Segmenting phonemes is a difficult part of phonemic awareness however it results in amazing reading success. It is a crucial building block for reading and writing. Children develop phonemic awareness as they learn and play with language whenever they have segmenting success. Phonemic is a small part of Phonological Awareness Skills can be difficult and need to be taught.

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Research has shown that segmenting fluency is the biggest indicator of reading success. 

Segmenting phonemes is a difficult part of phonemic awareness therefore always start with segmenting syllables. Then focus on identifying and repeating the beginning sounds. Following beginning sounds focus on ending sounds. Lastly, focus on vowel sounds.

SOOOOO a cool segmenting activity helps teach phonemic awareness are sound boxes.

Sound boxes build phonological awareness skills by visually showing emergent readers where sounds occur when segmenting words into individual sounds. You may have heard of them as Elkonin boxes because they were names after D.B. Elkonin, a Russian psychologist that pioneered their use with students that were having reading difficulties. 

How to Use Sound Boxes

To use sound boxes, a child listens to a word and dabs a box for each sound or phoneme.  Afterall, the dabbing is the best part based on what the kiddos say! This dabbing of the sounds adds a visual clue for the child. Occasionally, I use M&M’s or Smarties and have the kiddos move the small pieces of candy into the boxes. Afterwards, we eat the candy.

Be sure to model each word first, then have the child do it right after you. 

Once letters are connected to sounds, the child can write the letter that makes the sound on the colored dot (be sure it’s dry????) When a letter has been added, you are starting to work with phonics.

Click here to understand the difference between phonics and phonemic awareness.

Blend the Sounds After Segmenting

Blending of the sounds develops better readers. I make the kiddos close their eyes then I say each phoneme or in other words, sounds. The kiddos have to open their eyes, point to a picture and say the whole word. This really helps with the phonological awareness skill of blending!

Check out how to easily teach blending at Blending Made Easy. It is much fun to watch this process happen! Working with these skills will develop better readers. 

Want to add a little math? Count the sounds! WHOO HOO!!  I love to include math whenever I can! Imagine the math discussion if there are words with a different number of sounds! Discuss how many more, which word had the bigger number…amazing

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Debora from Teach Magically

Check out all of my Segmenting and Blending resources that I used.