Phonological and phonemic awareness are important pre-reading skills, related to the ability to hear, identify, and play with sounds in spoken language - including rhymes, syllables, and the smallest units of sound (phonemes). Children with strong phonological awareness skills are ready to become readers.
You have more influence with your child than anyone. Take advantage of this and involve your child in fun learning activities that can be done almost anywhere. Here are a few games that will support your young reader. Click on the link to find more activities.
Road trip rhymes
While you're out driving in the car, spot something out the window and ask your child, "what rhymes with tree or car or shop?" Then switch roles and have your child spot something and ask you for a rhyme. This can turn into a game of nonsense rhymes ("What rhymes with tree stump?") but that's great for practicing sounds, too!
Syllable shopping
While at the grocery store, have your child tell you the syllables in different food names. Have them hold up a finger for each word part. Eggplant = egg-plant, two syllables. Pineapple = pine-ap-ple, three syllables. Show your child the sign for each and ask her to say the word.
"I spy" blending
Here's an easy phoneme blending game you can play while talking a walk. For blending, you can say, “I see a sign that says s-t-o-p” Then your child has to blend the sounds to guess your word — stop. (Remember to say only the sounds in the word — not the letters.) Keep the words short, moving from two to three to four sounds depending on your child’s skill level.
Phonological Awareness Word Games
Credit to www.readingrocket.org
