Push That Sound!
Blending Sounds into Words to Build Phonemic Awareness
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 1: Beginning LiteracyAges:
5-7
Grade Range:
K 1stFood Groups:
Primary: Phonemic Awareness
Secondary: Letter Sounds & Phonics, Spelling & Word Study
Transcript
Teacher: How many do you remember how to play Push that Sound? Great you should have your blue, your red, and your blue square in front of you because we are going to start out with three letter words. Im going to show you how to do one on the board. If I say, this sounds /h/o/t/. What word did I make? Students: Hot Teacher: Hot. Good. Thats how youre going to push your sounds. When you hear my sound, pull your sound down and say the word fast. The first word I say is /s/a/m/. Students: Sam! Teacher: Sam. Who has a sentence with Sam? [Students Name]? Student: Did you see Sam walk across the street? Teacher: Great! Next word. /p/o/t/ Students: Pot! Teacher: Pot. The pot is boiling over. Now that weve done a three sound word, were going to do a four sound word. You should have a blue, a blue, and a red for our vowel and a white is our final sound. So check yourself to see if you have a blue for the beginning sound, a blue for the next sound, because these are going to have some blends. /s/t/i/c/k/ Students: Kick! Teacher: Lets try it again, push it off. /s/t/i/c/k/ Students: Stick! Teacher: Stick. Very good! Lets move on over to the next four sound word. /s/t/a/c/k/ Students: Stack! Teacher: Stack. Did you hear it? /s/t/. Next word. /f/r/o/g. Students: Frog! Teacher: The frog jumped over the lily pad. Great job! Give yourself a pat on the back.
Related References
Yopp, H.K, & Yopp, R.H. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54 (2), 130-143.
Activity Objective
The goal of Push That Sound!: Blending Sounds into Words to Build Phonemic Awareness is to engage students in blending spoken sounds into words. The teacher models the activity with large colored felt squares on the board, pushing one up for each sound that she says and then having the students blend the sounds together so they hear what word is represented by the sounds. After the teacher models the activity on the board with large felt squares, the students all push their own set of small paper squares when the teacher says sounds that make up a word. This activity helps make students aware that words are composed of sounds and this understanding helps them to decode words (for reading) and encode words (for spelling).
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- In this activity the teacher segments words into sounds and tells the students how many sounds there are to blend into words. Alternatively, the teacher could say a word normally and ask the students to push a square up for each sound they hear in the word. The students would then count the squares so they know how many total sounds there are in the word. Both activities build phonemic awareness. In the first the students task is blending and in the second the students would be required to identify sounds in words. Both types of phonemic awareness activity help students to learn to read and spell.
