Manipulating Phonemes with Letters

The very best phonemic awareness training found to enhance phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling skills includes the explicit, systematic teaching of phonemic awareness with letters. (National Reading Panel Report, 2000)

How can we do that without total immersion into phonics instruction? Here are some suggestions in which either the teacher or the student(s) does the writing, or uses letter cards/tiles:

Phonemic Awareness Isolation Activities

• What is the first sound in man? Say /m/. Write m in the 1st box.

Phonemic Awareness Blending Activities

• Put these sounds together to make a word:

/f/ /r/ /o/ /g/ Say frog. Write frog.

f r o g

Phonemic Awareness Segmenting Activities

• Move one block into the boxes as you say each sound in slant. Write slant with letter cards.

Phonemic Awareness Addition Activities

• Orally add /l/ to the end of pay and say pail. Write pay and pail with letter tiles.

Phonemic Awareness Deletion Activities

• Put blocks in boxes for the phonemes in clamp. Now say it without the /l/. Say camp. Write camp in sound boxes.

Phonemic Awareness Substitution Activities

• Say swoop. Instead of /w/, say /n/. Say snoop. Where did the sound change? Write swoop and then snoop.