Phonological awareness involves the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds within words. Early phonological awareness skills are the building blocks to understanding the alphabet and developing reading and spelling skills! Here at The Story Box, we often select books that include phonological awareness concepts. For example, rhyming words, homophones, and homonyms. In addition to reading these books and following the parent guides that accompany them, here are some fun games to play with your preschool to young school-aged child to develop phonological awareness skills!
Clap it Out
One important phonological awareness skill is segmentation; the ability to break down a word by its syllables. Give your child a word and ask him or her to repeat it, clapping for each syllable in the word. For example, banana would have 3 claps: ba-na-na. You can also do this activity by having your child break down a word by its individual sounds. So your child would clap 3 times for the word car by sounding out c-a-r.
Rhyme Time
While driving in the car with your child, play I Spy with a twist. Have your child find an object that rhymes with a word you say. For example, “I spy something that rhymes with “bar”” for the word car! Talk to your child about what rhyming words are and the concept of two words with the same ending sounds but different beginning sounds.
Blending Ball
Practice your child’s ability to blend individual syllables or sounds into a whole word. Throw a ball back and forth with your child each time you say the syllables or sounds that make up a word. Like b-a-t. Then, your child has to blend the sounds together and name the word!
Amy Yacoub, MS, CCC-SLP | Speech Pathologist
Proud Member of The Story Box Family
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