You may or may not know that there are five parts or pillars to teaching reading – and I will go over them all (but not today). Those pillars are 1. Phonemic Awareness 2. Phonics 3. Fluency 4. Vocabulary 5. Comprehension. And these are NOT taught exclusively, but you can and will focus on one area more heavily at times than the others. (Unofficially, writing should also be included in this list because research it…writing influences reading and the brain!)
For now, we are going to talk Phonemic Awareness. This is, perhaps, the most overlooked and underrated of the pillars – and the most fun to teach! Phonemic Awareness is simply being aware of the sounds used in speech. It does NOT involve any reading or writing and can be taught informally, and honestly when I homeschooled, we probably did this in the car because it can be like a game. I didn’t know it at the time I did it with my kids or even when I did it in the classroom that this was a “thing”, but I did notice that kids who struggle with this will, undoubtedly, struggle later with reading! That was confirmed later in one of my classes (I will post a paper I wrote on this later this week and give you all the sources!) But for now, trust me and let’s learn how to practice this very important skill!
Phonemic Awareness is a purely auditory skill and is probably best taught from the ages of 4-6. If you missed that age bracket, and you have a struggling reader, there is no shame in checking out if this is something they struggle with. (I will get there, but struggling readers often have a bit of brain rewiring to do – and that takes time!) It is the ability to be able to rhyme and manipulate sounds and you might be surprised how some kids struggle with this. Those Dr. Suess books – they are not just silly, but they have a purpose! In my classroom, we often had a letter of the week…and then we would go around the room and change our names to start with that corresponding sound. So, for example, if we were talking about the sound of /f/, my students Tilly, and David, and Ben would tell me their name would be Filly, and Favid, and Fen. As this skill gets stronger, work on the ending sounds (trickier for sure) and than changing the vowel sounds (yup, trickier). A quick little *warning* if you will…when talking letter sounds (phonemes) be sure you don’t add an /ah/ sound at the end. F simply says /f/ NOT /FAH/. B says /b/, NOT /BAH/. It’s any easy habit to do as we try to exaggerate the sound so kids hear it…but don’t. You may want to practice this, actually, because until you say it outloud – and listen for it, you may not realize you do it!
We would also sing “Down by the Bay” (here’s a link if you want to hear the tune of this gem https://youtu.be/cAMbqRWqLXQi)n the classroom, and the kids would have to come up with an animal and something to rhyme with it…such as Have you ever seen a Goat, driving a Boat…down by the bay. When you are reading rhyming books or rhyming poems to your children, see if they can figure out the next word just by hearing the rhythm of the book. And if it’s a book you have read 45,378 times, see if they can make up new rhyming words.
You can play games (again, in the car – it keeps them from fighting and yay! They are learning!) like Eye Spy, but instead of saying “I spy something green…” change it to “I spy something the starts with the /s/ sound…or /g/ sound…or rhymes with “mean”…or ends with the /t/ sound. You can even play it with your crayons or markers as you are coloring by just saying things like “Could you pass me the marker that rhymes with…moo?” or wonder out loud if the name of their favorite sandwich all started with the /b/ sound – so it was beanut butter and belly 🙂 You see where I’m going with this. It is fun and silly and IMPORTANT. As kids get better and better and manipulating sounds in words, they can even start making alliterations like “Our Dog Daisy Dug in the Dirt”. Again, phonemic awareness is VERBAL and AUDITORY, so you have permission not to make them write it down and it is still educational!
Now, I know that not everyone is at ease being goofy (it comes more naturally to some of us…probably those of us who have lost all dignity thanks to raising their children and the humbleness THAT brings forth) so if that is you, there are rhyming games out there. A fun one that I came across – at a garage sale, no less – is called “I Spy a Mouse in the House! Picture Rhymes” by Carson Dellosa Publishing. My box says published in 2003, but I did look it up and you can still get it 🙂 It’s around $10. I recommend. Also, if you have some other great rhyming games that can assist parents with the whole phonemic awareness teaching, I would love to hear them. My goal is to assist parents on teaching their kids to read – and while I have some insights – I know a lot of you have even better ideas. Also, yes, I know there are online games that work with this a bit – using letters. I guess I would consider this BEFORE you get to that step as again – THIS IS SOUNDS, NOT LETTERS. So…read to your kids and play some games and let’s make reading GREAT.