Are you ready to build some strong pre-reading skills? Well, block off some time in your schedule for play—because I’m going to show you how to use building blocks to play some fun phonological awareness games!

Not unlike building a block tower, a strong foundation is also necessary when building a reader. Before we teach our little ones their letters and sounds, they need ample opportunities to hear and play with words and sounds.

By learning and playing with these pre-reading skills, known as phonological awareness, we can set our little ones up for reading success!

In fact, phonological awareness is the first step in How Wee Read, my learn-to-read resource. 

In How Wee Read, we cover everything your child needs to learn, from rhyming to reading, in 60 sequential, simple and playful lessons:

• Step One: Phonological Awareness (7 lessons)
• Step Two: Letters, Sounds, and Blending (12 lessons)
• Step Three: Special Rules (4 lessons)
• Step Four: Decodable Readers (47 lessons)

Want to take a look inside How Wee Read? Grab these Free Printable Rhyming Cards and sample from How Wee Read right here:

Today, I’m going to share some of the games from How Wee Read that help your child build a strong foundation in phonological awareness… with building blocks!

But first, let’s go over what exactly ‘phonological awareness’ means.

What is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness is auditory in nature; it is about learning to hear and differentiate between sounds.

Do two words sound the same?
Do they begin with the same sound?
What would happen if we left the first sound off of a word; how would it sound then?

Since these skills are auditory, we are only focusing on hearing the sounds. We are not yet having children read the words or understand what letters are attached to the sounds. We are only focused on children recognizing and reproducing sounds that are heard. Making the connection to the letters comes later.

There are seven phonological awareness skills:

1. Rhyming
2. Word Awareness
3. Sound Identification
4. Syllable Awareness
5. Sound Segmenting
6. Sound Blending
7. Deleting Sounds

A strong foundation in each of these skills is necessary for a child to learn to read. In fact, phonological awareness is even more important for later reading success than knowing the letters of the alphabet!

The best part? Each of these skills can be taught through play! And that’s exactly what I’ll show you how to do next.

Phonological Awareness Games with Building Blocks

If you have some building blocks lying around at home, you’re all set to play these phonological awareness games with your little one. Below, I’ll teach you a little bit about each skill, then give you a fun game to play with building blocks to practice that skill.

#1 Rhyming

Rhyming is the first phonological awareness skill we cover in How Wee Read. It is the skill of saying a word and choosing a second word with the same ending. There are three levels to this skill: recognizing rhymes, differentiating if words do not rhyme, and making rhymes. 

Rhyming words are often spelled with the same ending, so if a child can read the word cat, it is simple for that child to read rhyming words like bat, hat, and rat.

Game: Throw When I Say So

This first phonological awareness game is always a hit—literally! Set up some little block towers and give your child a ball. Call out two words and have your child decide if they rhyme. If they do rhyme, your child gets to throw the ball and try to knock down a tower. This game helps your child practice hearing rhymes and differentiating words that do not rhyme.

Once your child gets the hang of hearing and differentiating rhymes, you can practice making rhymes by calling out a word and having your child think of a rhyming word. If they can, they get to throw a ball to knock down a tower!

#2 Word Awareness

Word awareness is understanding where a word begins and ends. This can be trickier than you might realize. Consider this: be is a word all on its own, as is the word begin, but be true is two words. Tricky!

Game: Hold My Words to Your Heart

Put some blocks in a pile on the floor. Start by saying a simple three-word sentence, such as, “I love you!” Say it once, then say it again with your child, putting up one finger for each word. Next, have your child try to gather and hold onto that many blocks in his arms. One child in my kindergarten class held the record by holding onto a 28-word sentence!

#3 Sound Identification

Identifying the sounds in a word is an important skill for future reading and writing. Sound identification starts with identifying the first sound in a word, then the last sound, and finally, the middle sound, which is the most difficult.

Game: Sorting Blocks

Gather a bunch of blocks of different colors. Have your child sort the blocks based on the first sound. So all purple and pink blocks would go in one pile, for example, and all blue, brown, and black blocks (say that three times fast!) would go in another pile.

#4 Syllable Awareness

Syllable awareness is the ability to discern how many sounds are in a single word. There are many ways to play with this skill, like clapping steadily as a word is said slowly, or placing your hand on your chin to feel it move down once with each syllable. This skill should only be practiced after learning word awareness (not simultaneously) to avoid confusion.

Game: Toss the Syllables

Place a few baskets on the floor with a toy beside each one. Have your child say the name of the toy, listening for the number of syllables in the word. Then, have your child say the word again and throw one block into the basket for each syllable—for example, trac-tor (throw two blocks!) or cow (throw one block!).

#5 Sound Segmenting

Sound segmenting is about pulling words apart. Saying a word s—l—o—w—l—y allows us to better hear each of the individual sounds that make up a word.

Game: Scoop Up the Sound

Choose a word and set blocks in a row on the floor, one for each sound in the word. Have your child say the word really slowly, and with a toy tractor, scoop up one block for each sound in the word. This forces your little one to slow down and say the word nice… and…. slow… as the sounds are scooped up.

Note that the number of blocks scooped up doesn’t necessarily correspond to the number of letters in the word; remember, we’re only practicing auditory skills right now. So the word block, for example, would stretch into /b/ … /l/ … /o/ … /ck/.

#6 Sound Blending

Sound blending is the flip side of sound segmenting. It involves pushing sounds in a word together and blending sounds to hear (or, eventually, read!) full words.

Game: Build a Block Tower

Build a tower using three blocks, saying a sound with each block you place. Point at each block, repeating the sounds as you move up the tower, going faster and faster each time until the word is being said completely blended together. For example, /c/… /a/… /t/… /c/ /a/ /t/… cat!

#7 Deleting Sounds

Deleting sounds involves removing the first or last sound in a word. For example, saying the word cat, then saying the word again but deleting the first sound, which would result in at.

Game: Snatch it Away

Put three blocks on the floor as you slowly say a word with three sounds (like dog). Then point to the first block as you say the first sound, /d/, the second block for the second sound, /o/, and the third block for the last sound, /g/. Now snatch away one of the blocks. Have your child try to say the word without saying the sound that was snatched.

There you have it, my friends—seven phonological awareness games to practice pre-reading skills. With a strong phonological awareness foundation, your little one will be ready to learn their letters and sounds, and reading will flow like magic!

Teaching our little ones to read can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be! In How Wee Read, I walk you through everything, from rhyming to reading, in 60 simple lessons.

https://shop.howweelearn.com/pages/how-wee-read

Thank you so much for reading!

xo
Sarah