_1_Phoneme_Matching.pdf