Phonemes

We began to learn about phonemes this week.  This is the act of breaking down the sounds in words so that we can ultimately try to print them to successfully convey a written message.  It is darned tricky!  Practice at home would be a wonderful thing.  Here is what practice looks like in class...

Using a given picture, we slowly say the word, one sound at a time.  It feels and sounds a lot like speaking in slow motion.  We want to stick to words with 3-5 phonemes.  Some are much easier than others, of course.  CAT is just c-a-t and most of them can spell this accurately when practicing phonemes.  However, BIKE would likely come out as b-i-k(or 'c') and this is GREAT too.  We talk about silent letters but do not study them this year so the phonemic awareness for that is on target.  As always I suggest, if practicing, show or tell them the correct spelling while praising them for hearing the correct sounds.

Happy Phoneming!