Many years ago, when I was studying Special Ed at university, I was asked to tutor a young lad in Year 3. In Year 2 he had been tested as gifted, but he was really struggling with learning to read. The following year he moved schools and I lost track of him.
I next came across him in Year 11 and no one would believe me when I said that he was gifted. He was the lowest achieving student in the college apart from some of our English as a Second Language students and our funded students with disabilities.
Tutoring this young lad in Year 3, I realised that he could not “hear”/identify the sound in the middle of words. At that stage I did not understand “phonemic awareness ” or its importance. I developed “Traffic Lights” and the other games for him.
Later I extended “Traffic Lights” and made it into a computer program. If only I had had that for him then!
Most children will naturally develop phonemic awareness as they learn to read with phonics instruction. Here are some ideas for those who need extra help.
Traffic Lights
Cut out several sets of coloured discs (“traffic lights”) about 2.5 cm (1 inch) across – red, orange and green.
- Say a three-letter word, e.g. “dog”. Ask your child to put a green disc down when he can identify the first sound, a red disc for the final sound and an orange disc between them when he can identify the middle sound.
- With practice he will be able to identify the sounds in order.
- When he can identify the sounds in a word easily using the traffic lights, ask him to find the letter cards that correspond to those sounds and put them below the coloured discs.
Find a word
Cut out pictures of words with three sounds, e.g. cat, man, cake, goat.
- Spread them out on the table.
- Ask your child to find the /k/ /a/ /t/, the /mmmm/ /aaaa/ /nnnn/, the /k/ /A/ /k/ or the /g/ /O/ /t/. (/k/ means the sound of “c” in cat, as well as “k” in cake; /A/ means the name of the letter “a”; /g/ is the sound of “g” in goat, but “g” has a /j/ sound in gypsy; /O/ means the name of the letter “o” …)
- Initially, say the sounds as long and as close together as possible. Later you can separate the sounds more and make them shorter.
- Check out the video for more ideas that you can adapt to play with pictures and cards.
More letter card games
- Give your child the right letters to make a three-letter word. Say the word clearly and ask him to make the word.
- Give your child the first and last letter of a word and all of the vowels – a, e, i, o, u. Ask him to make the word “bat”, then change it to “bet”, “bit”, then “but”.
- Ask your child to make a three- letter word that he knows well. Then take turns to change one letter at a time to make another word – cat, hat, ham, hum, hug, bug … Be careful only to make words that use the most common sound of each letter – not car, hay, gym …
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
thank you