Being an early reading specialist, phonemic awareness has a
special place in my heart. Not to
mention it is SO important! It’s a foundational building block for everything
reading and writing – don’t even get me started.
Strolling through the aisles of Target, making googly eyes
at all things primary colors in the Dollar Spot section, I came across these
mini Building Blocks “hashtags” (meant to be kind of “Lego-esque”) and knew I
had to use them for my favorite go-to phonemic awareness activity – Phoneme Mapping. I mean, how cute are they?
I love phoneme mapping because it helps young readers with a
myriad of phonemic awareness skills! They learn that words are made up of
individual sounds, they are able to segment and count the sounds in words, and
they begin to transition to the idea that spoken words have a written
counterpart and can take that idea even further as we begin to add in phonics
learning in later learning stages.
Let me show you how it works…
We get started my setting up our materials. Each student gets 3 (or more) "markers" and we line them up under the boxes.
I choose a word (I might show them a picture, but not the print - that's just so you can visually see my word, too) and say it naturally.
The students repeat the word.
Then we segment the word by tapping one finger for each sound we hear. I encourage students to:
--> Use their non-donimant hand (so their dominant hand is later free for writing/spelling)
--> Turn their hand to face them so they are tapping from left to right (just as we would read or write a word)
We repeat segmenting the word again, this time pushing one "marker" into a box for each sound we hear. After tapping out "cat," we know there should be three boxes filled.
We say the sounds as we push a marker into each box. "/k/"
"/a/"
"/t/"
Finally, we slide our finger under the boxes and say the whole word, pulling it back together again.
"Cat."
I love to change up this activity by simply giving the
kiddos a different item to use for their mapping. The Dollar Spot is always touting adorable
mini holiday erasers that work perfectly, and clear bingo chips are always a favorite. I’ve had these magnetic ones forever and a
day, recommended by my first reading specialist. She {was amazing and} taught me how to use
them with these fancy magnetic wands and called it “Tap It, Map It, Zap It.” The kids eat this up, ya’ll! Plus, I love how it encourages and reminds
them both visually and kinesthetically to pull those sounds back together
quickly after segmenting.
