As we teach students how to listen for individual sounds in words, it’s important that they have plenty of opportunities to practice this skill. In this post, I’m going to share some of my favorite phoneme segmentation activities for kindergarten.  What is Phoneme Segmentation? Phoneme segmentation is the process of breaking a word into its individual sounds (phonemes). For example, the word “ship” can be broken down into three individual phonemes: /sh/, /i/, and /p/. This is an ... continue reading...

Are you looking for engaging activities for beginning sounds practice? These small group activities will help your students build their phonological awareness skills as they practice identifying initial sounds in words. The Importance of Practicing Initial Sounds One of the first steps in learning how to read is to understand that words are made up of smaller units of sound. The initial sound in a word is often the easiest for young learners to isolate and identify, making this an ... continue reading...

It is amazing to think about the speed at which kindergarten students develop foundational literacy skills. At the heart of this progress is research-based, data-driven instruction. In this post, I’m going to share some tips for gathering data for instructional planning by using syllable assessment in kindergarten. The Importance of Understanding Syllables It is very important for early elementary students to understand that words are made up of smaller chunks (syllables). This is a ... continue reading...