Phonemic awareness can be integrated into other learning areas.Research shows that children with good phonemic awareness skills are more successful in learning to read and write.Phonemic awareness lays the foundations for learning to read and write.Phonemic awareness also includes the ability to manipulate sounds in speech.Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize that words are made up of separate sounds.What is phonemic awareness and why is it important? How do the educators use rhyme to develop children’s phonemic awareness skills?.As you watch, look for effective strategies used by the educators in the video and jot down answers to this viewing question in your Learning Log.
In this video, you’ll see educators use rhyming games, songs, and read-aloud books to teach phonemic awareness skills. For example, “ I’m a little lizard, my oh my! My skin has scales, it’s nice and dry.” They can be active participants, clapping, snapping, and adding their own motions to songs. Provide opportunities to recite rhymes in song. Music is a natural part of a child’s world.Prompt children to produce words that rhyme. Both real words and “nonsense words” are useful, such as Peggy and leggy turtle and Yertle.Or, stop before you get to the rhyming word and have children supply it. Have children listen to and identify rhymes in books. Before reading, ask children to listen for rhyming words and raise their hands when they hear them.You can use different methods to help develop children’s skills. For some children, recognizing rhyme can be difficult. It is important to recognize that these skills are not always learned on a schedule. Children typically learn to recognize rhyming words first and generate their own rhymes later.
For example, the /at/ sound in the word mat is the same /at/ sound in cat, rat, sat, and splat. When children play with rhymes, they listen to the sounds within words and identify word parts. Rhyming is a helpful first step toward phonemic awareness.