An awareness of the sound system of spoken language and the ability to hear the different sounds within words are essential to successful reading and writing. Students need to be able to aurally distinguish sounds and recognise when sounds are the same or different.
Throughout the school day, you can incorporate oral activities that will support the students’ ability to differentiate sounds in words. Simple listening games take only a few minutes and help tune students into the similarities and differences between words. Many phonological awareness activities can be incorporated into classroom routines. For example, when sorting students into groups, you could ask them to find another person whose name starts with the same sound as theirs or who has the same number of syllables in their name. When dismissing the class, you could ask each student to say a word that rhymes with a given word or send off the students according to features of their names, for example, “off you go if your name has an ‘a’ in it”. Such activities provide great opportunities for reviewing new learning or anchoring previous learning.
The suggestions in this section focus on students learning how to hear and articulate sounds. They start with identifying and differentiating large chunks of sound (rhyme), then smaller chunks (syllables) and, finally, on to activities that involve listening for initial sounds, end sounds, and sounds in sequence within words. Students are generally very quick to recognise rhyme and alliteration. It takes a little longer for most students to be able to recognise words that end the same way or that have the same medial (or middle) sound.
Several of the suggestions overlap. For example, when generating rhyming words, students are also differentiating onset and rime; or when identifying medial sounds, they will often also be identifying particular vowel sounds.
Identifying rhyming words
The ability to recognise rhyme requires an underlying awareness that rhyming words end with the same group of sounds. The following are suggestions for developing the students’ awareness of rhyme.
- When reading rhyming texts aloud, emphasise the rhyme and pause at appropriate points to allow the students to predict the rhyming word.
- Play listening games, such as saying three words (two of which rhyme) and asking the students to pick the rhyming pair.
- Substitute initial sounds to create new rhyming words (including nonsense words, for example, “tumpty rumpty”).
- Support the students to differentiate onsets and rimes. Begin with a one-syllable word, such as “jump”. Say the word. Now, just say the first sound. If we took away the “j”, what would the word be? Encourage the students to create new rhyming words by adding new initial sounds to “ump”. Choose new “starter words” from familiar shared books or poems.
Examples of shared texts that include rhyme
In 2012, the existing Ready to Read poem cards were reorganised into two sets of 12 cards. Other Ready to Read poem cards can be ordered individually, as shown below.
Poem cards that can be ordered as sets
| Set 1 2012 | Set 2 2012 |
| Baa Baa Black Sheep Hey Diddle Diddle Hickory Dickory Dock Higgledy Piggledy Humpty Dumpty Jack Be Nimble Mary Had a Little Lamb One Two Buckle my Shoe Pat-a-Cake Pat-a-Cake Pease Porridge Hot Sing a Song of Sixpence Wee Willie Winkie |
Bedtime Cat Clickety-clack Cicada Daisy Chain I Blew a Bubble Jingle Bells Just a Touch Mice Noke Worm Slooshy, Sloshy Ten Little Monkeys The Most Two Little Dicky Birds |
Poem cards that can be ordered individually
Buzzy Bee
Crab
Footprints
Mālō e Lelei
My Flower
Nanny
Octopus
Puddle Play
Scarecrow
Sleep
Shared books
Splish Splash! (a collection of poems)
Identifying syllables
The following are suggestions for developing the students’ awareness of syllables (relatively large “chunks” of sound) in words.
- Together, clap the students’ names. Help them to recognise patterns of one, two, three “beats” or more.
- Use the students’ names to make up a group chant.
- Clap the syllables in a line of a poem.
- Find a word from a poem that has one syllable, then a word with two, then one with three.
- Clap a syllable pattern for a word in a particular line of a familiar poem and ask the students to identify the word.
Building and breaking words
As students become more proficient in identifying large chunks of sounds within words, you can begin to model how to:
- identify phonemes within words
- build words by blending a sequence of phonemes
- create new words by substituting phonemes in any position within a word.
The following are suggestions for developing the students’ ability to identify and blend phonemes. They involve the identification and articulation of sounds, not letter names.
- Model how to articulate the phonemes in one-syllable words such as “pop” (/p/-/o/-/p/) “gate” (/g/-/ay/-/t/), “ship” (/sh/-/i/-/p/) and encourage the students to say them with you.
- Introduce phoneme blending. Articulate the phonemes in a one-syllable word, for example, “/n/-/i/-/t/” (night). What word do we get when we put these sounds together? As the students develop their ability to blend phonemes, you could extend the activity by choosing more complex words, for example, those that include consonant blends.
- Choose a simple consonant-vowel-consonant word, such as “pin” and have the students “break it” into its onset and rime. Together, experiment with adding or changing the initial sound to make new (rhyming) words (“in”, “pin”, “tin”, “chin”, “win”). As the student becomes more proficient in identifying and manipulating sounds, they could also experiment with initial consonant blends (“tap”, “flap”, “clap”) or making new words by replacing the final sound (“pin”, “pit”, “pip”, “pig”).
Hearing initial sounds
When students begin learning to read and write, they rely heavily on their knowledge of initial sounds. They need to be able to distinguish what the first sound in a word is and to recognise when initial sounds are the same or different. When helping students to develop their ability to hear initial sounds, focus on one sound at a time and choose words with distinctive initial sounds, such as those that start with “b”, “d”, “f”, “m”, “p”, “s”, and “t”. Keep in mind the possibility of confusions with sounds across languages for multilingual students. (For further information, see Learning through Talk, page 21.)
The following are suggestions for developing the students’ ability to distinguish particular initial sounds and to recognise when initial sounds are the same or different.
- Enjoy alliterative texts (texts that repeat initial sounds) with the students.
- Have fun making up tongue-twisters or alliterative phrases.
- Place several objects (such as a ball, a car, a pencil, and plastic animals) inside a “mystery box” (a box with a hole cut in the lid). Put your hand in the box and pull out an object. Say the name of the object, its beginning sound, and repeat the name of the object. Then have the students take turns to choose an object and follow the three steps. You can extend the activity by having the students name another word that begins with the same sound. Leave the mystery box out for the students to use as an independent activity.
- Play listening games such as saying three words (two of which start with the same sound) and asking the students to pick the two that match.
Examples of shared texts with repeated initial sounds (single sounds)
Poem cards
Hickory Dickory Dock: dickory, dock, down
Mary Had a Little Lamb: little, lamb; white, went
My Flower: put, pot; seed, sunshine, say; watered, waited, watched
Pease Porridge Hot: pease, porridge, pot
Wee Willy Winkie: Wee, Willy, Winkie, window
Shared books
Bubbles: birds, bubbles
Dragons! Dragons! Dragons!: cheered, children; Daisy, Damon, Dora, Dylan, day, deep, do, down
Fantail, Fantail: peas, pie
Greedy Cat: bag, bananas, buns; chips, chocolate; pepper, pot, potato
Haere Atu: bag, baggy, beach, board, boy, boys, bumpy; She, she, shorts, shout, shouted
Examples of shared texts with repeated initial sounds (consonant blends)
Poem cards
Just a Touch: snails, snuffly
Nanny: criss cross, snip snap
Puddle Play: floating, Flying; sky, skies
Slooshy, Sloshy: Slooshy, sloshy; squishy, squashy
Shared books
Dragons! Dragons! Dragons!: blew, blow; dragon, dragons, drew, dropped; flame, flapped, flew; friendly, fruit; stared, stories; swished, swooped
Haere Atu: flapped, flew, floppy, fly; slap, slapped, sloppy, Slurp, slurp
Hearing final sounds and inflected endings
As students gain confidence with identifying the initial sounds of words, you can help them attend to final sounds. Again, choose examples with end sounds that are relatively easy for the students to hear and articulate. These include words that end with digraphs such as “ch” or “sh” or with “y” (either as a long “i” sound, as in “fly”, or an “ee” sound, as in “Greedy”). You could extend this to include inflected endings, for example, “s”, “ed”, “ing”, “er”. Be selective in your choice of texts when drawing attention to “s” as an inflected ending in order to avoid confusion with its use to denote both present-tense verbs and plurals. With young learners, focus on only one use of these aspects at a time.
Be aware of possible confusions with sounds across languages for your multilingual students. Also note that students with hearing impairments may find some end sounds, such as “s”, “sh”, “ch”, “j” (“dge”), and “th” difficult to distinguish. See Learning through Talk, 21 and 32 for further information.
The following are ideas for developing the students’ awareness of final sounds.
- Use intonation to draw attention to the end sound. Ask the students to say the word themselves so they can hear and “feel” the sound. Discuss the position of their tongue or teeth when articulating the end sound. What sound can you hear at the end of “sleep”? Say it softly. Touch your lips with your finger as you say the last sound. Can you feel air on your finger? You could use a mirror to help students see where to put their tongue to make particular sounds.
- Within a set of three or four words, ask the students to identify the word that ends with the focus sound or inflected ending.
Examples of shared texts with distinctive repeated final sounds
Poem cards
Buzzy Bee: buzz
Clickety-clack Cicada: clickety, noisy
Hickory Dickory Dock: dock, clock, struck
Mice: touch, much
Nanny: criss cross, snip snap, zig zag school bag
Puddle Play: sky, by
Sing a Song of Sixpence: dainty, twenty
Sleep: sleep, creep, creeps, sweep
Slooshy, Sloshy: sloshy, squishy, squashy
Shared books
Number One: crash, splash
Dragons! Dragons! Dragons!: Daisy, fiery, friendly, library, lonely, ready, very
Greedy Cat: Greedy, sticky
Examples of shared texts with inflected endings (s, ed, ing)
Plurals
| Poem cards | Shared books |
| Mice: tails, faces, chins, ears, things Puddle Play: birds, eyes, skies |
“A Splish-splash Day” (in Splish Splash!): bits, coats houses, puddles, raindrops, rivers, snails, trees, worms Bubbles: birds, bubbles Dragons! Dragons! Dragons!: Dragons, friends, lives, picnics, princesses, sausages, shelves, skateboards, stories Greedy Cat: bananas, buns, chips, sausages Haere Atu: arms, girls, boys, legs, dads, mums, shorts |
Present-tense verbs (ending in “s”)
| Poem cards | Shared books |
| Octopus: gets, zooms | Me and My Dog: barks, bounces, leaps, lifts, opens, scratches, sits, stands, stretches, wags, watches, waves Number One: jumps, runs, says, shuts, stops |
Past-tense verbs (ending in “ed”)
| Poem cards | Shared books |
| My Flower: watered, waited, watched | Dad’s Snore: boomed, bounced, howled, roared, rolled, yelled, yowled Dragons! Dragons! Dragons!: cheered, dragons, dropped, jumped, lived, packed, screamed, sizzled, stared, swished, swooped Haere Atu: cried, flapped, jumped, laughed, reached, shouted, slapped, zoomed Lost: looked, promised, shouted, waited, squealed, wobbled, scooped, worked |
Present-tense verbs (ending in “ing”)
| Poem cards | Shared books |
| Clickety-clack Cicada: Clinging, shining, sleeping “Night Noises” (in Splish Splash!): Chasing, hissing, howling, hunting, Making, prowling, racing, scratching, Shouting, snorting, Snuffling, Spitting Octopus: hiding, lurking Puddle Play: floating, Flying, Shining |
Me and My Dog: barking, bouncing, Scratching, stretching, wagging, walking, waving |
Hearing medial sounds
The identification of medial sounds in words is a relatively challenging task for young readers and writers, but it is essential if they are to be able to accurately sequence sounds within words, especially when writing. Make sure the students are reasonably confident with identifying initial and final sounds before you ask them to focus on medial sounds. (This topic has close links with “Building and breaking words” above.)
The following are teaching ideas for developing the students’ awareness of medial sounds:
- Start with two-syllable words that have distinct medial consonants or digraphs (for example, “open”, “before”, “over”, “away”, “again”, “sloshy”, “washing”, “puddle”, “wobble”) and ask the students to identify the sounds they hear in the middle.
- Move on to activities with single-syllable words that have strong medial vowel sounds. Give the students three or four words, for example, “cake”, “face”, “deep”, and “made”, and ask them to tell you which word has a different sound in the middle. As the students develop their ability to distinguish medial sounds, you could introduce examples with short vowel sounds (for example, “pot”, “dog”, “then”, “shop”). Short vowel sounds are more difficult to distinguish because some of the differences between them (for example, “e” and “i”) are subtle.