Separating, or Segmenting Phonemes in Words
Lesson Plan for Breaking Words Apart
Students who have had many opportunities to play sound games at home and at school and accumulate an understanding of the sounds that make up words have a better chance of succeeding when they begin to read books. In its article, “Blending and Segmenting Sounds: Impact of Memory,” the not-for-profit organization All Kinds of Minds provides helpful hints for building students’ awareness that words are made up of individual sounds or phonemes. The strategies presented in the article target blending and segmenting phonemes.
Segmenting Sounds in Words
The following ideas can be used for segmenting, or breaking words apart. Use games and make the activities fun for students.
- Segmenting sounds can be done by saying a word like pet, and asking students to say the sounds of the word (/p/ /e/ /t/). Tell them to snap their fingers each time they hear a different sound.
- Say dog. Ask children to repeat the beginning sound. Ask a student to say another word. Tell her to point to another student who should say the beginning sound. The student who gives the beginning sound correctly can then say another word and ask someone to say the beginning or ending sound. Tell students they can use nonsense words.
- Use children’s names to play a game. Say a child’s name. Ask him to say the sounds in his name. Tell the other students to count the sounds and hold up fingers to show how many sounds in the name.
- Say the names of objects, e.g., rat. Say the word again pronouncing one sound at a time (/rrr/ /a/ /t/). Ask students to clap one time for each sound.
- Make or buy Elkonin Boxes. Use simple pictures with only three sounds like ship, dog, or rat. Give the students manipulatives (paper or plastic chips or markers). Ask them to say the first sound for the picture. Tell them to place a counter in the first box when they say the sound correctly. Have them say the second sound and move the counter to the second box.
- Use the Elkonin technique without boxes. Hold up a picture (flag, bug, dog), and tell children to clap, snap their fingers, or jump for the number of sounds they hear in the word.
Follow-Up Phoneme Segmentation
Children learn to segment sounds, or break words apart, by hearing the word, then saying each sound in the word. Activities designed to teach children to separate words into their individual sounds should be fun and engaging. Some of them can be done spontaneously while waiting in line or as a transition from one activity to another. Teachers should remember to spend a few minutes each day reviewing phonemes in isolation e.g., d/ as in dog, /p/ as in pot, identifying the common sound in different words e.g., toe, top, tag /t/, recognizing the odd word in a group of words mat, man, dad (dad), blending sounds to form words e.g., /r/ /a/ /t/ rat.
It's a good idea to encourage parents to play sound games with children when they are doing ordinary things like driving or walking.
cat /c/ /a/ /t/ Breaking Words Apart
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