Count-ing Syl-la-bles through Play!

Do you remember how we are working through my Beyond the Alphabet: Play into Reading Readiness eBook?

Remember how we are playing with one of the seven phonemic awareness activities each week?

Remember how I forgot to share one with you last week?

Whoops. Sorry friends. Lofty goals I have!! I just really needed to share that cute nature art activity — and it certainly is time for growing seeds so I just had to share that one too. And with sick kiddos abound, I thought activities for sick little ones was important as well. And before I knew it the week was over!

I know, excuses excuses. But never fear – I have just had coffee (can you tell? I am a bit chatty) so I am starting with our newest phonemic awareness activities from my book right now.

Today I am going to share with you some fun ways to practice one of those seven phonological awareness skills little ones need before they can read – and it is called syllable awareness.

If you have been following along with me, you might now that we are playing our way through the 7 areas of phonological awareness found  in my eBook and Book, Beyond the Alphabet: Play into reading readiness. Click the links below to see the rest of the series.

1. Rhyming
2. Word Awareness
3. Syllable Awareness (you are here)
   
4. Sound Identification
5. Sound Segmenting
6. Sound Blending
7. Deleting Sounds

Do you like playing games? (6) I bet you do! (4) Or maybe you don’t. I suppose I really have no way of knowing. (17) Can you tell what I am doing? (8) I am counting syllables! (7) And drinking coffee. (5)

Oh that was fun — did you get it? You are so quick. You are a syllable whiz … and with these fun games your little one will be too.

Counting syllables is a critical skill to learn before learning to read. When teaching children to read we often break words up into chunks – and these chunks as you can likely guess – are often syllables.

When teaching syllables it is a great idea to start with one word, such as “puppy”. Once your little one can wrap their head around the idea that one word can be made up of one, two, or many syllables they are set to begin counting syllables in short sentences.

Here are some fun ways to teach syllable awareness through phonemic awareness activities:

Bounce the Ball: Grab a bouncy ball and start dribbling! Say a sentence and bounce the ball with each syllable.

Balloon Whack: Hang some balloons from the ceiling  and have your child use a tennis racket to whack the balloon with each syllable that he says. If you say “apple”, your child would say the word slowly and whack the balloon two times with each sound: ap-ple.

The balloon comes back from the whack slowly, which helps little ones  slow down when they say the word.

Under the Chin: This is a simple idea to use just about anywhere and anytime. Here is how my Sam practiced this skill independently with a quiet bin from my book:

When a hand is placed under the chin and a word is said very slowly and enunciated very clearly a child should be able to feel his chin moving down with each syllable.

There you have it friends – the phonological awareness skill known as syllable awareness. I hope you and your little ones have fun playing with an idea or two from this post.

I will be back next week with the fifth skill – we are getting there! And if you haven’t done so yet, please consider my book. I know you will love it. It is available as an eBook and as a Print book.

Thank you so much for reading friends, Happy Monday.

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