Phonemic and Phonological Awareness:

Strategies that Work from the Houston Pre-K and Kinder Team

Thanks to Jennie C., Jessica S., Yvonne D., Megan M., Melissa C., and
Katie S. for taking a night out to share what works!

• Jolly Phonics: picture, sound, and motion for all 42 sounds. Letters,
blends, etc. Sounds are in order by most common. Incorporates
interactive activities so that students are able to remember the
letters/sounds. Connect motions when writing and reading if you
use the program. Great for auditory, visual, and kinesthetic
learners. Materials available at TFA office. (Katie S.)
• Letter Hunt: Students hide a letter somewhere in the room. Student
comes in. Instead of saying hot/cold to find the letter, students
make the letter sound louder as they are closer to the hidden letter.
E.g. /a/ /a/ /a/ as students are closer to the letter a. (Katie S.)
• Onset-Rime: Incorporate into daily routine. E.g. During calendar
when asking kids what day of the week it is, touch shoulder and say
/M/, slide down arm for onday. (Jennie C.)
• Syllables: Tap body parts for each syllable. (e.g. head for 1st
syllable, shoulder for 2nd syllable).
• Breaking Down Words: Roller coaster: Put on seat belt. /c/ /a/ /t/
(going up roller coaster), cat (sliding down the roller coaster) (Katie
S.)
• Breaking Down Words: Chopping up into a soup: /c/ /a/ /t/ with
chopping motion on hand then “push” letters into soup and say
word. (Katie S.)
• Sponge: As soon as students come in at the start of the day,
students come to carpet to play phonological/phonemic awareness
game. Students are motivated to get to the carpet because they
want to play the game. (Melissa C.)
• Willoghby Walloby: Rhyming words. Willoughby Walloby Wamanda,
an elephant sat on Amanda. (Melissa C.)
• Break it down, break it down, break it down, a word is made of
letters and sounds. Bat- /b/ /a/ /t/. Students touch shoulder, elbow
and wrist for each part and you can see which students are able to
touch and make sound for each. (Katie S.)
• Chants for each letter- sing during transitions and down time. See
Jessica Simon and Cook Road folks for chants that they’ve used.
(Jessica S.)
• “Tricky” letters for names that make other sounds- e.g. soft c’s and
g’s (in PK), J in Javier, Gbolan (pronounced Bolan). “Evil laugh” for
tricky sounds (Katie) and tricky-tricky (Jessica S.).
• Alliteration and Predictable Text: Dog Dan, Ball Ben, Candy Carl-
paper dolls. Introduce as friends. What do you notice about their
 names? What if we made funny names for you? Students
generated names for each other in the class- e.g. Jet Joanna. Made
pages in a book for students in the class- e.g. I am Jet Joanna. Can
copy the book and each students can read the book and color their
pages. Students can read it with the predictable text and use
pictures of the objectives to read. Megan wrote the book by hand
first and students underlined letters. Megan has a soft copy of her
book if you’re interested in seeing what they pages looked like for
each student. (Megan M.)
• Letter Book: cut out pictures from magazines or draw objects that
start with the letter and make a class book (Katie S.).
• Letter Book: Use for letter of the week- write a story with the letter
of the week words- e.g. Fancy Flag book. (Jennie C.)
• Popsicle Sticks or other times you need to pull names: Use Megan’s
person idea to make connections. (Jennie C.)
• Tommy Tittle Mouse rhyme: 1 student is the guesser- close their
eyes/blindfold. One student is the speaker. “It’s me!” Guesser has
to guess whose voice it is- helps with auditory discrimination and
the rhyme also helps with rhyming words. Megan has the rhyme
written down if you’re interested. (Megan M.)
• Hear Volume Differences: Teach students volume of voice- e.g.
quiet voice, inside voice, loud voice. To remind students to talk in a
quiet voice say “quiet voice” in a whisper and students respond
with “yes ma’am” in a whisper. (Jennie C.)
• Froggy: Stuffed frog with zipper open mouth. Use clip art to print
pictures of words with letter of the week. 12 cards- 8 start with the
sound and 4 do not. Teacher starts by picking a picture. Thumbs
up if it starts with the sound, fist if it doesn’t. Other students can
come up and pick a picture and feed it to Freddy or not. Use silly
pictures and kids get invested- e.g. pick of Christopher for C- kids
think it’s fun to eat their classmates. Use as a management
technique as well in selecting kids. (Melissa C.)
• Letter-Sound kit from Lakeshore. 26 tubs with objects for each
letter sound. Highly recommended as a tool to have. 
• Rhyming: Call students by a rhyming word- e.g. instead of Jessica,
call Messica. Incorporate as part of the routine. (Melissa C.)
• When incorporating things into your daily routine, pick one skill per
week. E.g. this week when calling kids use rhyming for names, next
week use alliteration, etc. (Melissa C.)
• Rhyming: I say day, you say pay. Day, pay. Call and response.
Good for transitions and walking in line. (Megan M.)
• Rhyming: Ms. Morton, Ms. Corton, hey they rhyme. Ms. Morton, Ms.
Skattebo, wrong rhyme. With hand motions, turn over palm for
each word and touch hands together if they rhyme. Ask for a model
of the motions! (Katie S.)
• Various skills: Guessing game: I’m thinking of an animal that starts
with /m/. It has 2 syllables. Give additional clues as needed.
Differentiate the clues for different kids. E.g. I’m thinking of an
animal that rhymes with lunkey. I’m thinking of an animal m-onkey.
(Katie S.)
• Rhyming: Copy flashcard of rhyming words e.g. pig wearing a wig.
List –ig family words on the back. Parents can review the words
nightly with their child as HW. (Melissa C.)
• Rhyming HW: Kid brings in two items that rhyme in a baggie.
Sound the same (could be English and Spanish) e.g. plato, gato.
Students present to the class. (Melissa C.)
• Rhyming House: Draw a picture that shows rhyming words- e.g. cat
with a mat, frog on a log. Students can reference. Or include 1
picture (no need for two pictures that rhyme) and name a part of a
house with different initial sounds. Students id what part of the
house it is. E.g. shindows- windows. (Jennie C. and Jessica S.)
• Rhyming: Silly Sam: Draw a stick person. Erase 1 body part at a
time. Teacher: I’m going to erase his bose. What part? Nose! I’m
going to erase his lies. What part? Eyes! (Megan M.)
• Rhyming: Down by the Bay: Have you ever seen a dog sitting on a
log? On a Raffi CD and also sing with the class. (Katie S.)
• Nursery Rhyme: Say rhyme and by the time the rhyme is over
students need to be in lined, cleaned up, etc. (Melissa C.)
• Rhyming: We’re going to play a rhyming game. Rhyming is where
the ends of the words sound the same. Say two words and
reinforcing ending sound. If you want to hear the chant, let Jessica
know! (Jessica S.)
• Rhyming: Green Eggs and Ham: Fill in: Eat in a ____ with a _____.
Students fill rhyming words. Use clip art for kids to generate if
needed. Make a class book. (Katie S.)
• Letters: Sky write with different parts of body. E.g. write with nose,
eyes. (Katie S.)
• Letter Sounds/Blending: Hold up flashcard with letter. Students
make the sound. Add another letter. Students make sound. Put
two flashcards next to each other and students put sounds
together. E.g. i- /i/, n- /t/, put together in. (Katie S.)
• Letter Sounds: Hangman: Vs. teacher. If wrong, teacher’s point, if
correct, student’s point. Play with vocab word. Students have to
say letter sounds instead of letter name to put onto the board.
(Katie S.)
• Letter: T chart- students sort into M, not M with pictures. Good for
centers. (Jennie C.)
• Alliteration: Center: Letter of the week- C is for candles on my cake.
(written on paper with blank cake). Candles with words- some start
with letter of the week and others do not. Students have to cut out
candles that start with the letter of the week and glue onto the
cake. (Melissa C. and Megan M.)