5 games for phonological awareness
Raising phonological awareness is the first step in teaching reading. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of spoken language: identify the rhyming words, segment words in the sentence, count syllables in a word etc. In other words, before we start learning ABC children need to be able to work with sounds. Here are some games for phonological awareness.
1. Rhyming pairs.
The task is to match the objects that rhyme, for example, flag-bag, duck-truck, goat-boat, cake-snake, log-frog. At the beginning choose 3 pairs and model the pronunciation of the words. Take one thing and ask your child to find a rhyming word.
2. Hungry spider from Growingbookbybook.
Draw a spider web on paper or make it with a painter’s tape on the floor. Say the rhyme and show the card of a colour:
I’m a hungry spider in my web
Looking for treats that rhyme with red/pink/blue/black
Can you find me a tasty treat?
Put it in my web. Let’s eat!
A child finds an object or a card with a thing that rhymes with a colour.
Rhyming words: red-bed/bread, pink-sink, blue-shoe/glue, black-sack.
3. Counting sweets.
Prepare 3-4 plastic caps. Say a sentence and show a child how to count the number of words in this sentence using the caps.
4. Who lives in the house?
Draw 4 houses and mark them with dots from 1 to 4. Prepare small animal figurines. Take the first one in your hand and pronounce its name. Show a child how to count syllables, for example, clap and then point to the dots. Then put the animal into the corresponding house.
5. What does he say?
Take a hand puppet and say that it speaks its own language, for example, c-a-t. Ask your child to decode it: “I don’t understand what he is saying? C-a-t?” A child has to blend the word.
These games will prepare preschoolers for mastering reading skills successfully. My son is 3.5 and he copes with phonological activities with little help from his parents.
