Phonological Awareness

Developing and Supporting Your Child’s Reading Journey – Week 2

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Phonological Awareness Games and Book Sharing Ideas

Phonological awareness relates to our sensitivity and understanding of the sound structures of our oral language. It enables us to progress from our awareness of large sound units (words in sentences) to smaller sound units (phonemes in words).

Our phonological awareness develops over time and the depth of that awareness is based on the range of experiences we have. Research suggests that our phonological awareness begins in the womb at about 24 weeks and is continually built upon throughout our lives. We tend to think of children going through ten distinct phonological stages (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-development.html ); the later stages being related to phonics (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-development-phonics.html ). 

Children are taught to read in schools through phonics; the association between sounds (phonemes) to written alphabet letters (graphemes).

Phonics reading is the process of firstly segmenting the written word into letters, or letter combinations, then associating known sounds to those letters and finally blending the sounds together to form words (decoding). If a child is weak in any of the phonological awareness stages before those relating to phonics, then they will struggle with learning to read.

Because of the nature of how we develop our phonological awareness games and activities cannot easily be split into categories. Playing, drawing, writing, singing and book sharing all require you to talk with your child highlighting sounds, words and rhythms of language.

Here are some games and activities to help you:

  • Singing and sharing nursery rhymes is a great way to help children hear sounds in words because the words are drawn out and the sounds highlighted or exaggerated.
  • Clapping, bouncing or tapping to songs and rhymes helps to highlight the syllables of the words. A syllable is the largest phonological unit (one or a group of sounds) of a word and is like the rhythmic beat of the word.
  • Pointing out the sounds you hear, such as animal or environmental noises, and explaining what is making that noise.
  • Playing games or singing songs where you and your child can make noises such as animal sounds (Old MacDonald had a farm) or vehicle noises (The Wheels on the Bus).
  • Drawing animals or other everyday objects that have a distinct sound, naming them and making the sound they produce.

Book Sharing

What books should you choose?

  • Books with sounds of animals and other objects that make sounds
  • Nursery Rhymes
  • Books formatted from songs
  • Books with rhyme and alliteration
  • Poetry books
  • Any book really, remember your local library can help you to choose a good range of books to share with your child if you are not sure.

Book Sharing Tips

  • Don’t be shy, make animal and object noises. If you are self-conscious about it your child will pick up on this. No one thinks twice about an adult making what may appear to be strange noises if they are sharing them with a child (it’s when you forget they are not with you and you do it that they tend to look at a you a bit funny).
  • Talk about whether the words in a book rhyme or not. Point out the rhyming words, make up other rhyming words for any of the words in the book. Remember they do not have to be real words they can be silly funny words that pick up the rhyming sounds in the original word.
  • It is important to remember for some children saying a word that rhymes with one you have given can be very difficult, if not impossible. So, don’t stress them out with this, it is often easier for them to recognise a rhyme than to make one. You could ask them to tell you if two words you give rhyme or not. If they find this easy try giving them three words with only two that rhyme and ask them to identify the rhyming words.
  • After sharing the book pick out words that you can clap out the syllables for. You could make this into a jumping or hopping game instead. With older children ask then to tell you how many syllables the word has and then to check their answer by counting the number of claps or jumps they make.
  • Play an ‘I Spy’ game using the pictures in the book looking for rhyming words for instance by giving clues such as; “It is red and rhymes with the word sock.” The answer is clock.

Developing and Supporting Your Child’s Reading Journey – Week 1

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How to Develop a Child’s Interest in Books and Reading

Research suggests that children who enjoy books are more likely to want to learn to read and will keep trying even when they find it hard. Therefore, it is important to keep their interaction around books a positive one.

Through Play

Books come in all shapes and sizes and are made from various materials.

  • Have a few bath books. even if most of the time your baby or toddler just chews on them, they will be handling a book and possibly turning the pages. Giving you the opportunity to talk about the pictures with them.
  • Try to have a range of cloth, hard books and suitable picture books around the house and in your child’s play area so they can pick them up at any time. This way they can explore them for themselves, (even if it is to give them a quick chew on) not as an adult sharing activity.

Through Drawing & Writing

Drawing and making your own simple story book can be a great way of getting your child interested in books and reading. Children love to hear stories about them. Simple homemade books about them can be a great way of introducing children to books and reading. This can be a very effective approach to encourage reluctant readers.

  • Draw simple pictures with, or for, your child and talk through what you are drawing, for example; a picture of a house with matchstick people. The pictures could be telling the events of the day for example going to the park or walking the dog.
  • If drawing is not your thing (like me) use fuzzy felt instead to make a picture to share the story of their day.

Through Songs and Nursery Rhymes

Children’s songs and nursery rhymes cover a wide range of concepts such as going through every day sequences in the nursery rhyme ‘Here we go Round the Mulberry Bush’ which uses the phrase ‘This is the way we…’ to order the event of getting up in the morning. Some introduce concept such as size, numbers, colours and shapes. While others tell stories for example ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ or ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury.

Sharing books that enable you and your child to sing along (retell) their favourite songs and nursery rhymes means that the child knows what to expect and that they are going to have fun and enjoy the experience. Over time you will then be able to introduce books with new songs and nursery rhymes, building on your child’s positive experience of other book sharing sessions with you. Remember you may have to revert back to the old favourite time and time again, but stick with it.

Through Book Sharing

What books should you choose?

  • Pick children’s books you enjoy
  • Pick books your child enjoys
  • Give your child time to choose and look at books (your local library is a great place for this).
  • Follow your child’s interests
  • Use ‘true’ books and stories (not those specifically written for developing phonics knowledge or rigidly structured reading scheme books for teaching and learning to read, these will come from school and serve a different purpose).

Book Sharing Tips

  • Remember that a child’s age personality, mood and stage of development will affect how they interact with the book.
  • Keep the interaction around the book positive and fun, if you are not enjoying it your child will pick up on this.
  • Keep your child involved, remember you do not have to read the book word for word, it is the positive sharing experience that is important.
  • If your child does not seem interested in reading or sharing books, start slowly by sharing /reading one or two pages at a time. Keep the interaction positive and over time their interest will grow.
  • If your child is showing no interest then try again another time.
  • When reading a book with your child that you really like then tell them that you like the book or story. Your child may not agree with you and insist on their favourite book which after reading for the 500th time you may be bored with but keep with it, there will be another favourite book!
  • Try to share books throughout the day not just at nap and bed times. I found having a couple of books in my bag really useful as I could then share a book with one of my girl’s while the other was swimming or with them both while waiting for the bus or sharing tea and cake in a café.
  • Read with your child every day. There are some days where this just seems impossible to manage. Remember one minute is better than no minutes and it does not have to be a book you are reading, there are lots of environment reading matter you could use such as painting/pictures, posters, advertisement, road signs and maps.

Reading with Your Child Can Be Fun!

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The importance of reading to, and with, your child from a very early age can’t be over emphasized. The more your child is exposed to words and enjoys the reading experience the quicker they will learn to read for themselves.

Reading with your child enables you to introduce them to new words and language structures which they will not come across in their everyday interactions. You can explain these words, through reading with your child, and help them to develop an understanding of their meaning. If a child likes the sound and rhythm of these new words or language structures they will, over time, start to use them in conversations with others and during imaginative play.

Reading to, and with, your child is such an important activity, however knowing how to keep it fun and to get the most out of the experiences is not always clear. This is why we are re-running our popular six-week series on ‘Developing and Supporting Your Child’s Reading Journey’

Each week we will look at a different reading skill element, giving example games and activities you can use to support and develop your child through:

  • Play
  • Drawing/Writing
  • Book Sharing
  • Talk & Song

‘Developing and Supporting Your Child’s Reading Journey’ Series:

  • Week 1. How to develop a child’s interest in books and reading.
  • Week 2. Phonological awareness skills required for reading.
  • Week 3. Vocabulary development for comprehension.
  • Week 4. Print awareness to develop understanding of reading conventions.
  • Week 5. Narrative skills to support the understanding of different writing styles.
  • Week 6. Letter knowledge.

Beat ‘The Terrible Twos’ – Gestures & Signing

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Before an infant/toddler (1 to 2 years +) can talk they will often use gestures to help them get what they want, or let you know that they want you to do something again. Quite often these gestures are only really understood by you, this makes it difficult for others to understand your child, causing them to become frustrated at the lack of response.  

Although your child’s receptive language (understanding what is being said and asked of them) is developing well, their expressive language (telling others what they want and think) is far more limited, with them only being able to say around 20 words. The frustration of understanding but not being able to communicate leads to what is commonly known as ‘The Terrible Twos’. Sign language can be a very powerful tool to help you and your child to manage and lessen these communication frustrations.

For more tips and ideas to help you and your child to develop effective gesture and signing techniques follow the link to our ‘Gesture & Signing’ page: https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/gestures-signing-babies.html

When do phonics skills start?

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There are 10 stages of phonological awareness. Stages 1 to 7 are what we class as the pre-phonics skill stages (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-development.html) and stages 8 to 10 (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-development-phonics.html) we would class as the phonics stages.

Phonological awareness skills relate to our sensitivity and understanding of the sound structures of our spoken (oral) language. It enables us to progress from our awareness of large sound units (words in sentences) to smaller sound units (phonemes in words). It also incorporates the ways in which we communicate through speech, body language and written forms.

Research suggests that our phonological awareness (Stage 1: https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-awareness-stage-1.html) begins in the womb at about 24 weeks.  New born babies have a preference for their mother’s voice, as they have had an extended period of time hearing the voice before they are born, and so find it comforting. They do not understand the words, just the sound, rhythm and intonation of her speech pattern; more like music.

So, talk to your baby even before they are born, they will not understand what you are saying but their brain is busy; starting to store sound information that will later help them to understand language and learning to speak.

Babies initially have no language preference; they respond only to the sounds and facial gestures and mouth shapes that accompany them.

How you talk to your baby also has an impact; research has shown that babies prefer you to talk to them using regular words (normal adult vocabulary) in a slightly higher pitched and more sing-song way. Although many adults do this naturally when talking to babies it has become known as ‘Parentese’ and is very different from ‘Baby Talk’. For more information about ‘Parentese’: https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/how-to-speak-parentese.html

The Key to Good Phonics Skills – Part 13

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Developing #Listening & #Speaking Skills – Syllable Awareness & Counting (Word Play)

At about the age of 4 years old children start to develop an understanding that words can be split into sound parts (syllables) and that these parts give the word its rhythm.  A syllable is the largest phonological unit (one or a group of sounds) of a word and is like the rhythmic beat of the word.

They should be able to orally blend syllables together to form words and segment words into syllables (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-awareness-stage-4.html).

A fun activity to help develop syllable understanding:

How Many Syllables?     

Children love to clap out the number of syllables in a word. It is important to say the word at a normal speed rather than really slowly as this can distort the word and make it difficult to hear the syllables. To start with a child just needs to be able to recognize them by clapping, stamping or jumping for each syllable of a word; they don’t need to be able to count them. It is thought that only about 50% of children can count out the syllables by the age of 4, so you can do the counting for them.

Spoken syllables are organised around the vowel sounds, making counting them easy; as the jaw drops when the vowel sound is spoken in the syllable. Try placing your hand under your jaw with your mouth closed before you say a word. Start with ‘cat’ you will notice the jaw drops once; this is because it is a one syllable (monosyllabic) word.

Most children will find it easier to identify syllables in compound words to start with. A compound word is formed by two words (root words) put together such as: sunset, hotdog, snowman and postman. They find it easier because the jaw tends to drop quite distinctly as we say the vowel sound in each of the root words and because we tend to say these words slowly.

The Key to Good Phonics Skills – Part 12

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Developing #Listening & #Speaking Skills – Rhyme & Alliteration (Word Play)

Young children develop their vocabulary and understanding of sound patterns within words through word play.

Rhyme awareness and the enjoyment of alliteration begins early, usually between the ages of 2 and 3 years old (Stage 3 of phonological awareness: https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-awareness-stage-3.html ). This develops in to an important tool, supporting a child in developing an understanding of how words are formed and the sound patterns within them. These are important pre-phonics skills a child needs to develop to support their future ability to succeed with phonics, reading and writing.

This Rhyme awareness is supported and developed through the singing of songs and nursery rhymes and finger chants. Alliteration (words that begin with the same sounds) such as ‘Sammy snake slithers silently’, which children love to hear in rhymes and stories, also supports their word knowledge and understanding of sounds in words.

Being able to repeat, and join in with, short phrases they have anticipated in a story or rhyme, is another important step in a child beginning to understand the use of words in stories and story structure; such as, “I’ll huff and puff and blow your house down!” in the story of The Three Little Pigs.

For more information on this, and other pre-phonics skills (Phonological Awareness) your child develops through from birth to 7 +years old, check out the Pre-phonics section of our website: https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-development.html

The Key to Good Phonics Skills – Part 11

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Developing #Listening & #Speaking Skills – Games to Encourage Talking and Language Knowledge

A few weeks ago, we explained the importance of developing your child’s word awareness skills here are some further games ideas to encourage them to use this new language.

  • Playing tapes or CDs of nursery rhymes and children’s song are good for helping your child to make the distinction between the music and words (language used) in them. It is a good idea to practise this skill when there are no other noise distractions.
  • When your child points at something tell them the name of the object, for example if they point at an apple, say “Apple”.
  • Try to use the new word in context regularly as repetition of the word will help your child to remember it and reinforce the meaning of the word.
  • Try playing some action songs and rhymes to help your child learn the actions for the rhyme, then let them have a go on their own. Watch them to see if they can do some of the actions at the right time in the song, to see if they are listening for the right cue words. If they are struggling, explain they have to wait for certain words and show them what to do and when to do it.
  • If they are trying to say a word, let them finish and then say it back to them clearly and correctly. Do not make them repeat it back to you, they may choose to do so but make it their choice.
  • Repeat and expand on what your child says, so if they say “Dog!” you may say “A big dog!” This also helps them to develop an understanding of sentence structure.
  • Finger rhymes, such as ‘Round and Round the Garden’, ‘Pat-a-cake’ and ‘Incy Wincey Spider’ and action songs encourage your child to interact with words, the sounds within them and the rhythms they create. ‘Row, Row Your Boat’ is a lovely whole body movement song that encourages a rhythmic whole-body motion, which babies and toddler enjoy (as well as the adults).
  • Sharing and talking about the books you are reading helps to build word knowledge, as you point to the pictures, picking out different objects.  Reading out aloud helps to introduce your child to words that they may not experience in their everyday talk. This helps to expose them to new vocabulary and the sounds to be found in those words.
  • Introducing and playing sorting games helps your child to build a mental filing cabinet system of categories, this helps them to remember and learn the meaning of words. Start by introducing simple categories of everyday items like food or clothes as their vocabulary increases categories such as colour, size and texture become more appropriate.

Treasure Hunts Develop both Handwriting & Language Skills

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The Easter Holidays are here, so here are some fun activities to keep children of all ages entertained whether we have rain or sunshine.

A treasure hunt is a great way to teach children directional language. Being able to understand directional and placement (prepositions) vocabulary is important for understanding everyday instructions such as ‘put your cup on the table’; ‘go along the hall and stop at the door in front of you’.

We also use this directional language to explain how to draw patterns and write letters, which is another reason why it is important for young children to be introduced to, and have a good understanding of, this kind of vocabulary.

Through treasure hunts you can introduce new directional and placement language in a fun and exciting way. There are a number of different ways to approach this:

  • You can give verbal instructions to the hidden treasure.
  • You could create a map for them to follow and ask them to talk you through the map, supporting them with new language as necessary.
  • You could use a mixture of verbal and map clues.
  • For older children get them to hide the treasure and give you instructions, or draw a map.
  • If you have more than one treasure and they are of different sizes make the larger ones more difficult to find.

The important thing is the language shared. Words and phrases to use are: left, right, straight on, forward, backwards, about turn, turn around, up, down, higher, lower, stop, next to, in front, beside, underneath, on top of, behind, on the left of, on the right of, outside, and inside.

Treasure hunts are a great whole family activity and you are never too young or too old to join in!

The Key to Good Phonics Skills – Part 5

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Developing #Listening & Speaking Skills – Games to Develop Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is our ability to split words into their smallest sound units (individual phonemes) and to manipulate these sounds through segmentation, blending, substitution and deletion. This is based on what we hear and say, not the written word.

These games are great for playing in the car or when waiting in queues and hopefully soon when out and about with other friends and family.

We usually introduce this concept to children using one syllable CVC words, a word that has a Consonant followed by a Vowel and then another Consonant, such as cat, dog, sit, peg and sun.

Play, ‘I hear with my little ear…’

This is based on the game I spy with my little eye. In this version you say;

 “I hear with my little ear the words (for example) cat, cake, key and kite. What sound do these words begin with?” The answer is they begin with the sound ‘k’ remember it is about what they hear not the spelling or letter names.

  • To begin with focus on helping your child to identify the first sound in words, remember it is about what you hear not the spelling, so shop, ship, and chef all start with the same first sound ‘sh’; fish, photo, fog would also have the same initial ‘f’ sound. Try not to correct your child based on spelling conventions, as it is sounds you are working on – spelling comes later.
  • Next help your child to listen and identify the last sound in a word such as ‘t’ in cat, sit and hat.
  • Then focus on the medial, or middle, sound in the word such as ‘a’ in mat, lap and tap.

Once your child can identify the initial, medial and final sounds in a word the next step is to playing with the words through oral phoneme segmentation and oral phoneme blending. You are probably doing this already with your child without really realising it.

  • Segmentation – being able to split words into their individual sounds, for example ‘cat’ into c-a-t.

Play, ‘How many sounds (phonemes) can you hear?’

This is a simple oral segmentation game just ask; “How many sounds (phonemes) can you hear in the word ‘hat’? The answer is 3. If your child can not count, they can show you using their fingers. The important thing is for them to hear and pick out the individual sounds in the word not the number of letters used to spell the word.

  • Blending – being able to blend individual sounds together to say a word, for example d-o-g into dog. This is achieved by saying the sounds over and over again getting quicker until it sounds and can be identified as the word (a tricky skills to learn).

Play, ‘How many sounds (phonemes) can you hear?’

This oral blending game seems easy but can be very trick skill for some children to master, so do not be surprised if they find it hard to begin with. Use CVC words to begin with, but do keep trying as it is a very important skill to learn; be patient and over time they will get there.