Welcome to Multisensory Monday! I am at the airport right now, waiting to catch a plane to train a new group of teachers in Phonics First. Thankfully, the Detroit airport has free wireless access for me to use! For those of you who haven’t had the chance to use the Detroit airport, it’s wonderful, by far my favorite airport of those I’ve been to.
I’d love the chance to check out more airports though, so please look into getting your school trained in Phonics First. Remember, we are accredited by the IDA and IMSELC!
It is fitting that I’m at the airport because today’s multisensory activity is all about phonemic awareness. That means there is no print involved. One of my colleagues likes to say, “If you can the activity driving in a car, it’s phonological awareness.” In this case, a phonological awareness activity is something you can do with kids at the airport or on a plane.
Phonological and phonemic awareness deals only with the sounds of language. This activity is for identifying sounds in a word: beginning, ending or medial.
More than likely, the concept of this game is something students are already familiar with- pick the one that is not like the others. Say three words to the students; two should have a common sound, like “cat”, “cup”, “man”. The students then have to tell you which word doesn’t belong.
Children learn to isolate and identify beginning sounds first, so start with sets of words that ask the student to think about the beginning sound. Be explicit in your directions, “I’m going to say three words and I want you to listen to the sounds my words start with. Two of the words begin with the same sound. One does not. Tell me the word that does not start with the same sound as the other two.”
When students have mastered isolating beginning sounds, use this activity to isolate ending sounds. Again be explicit in your directions and emphasize that now you want the students to listen to the sounds at the end of the words. Model with an example: “Let me show you what I mean. The three words are “mop”, “hat”, “sip”. I’m going to say the words again in my head and think about the sounds I hear at the end. (Pause and think.) I noticed “mop” and “sip” both end with the “/p/” sound. So the word the mismatch word is “hat.” That ended with the “/t/” sound.”
Finally, you can use this same activity for isolating the medial or vowel sounds in words. Give the students explicit directions and model a few times. Isolating the medial sound is more difficult than the beginning and ending sounds, so allow for plenty of modeling and practice.
Below is a list of word groups you can use for this activity, but it’s not necessary. You can use any one syllable words that come into your head, making this perfect for the airport, car or classroom!
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