What Is Phonological Awareness and Why Is It Important? Skill 1- Rhyme

When I was about six or seven years old, my parents decided that as a family, we would learn how to ski. Of course, we did not jump on a pair of skis and head for the black diamond trails, instead, we all took lessons on the “bunny trail”. We learned how to get in and out of our skis, how to stop, and how to turn. Many hours were spent fall and getting back up and taking the toe rope to the bunny trail before we were allowed to go to the next level. Those first lessons and skills were so important and we needed those skills to become successful at something more difficult. It would have been irresponsible for my parents to just give us skis and let us hit the slopes !

In the same way, it is irresponsible for educators to assume students have learned or acquired early phonological skills or move on when children are not ready. As a reading teacher, it is difficult to see older students struggling because they never mastered the very basic foundational skills they need to be successful readers. It is so difficult to get them caught up when they are older.

What Is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness skills are the foundation of reading. Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds within words. These skills require no print and can be taught at an early age. What are these important skills?

  • Rhyme– when words sound the same, especially at the end of the word
    • rhyme awareness and construction
  • Alliteration– the same letter or sound at the beginning of a group of words
    • discrimination and production
  • Sound and Word Discrimination– a student can hear a unit or units of sound in a sentence. If given several words, a student can tell which word is different.
  • Syllabication– The ability to divide a word into syllables and blend syllables together.
  • Onset and Rime -onset is the initial sound in a word and rime is the string of letters after the initial sound.

My goal is to help as many children as I can acquire these important foundational skills. My desire is to take what I have learned from my studies and teaching, to be as helpful as I can to new teachers or any teachers who are not familiar with how to teach them in a meaningful multi sensory way. These skills need to be taught along with ample practice for the students so that a strong foundation is built . In the next few blog posts, I want to take each of these skills, one at a time and break them down and give easy practical teaching tips and activities to help teachers of young children give their students every advantage to become strong readers.

Rhyming

The first phonological skill is rhyming, It is the basic level of phonological awareness. When teaching rhyme, a student is taught to listen closely for sounds in words and listen for similar sounds in a pair or group of words. When teaching rhyme to young students, pictures should be used because when are not ready for print. However, some would argue that it is never too early to expose children to the written word. I love to teach rhyme, here are some fun and easy way to teach and practice the skill.

How To Teach Rhyming With Real Life Objects

Give your students a basket full of toys/real life objects and have them sort them into rhyming pairs. Another idea is to hide these objects around the room, have the students search for the objects and then put them in rhyming pairs.

How To Teach Rhyming With Memory Game

Prepare a deck of cards that have rhyming pictures on each of them. Lay the cards face down on the table. The first child picks and turns over two cards. If the pictures rhyme, they get to keep the cards. otherwise they turn them back over. The goal is find as many rhyming pairs as they can. You can put words on the cards, but the goal of the exercise is for the students to be able to hear the rhymes first.

How To Teach Rhyming With Flashcards

For younger children, you can give them two cards and name the objects for them. Ask them if they hear two words that rhyme. You can have them sort into piles of rhyme and no rhyme.

How To Teach Rhyming With Giant Lego Match

If you have access to large Legos, you can tape pictures of objects on the smaller legos and then have the students match two rhyming pictures by placing two legos on top of a longer lego.

How To Teach Rhyming With Clip Cards

Add a little fine motor skills practice by using mini clothespins! Children match the two rhyming pictures and put the clip on the matching picture.

The possibilities are endless !! This is such an important skill and one of my favorites to teach ,have fun and be creative !!

– Jeanne

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Hi, I'm Jeanne !

I help PreK to 1st grade teachers with resources and ideas to make your job easier.

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