Understanding Phonological Awareness

Within word recognition, phonological awareness is a crucial skill for young learners as it involves recognising and working with sounds in spoken language. This foundational ability helps children with reading and spelling by allowing them to hear, identify, and manipulate sounds. To support your child's phonological awareness at home, try these fun games:

1. I went to the shop and bought… This game is excellent for helping your child’s memory and it can be modified to use lots of Phonological awareness skills. First you say I went to the shop and bought x. Then the next person says I went to the shop and bought x and y.  With each turn you add a new item after remembering the previous items. This game could be played with rhyming words ( I bought a cat, mat and a hat), it can be played with beginning sounds (only buying items beginning with a /m/ moon, mouse and monkey) or final sounds (tree, bee and a knee). For your older children you could challenge them by only changing 1 sound for each item (e.g. I bought a mat, cat, cap, can, pan and a pin)
2. I spy… This classic car game is a great way to build your child’s phonological awareness. You can play in the below way:

Rhyme: I spy something that rhymes with…

Syllables: I spy something that is 3 syllables…

Beginning sound: I spy something beginning with…

Blending and segmenting words: I spy a d-o-g  - when your child is guessing they have to blend the sounds together when your child is giving the clues they have to segment the word into the sounds.

1. Can you…

Switch up giving instructions at home for a bit of fun by getting your child to using their phonological awareness skills. It is time to pack your b-a- g for S-ch-oo-l. It is time to get into something that rhymes with red. Can you put something that begins with /sh/ on your feet.

Melissa Cox

Instructional Specialist