Phonics Support for Phonological Awareness for

Parents and Teachers

Phonological Awareness O Phonological awareness refers to the set of

skills which enables us to make sense of the sounds in words we say and hear.

O An awareness of speech sounds can help children to learn to read.

O The link between speech skills and literacy skills is very important.

Usual Development Most children progress as below: O Recognise syllables – can clap out a name O Recognise rhyming sounds O Can hear the beginning and the end sounds

of a word O Can hear all the sounds in a word O Can remove the beginning, middle or end sound and say what is left.

Activities to Help Rhythm O Nursery rhymes, singing games, clapping O Music, especially percussion O Playground games O Syllable counting, clapping, beating

Activities to Help Alliteration

O Spot the odd one out – pig, pin, pill, sat O Finish the sentence – cheeky chick chews…. O Make sound words – pop, sizzle, bang O Guess the initial sound – sat, sun etc = S

Activities to Help Rhyming

They must learn that the end chunk of the word stays the same and only the beginning sound changes O Spot the two which rhyme – bee/tree

bee/ant O Think of a rhyme – dog/?, sat/? O Sort pictures of rhyming objects O Rhyming pairs game O Guess the word to finish the line in the poem

Activities to Help Segmentation

This is the recognition of units of sound. O Counters – take a counter for each word you

hear in a sentence O Compound words – hear and split into the

two words – sandpit – sand+pit O Clap out syllables - monster mon/ster

Activities to help Phoneme Awareness

O Counters – take a counter for each sound in a word

O Break a word into its separate sounds p/a/t O Talk like a robot to separate sounds O Play “I hear with my little ear…” use initial,

middle and end sounds O Extend vocabulary – make scrap books of

different animals, food, jobs etc

Activities to Help Phoneme Deletion

O Delete a sound – say pins, now take off the “s” = pin

O Delete a syllable – say elephant, now take off the “ele” = phant

O Change the letter sound – say “trot” now change “tr” to “h” = hot

O Change the syllable – say “juggle” now change the “jug” to “smug” = smuggles

O Jumble syllables – et/jack = jack/et

What next? O If you are still concerned with your child’s

phonological awareness, please speak to their class teacher or the school SENCO.

O The school can refer your child to a specialist teacher for formal assessment if appropriate.