Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Assignments

Now that you’ve had a chance to learn about phonemes , let’s see if you are able to do the following exercise!

Listening for phonemes

How many phonemes do you hear when I say the words below? Click the audio play arrow to hear it spoken, think about how many phonemes you hear, then see if you heard the correct number.

Example: book

Answer: 3
/b/-/oo/-/k/

Example: day

Answer: 2
/d/-/ay/

Example: can

Answer: 3
/c/-/a/-/n/

Example: sand

Answer: 4
/s/-/a/-/n/-/d/

Example: at

Answer: 2
/a/-/t/

Example: bat

Answer: 3
/b/-/a/-/t/

Example: by

Answer: 2
/b/-/y/

Example: bath

Answer: 3
/b/-/a/-/th/

Example: tight

Answer: 3
/t/-/igh/-/t/

Challenge Question: (You can do this one!)
Example: hopeful

Answer: 6
/h/-/o/-/pe/-/f/-/u/-/l/

Practice blending phonemes into words

Let’s practice blending phonemes. We’ll use the phonemes from assignment #1, so that you get additional practice with the same sounds.

Read

Phonemic Activities for the Preschool or Elementary Classroom
Activities that stimulate phonemic awareness in preschool and elementary school children are one sure way to get a child ready for reading! Here are eight of them from experts Marilyn J. Adams, Barbara Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, and Terri Beeler.

Play

Plan some fun phonemic awareness activities to play with your students. Here are a few resources to help you get started:

• How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities
• Elkonin Boxes
• Tips for Teaching Your Child About Phonemes

Deep dive: teaching phonological and phonemic awareness

Learn more about teaching phonological and phonemic awareness in these in-depth skill explainers. You’ll find classroom videos, lesson plans, student practice activities, and more. (From our sister project, Reading Universe)

• Syllable Awareness (opens in a new window)
• Rhyming (opens in a new window)
• Onset-Rime (opens in a new window)
• Phoneme Identification (opens in a new window)
• Phoneme Manipulation (opens in a new window)

Certificate of completion

Reading Rockets does not offer CEUs for this self-study course. After successfully answering the post-test questions, you’ll be able to download a certificate of completion.