Phonological Awareness 2nd Grade
What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness refers to the bigger “chunks” or “parts” of language. When we ask students to rhyme, blend small words to make a compound word, break words apart into syllables or onset-rime, we are working at the phonological awareness level. Phonemic awareness is a part of phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate each sound in a word. Phonological/phonemic awareness focuses on sounds and does not include written letters or words.
Learn more about phonological awareness.
In 2nd grade, readers might still need support with phonological awareness skills such as blending together individual sounds to make a word, breaking apart each individual sound in a word, deleting a sound in a word, and changing a sound in a word.
What Does it Look Like?
Why is phonemic awareness the key to learning to read?
Practice Activities:
Sound Walk with Segmentation: Name people, places, and things as you walk around the neighborhood, apartment complex, store, and more. As you name an item, continue by saying each sound in the name of the object or person's name. Then state how many sounds you heard (e.g., I see a bike /b/ /i/ /k/. Bike has 3 phonemes.). Have the child name items they see and practice counting the phonemes together.
Sound "I Spy" with Counting Sounds: Play "I Spy" with sounds by naming the number of sounds as the first clue. Next, give clues about each sound until the spied item is named (e.g., For cloud, the adult would say, "I spy something with 4 sounds. The first sound is /c/. The second sound is /l/." The child would say, "Cloud".). Word list organized by phonemes (optional)
Sound "I Spy" with Blending: Play "I Spy" by saying each sound in a word and have the child blend the sounds together and name what you spy (e.g., I spy a /b/ /e/ /n/ / ch/).
Make New Words with Deletion: Say a word to the child. The child will repeat the word. Next, ask the child to say the word without one of the sounds (e.g., Now say the word slip without the /s/. Lip.) The remaining sounds may not be a real word. Watch Sound Deletion.
Make New Words with Addition: Say a word to the child. The child will repeat the word. Next, ask the child to say the word with an additional sound (e.g., Now say the word lip with /s/ at the beginning. What is the new word? Slip.)
What Needs to Change?: Ask the child what sound needs to change to change one word to another (e.g., What sound needs to change to make the word "cat" into "hat"?). Practice changing sounds in the beginning, middle, and end of words. Watch Changing Sounds.
Tongue Twisters: Have the child listen to and repeat individual sounds accurately with tongue twisters. Tongue Twisters
Practice Activities (with Printables):
If you don't have a printer, your child's school will print these for you.
Say and Slide: Engage in this activity by saying a word, segmenting (taking apart) each individual sound in the word, and then counting how many sounds are in the word. Watch Say and Slide. Say and Slide materials.
Sound Counting Sort: Count the number of sounds in a word and then sort the words based on the number of sounds. Watch Sound Counting Sort. Sound Counting Sort materials.
Picture Slide: Practice blending sounds while sliding cards together to make pictures. The child will name the picture, segment the word into sounds, and repeat the word (e.g., “Frog, /f/ /r/ /o/ /g/”. Frog.). Watch Picture Slide. Picture Slide materials.
Sound Swap: Compare two pictures and decide which sound has been changed. Sound Swap
Word Change: Delete the second sound in a blend to make a new word. Word Change
Online Activities:
Word Force: This interactive game engages children with fun, multi-level literacy development activities.
Use the Letter Tile Free Play Board and the word lists below for the online activities:
Letter Tile Segmenting and Counting: Practice segmenting by using the free online Letter Tile Free Play Board.
Letter Tile Blending Sounds: Practice blending by using the free online Letter Tile Free Play Board.
Letter Tile Deleting Sounds: Practice phoneme manipulations by using the free online Letter Tile Free Play Board.
Letter Tile Substituting Sounds: Practice phoneme manipulations by using the free online Letter Tile Free Play Board.