Generating Rhymes: Developing Phonemic Awareness from www.readwritethink.org

A great website to use as a resource is www.readwritethink.org.  I was looking for some information on activities for phonemic awareness in the classroom today and came across the following lesson plan: Generating Rhymes: Developing Phonemic Awareness.  The best part is that this lesson plan is free!

The overview says: "Learning to recognize rhyming patterns in language is an essential skill for emergent readers. As students manipulate words and sounds to create simple rhymes, they become aware of word and letter patterns that will help them develop decoding skills. In this lesson, students become familiar with 12 rhyming pairs of one-syllable words as they create rhyming lyrics to known songs ("Down by the Bay"), give rhyming words for a given keyword in a poem, and interact with their peers to find rhyming pairs of word cards. Students then demonstrate their knowledge through an individual assessment exercise."

Rhyming words are a great way to help children with phonemic awareness.  Many children who struggle in this area will respond to music or song.  Head over to http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/generating-rhymes-developing-phonemic-121.html and check out the lesson plan!

Phonological Awareness Activities

Phonological awareness activities are an essential part of literacy instruction. It has several learning outcomes in regards to teaching children the connection of speech to print. One important skill is that a student can listen appropriately as stories are read. There are several teaching strategies and activities that can be done with a student to teach and practice this skill.

• Encourage reading buddies with older students reading to younger students.
• Reading stories previously created by the students.
• Guide students to talk about the content of stories.
• Reading pattern stories and have the students speak up on the repetitive parts (common patterns) of a story.
• Teach the students to dramatize parts of a story after listening to them.

What are some the teaching strategies and activities you have used with success?