Try these fun phonological awareness activities!

1. Word Awareness: Clap Along

Before children can start identifying the sounds in words, they need to be able to divide sentences and phrases into individual words.

One fun activity is to have students clap once for each word in a sentence. Start by speaking a simple sentence out loud, such as “He walks.” Clap as you say each word. Then model the activity again, this time with a longer sentence such as “He walks to school.”

Now have students practice by clapping once for each word as you speak simple sentences out loud.

Tip: Make this more motivating for children by using their names in the sentences. For example, “Jayden waves to his friend.” or “Kali rides her bike.”

2. Rhyme Awareness: Silly Sentences

Tell children that you are going to share some silly sentences, and you want children to clap each time they
hear a rhyming word. Here are a few examples to get you started:

• The fat cat sat on a mat.
• The man put a tan can by the fan.
• Jen the hen lived with a wren in a pen.
• I saw the bug shrug as it sat on the mug by the rug.

3. Rhyme Awareness: Stand and Rhyme

You will need one set of picture cards for this activity. One at a time, hold up a picture card. Have students stand if they can think of a word that rhymes with the word represented by the picture card.

Ask a student who stood up to share the rhyming word they thought of. Tell students to sit down if the word shared was the rhyming word they thought of, but remain standing if they thought of a different rhyming word. Have students share rhyming words one at a time until the entire class is sitting, then repeat the activity with a new picture card.

Tip: If a student provides a rhyming nonsense word, explain: “That word rhymes, but it is a silly word! It doesn’t have a meaning that we know.”

4. Syllable Awareness: Syllable Sort

Kids can do this activity independently or in pairs. Provide a set of picture cards representing one-, two-, and three-syllable words such as ball, baseball, basketball, sun, sunset, bag, banana, pan, potato. Have children sort the picture cards into piles based on how many syllables each word has.

5. Syllable Awareness: Too Many Syllables

Tell children that you were packing words for a weekend trip, but you packed too many! Ask students to help you remove syllables from words so they will all fit in your suitcase. One by one, present the following words and ask students which syllable you can remove to form a new, smaller word: folder (fold), rabbit (bit), elbow (bow), monkey (key), pencil (pen), tennis (ten), napkin (nap), picnic (pick).

6. Onset and Rime Awareness: Sound Chop

Help children learn how to differentiate between onset and rime with this simple activity. First, demonstrate blending onset and rime for a simple CVC word like bed: /b/ (pause) -ed. Then demonstrate segmenting the onset by making a chopping motion with one hand when you say the /b/, then a matching chopping motion with the opposite hand when you say -ed. Have children practice the activity with other three-phoneme words like pen, jam, duck, pot, fan, ran, rug, sack, duck.

Tip: Turn this into blending practice by having kids bring their hand together after “chopping” the word apart, this time to blend the onset and rime back together into a single word.

7. Onset and Rime Awareness: Lost Beginnings

Explain to children that you found a bunch of words that are missing their beginning sounds. Can children find beginning sounds that will make these words complete again? Practice with the following onsets (example answers provided in parentheses):

• -at (bat, cat, mat, fat, pat)
• –ack (pack, sack, back, rack)
• -ap (sap, map, rap)
• -ake (take, make, bake)
• -op (top, hop, pop)

8. Phonemic Awareness – Isolation: Initial Sound Sort

Separate students into pairs or small groups, and give each group a set of picture cards for simple three-phoneme words. Explain to students that they will first say the name of each picture card, and then identify the beginning sound in each word.

Next, working as a group, students will sort the picture cards according to their initial sounds. For example, map, man, and mug should together be in one pile, and pan, pig, and pen should be in another pile.

Tip: Use this activity to practice medial and final sounds, too!

9. Phonemic Awareness – Isolation: Medial Sound Sort

Separate students into pairs or small groups, and give each group a set of picture cards for simple three phoneme words. Explain to students that they will first say the name of each picture card, and then identify the middle sound in each word.

Next, working as a group, they will sort the picture cards according to their middle sounds. For example, man, bat, and pan should be together in one pile, and hot, mop, and top should be together in another pile.

10. Phonemic Awareness: SEGMENTING – Count the Sounds

Tell children to count the sounds on their fingers as you slowly sound out the sounds in each word. You can start with words with only two sounds (like am, two, an), then move to words with three sounds (like pen, man, cave), four sounds (like spin, post, brick), five sounds (like strap, grapes, blend), and even six sounds (like sunset, picnic, napkin)! After each word, ask children how many sounds were in the word.

11. Phonemic Awareness: BLENDING – Count the Sounds

Find the Blend Display a set of picture cards so they are all visible. Pronounce the phonemes of one of the picture words and have children point to the corresponding card. Ask for a volunteer to blend the sounds to say the word. Repeat until children have identified all the cards.

12. Phonemic Awareness: ADDITION – Count the Sounds

Add Initial Phoneme Display the picture card for lip, and help children segment and blend the sounds /l/ /i/ /p/. Now explain that you’re going to add a new sound to the start of this word, /s/. Blend the new word: /s/ /l/ /i/ /p/, slip. Repeat the activity by adding /f/ to form flip and /k/ to form clip. Repeat with other words like low (slow, flow), lap (slap, flap, clap), lock (block, clock), etc.