This document outlines 9 levels of phonological awareness in children, from exposure to nursery rhymes to phoneme manipulation. Each level is described in 1-2 paragraphs and includes example activities to develop skills at that level, such as rhyming games for level 3 recognition and production of rhyme. The levels progress from whole word awareness to individual phoneme skills, showing how phonological awareness develops from larger to smaller linguistic units.

1. Phonological
awareness in children
Based on compilation by J. Sheils & Y. Sawyers

2. Contents
 Level 1: Exposure to Nursery Rhymes
 Level 2: Word awareness
 Level 3: Rhyme recognition and production
 Level 4: Recognition and production of syllables
 Level 5: Recognition and production of initial sounds
 Level 6: Recognition and production of final sounds
 Level 7: Blending Phonemes
 Level 8: Phonemic segmentation
 Level 9: Phoneme Manipulation

3. Level 1:
Exposure to Nursery Rhymes

4. Exposure to Nursery Rhymes
Hearing Learning Reciting
LITERACY SKILLS

5. Exposure to Nursery Rhymes
 Process to help the children to develop an ear for
rhyme:
1. Telling them that the words sound the same at the
end
2. Reading aloud, reciting and encouraging them to
recite and sing.
 Selecting rhymes, jingles, poems, etc.:
Rhyming words
Easier if rhyming words are situated in close proximity
to one another. I.e.: better AAAA or AABB than ABAB

6. Exposure to Nursery Rhymes
 Questions about a rhyme:
Which word does NOT rhyme?
Can you think of a word that rhymes with _______?
Which word has a DIFFERENT end sound?

7. Exposure to Nursery Rhymes
 Some suggestions
• One, two, three, four, five
• 1, 2, tie my show
• Five little monkeys jumping on the bed
• Number Rhyme
• Five little fishes swimming in the pool
Numbers
• It’s raining, it’s pouring
• Rain rain go away
• In Autumn when the trees are brown
• Red and yellow
Weather, seasons,…

8. Exposure to Nursery Rhymes
 Some suggestions
• My hands upon my head I’ll place
• Read to me (for telling stories activities)
• Glue poem
• Everybody have a seat
• Sitting on the floor
• Our voices
• Birthday Chant (rhyme to ask someone’s birthday)
Classroom routines/ managing
• I have a little toothbrush
Hygiene

9. Exposure to Nursery Rhymes
 Some suggestions
•Hey Diddle Diddle!
•Dickey, dickery, dare
•Hark, hark! The dogs do bark
•Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
•Hickory, dickory, dock
•Humpty Dumpty
•The kites go up
•… (pages 5 to 12 in the package)
Other suggested rhymes

10. Level 2:
Word awareness

11. Word awareness
Awareness of words
in spoken and
written language
Learning to read
and write
Words in a
sentence
Syllables in a word
Isolated phoneme
synthesis and
segmentation

12. Word awareness
• Words are part of sentences
• Tell a story (clapping words)
• Using familiar rhymes (reciting from
right to left)
• Game: One potato
• Compound words (with pictures)
• Word counting
• Breaking sentences
Some suggested activities

13. Level 3:
Recognition & Production of Rhyme

14. Recognition & production of
Rhyme
Visual
representation
of the words
Words
presented
completely
orally
End-sound
awareness
Metalingüistic
undestanding
directly
common
words
common
letter
sequences
Indirectly
Intra-word
segmentation
(phonemes)

15. •Body name game
•Rhyming game (different variations: songs,
poems, clap rap,…)
•Put your thumbs up
•Making Funny Sentences
•Pebble game
•You can come sailing on my ship
•Silly Rhymes Big Book
•Did you ever ever…?
•…
Some suggested activities
Recognition & production of
Rhyme

16. Level 4:
Recognition & Production of syllables

17. Recognition & production of
syllables
Early stages
• Visual
representations
Later
• Spelling
*Syllables can be represented by any number of letters from one to nine.

18. • Clapping syllables
• Silly syllable puppet
• Ticki Ticki Tembo
• Bibbity Bibbity Bumble Bee
• Clap Clap your hands
• Syllable groups
• Teacher may we?
• Feel the syllables
Some suggested activities
Recognition & production of
Syllables

19. Level 5:
Recognition & Production of Initial
Sounds

20. Recognition & production of
Initial Sounds
Initial sound activities show children that:
• words contain phonemes
• introduces how phonemes sound
and feel when spoken in isolation
Individual phonemes are more difficult because
of “co-articulation”

21. • Phoneme train
• I’m thinking of Something
• Beds and boulders, bees and bows
• Simon says
• Ride the train
• Going shopping
• I went on a trip
• Personal tongue twisters
• Initial sound clap
• Circle swap shop
• …
Some suggested activities
Recognition & production of
Initial Sounds

22. Level 6:
Recognition & Production of Final
Sounds

23. Recognition & production of
Final Sounds
Final sound activities show children that:
• words contain phonemes
• introduces how phonemes sound
and feel when spoken in isolation
Individual phonemes are more difficult because
of “co-articulation”

24. •Can you say?
•Final Sound Song
•Last Sound Last
•Secret sound
•Beginning, middle or end?
•Bag game
•…
Some suggested activities
Recognition & production of
Final Sounds

25. Level 7 & 8:
Blending phonemes &
Phonemic segmentation

26. Blending phonemes &
Phonemic Segmentation
Blending phonemes
• A word is presented with the individual
phonemes isolated. The child needs to put the
phonemes together to make the word.
Phonemic segmentation
A child is given a word and is required to isolate the
individual phonemes.
*Note: These tasks can be presented as onset and rime or phoneme by
phoneme.

27. •Guess it
•Mystery Sentences
•Mail Game
•Old McDonals had a box
•If you think you know
•Sound it out song
•Boingy Elastic Band Game
•Segmentation Cheer/Chant
•Using a Phoneme Frame
•Bag Game
•Phoneme blocks
•Drawing Lines on Pictures
•…
Some suggested activities
Blending phonemes &
Phonemic Segmentation

28. Level 9:
Phoneme manipulation

29. Phoneme manipulation
Phoneme manipulation is the ability to:
• Delete initial and final phonemes in words.
• Delete the first phoneme of a consonant
blend as well as substitute one phoneme for
another.
It’s sited that approximately 7 years od age
children are able to perform phoneme deletion
tasks adequately.

30. • Simon says
• Row row your boat
• Consonant Riddles
• Alien Game
• Switcheroo
• Pick it out
• What’s missing?
• Help a puppet to say words correctly
• …
Some suggested activities
Phonemic manipulation

31. The end