Phoneme Substitution, Harder (With Letters)
From FreeReading
| Activity Type: Introduce |
| Activity Form: Standard |
| Grade: K |
| Group Size: Small Group, Whole Class |
| Length: 10 minutes |
| Materials: Letter cards |
| Goal: Given a written and spoken word, the student can say the substitution needed to form a given new word ( mat = "mat", what substitution for "cat" -> /m/ to /c/, letter m to c ). |
| Items: Items listed in the lesson--eg, sat, rat, cat, hat, mat, bat, bad, ban, bam, bag, bug, beg, big. |
What to do
Note: This activity assumes students know the sounds for the letters used here: s, a, t, etc. It also assumes that students have mastered the activity Phoneme identification with sound-it-out chips. It is important that you do not attempt this activity until students are able to perform that earlier activity with ease, since this activity introduces print letters--a crucial step in learning to read.
- Use Letter cards to form the word: sat. You want students to see the link between this activity and earlier activities where they used blank chips to represent sounds, so use similar-looking chips but with letters printed on them. This is sat. Each chip stands for a sound just like before, but these chips have letters on them. This is /s/, /a/, /t/: sssaaat, sat. Sound out with me and then say the word fast: sssaaat, sat. Good.
- What sound do we need to change to make sat into rat? Listen: sssaaat; rrraaat. Right! We change sss into rrr. If students have difficulty, ask them to focus on which sound changed: the first, middle, or last. Have them repeat the sounds.
- Put a selection of letter cards (all letters that students already know and including the letter r) in front of the group. So which of these letters makes the rrr sound? Right! Replace the s with r to form the word rat. So now we have rat. Say it slowly and then fast with me: rrraaat, rat.
- Repeat with other first letters to form words such as cat, hat, and mat. End with bat. Don’t move to the next step until students have mastered substituting first sounds. (If you run out of time, pick up the activity here next time it is repeated.)
- Good! Now I’m going to ask you something different. What sound do we need to change to make bat into bad? Listen: baaat; baaad. Right, we change /t/ into /d/. Which of these letters makes the /d/ sound? Right. Replace t with d. So now we have bad. Say it slowly and then fast with me: baaad, bad.
- Repeat with other last letter substitutions—eg, making ban and bam. End with bag.
- Good! Now I’m going to ask you something different again. What sound do we need to change to make bag into bug? Listen: baaag; buuug. Right, we change /a/ into /u/. Which of these letters makes the /u/ sound? Right. Replace a with u. So now we have bug. Say it slowly and then fast with me: buuug, bug.
- Repeat with other middle letter substitutions—eg, making beg and big.
- Continue with other substitutions. Vary the order in which you make substitutions so that it isn’t always first, last, middle. Watch for struggling students and give them an individual turn.
- For more practice, you can ask students how to make a new word with a phoneme added (eg, from ban to bang or from bet to best) or deleted (eg, from brat to rat or from sang to sag).
Related activities
- Phoneme substitution (with letters)
- Phoneme identification with sound-it-out chips
- All Phonological Awareness Activities