5 Ways to Assess Your Child’s Phonemic Awareness (Series)

Posted on July 18th, 2011 by Carolyn Hart in Phonemic Awareness

The focus of our last few posts has been phonemic awareness, an important element of readiness for reading and spelling. Here are 5 easy ways you can assess your child’s phonemic awareness. Be sure to explore our related posts for additional assessment tools and ways to enhance reading and writing readiness

Check your child's phonemic awareness and readiness for reading and spelling with these questions#1 – Can your child break a word apart by syllable? If you say “carpet” can your child hear and say “car – pet”?

#2 – Can your child mush sounds together (to make a word)? If you say “r – a – t” can your child hear and say “rat”?

#3 – Could your child hear whether two words begin with the same sound? smile and sun vs moon and earth

#4 – When asked to listen for a sound, can your child distinguish whether the sound is at the beginning, middle or end of a word? For example, when asked to listen for the /S/ sound, can your child hear it at the beginning of “skunk”, in the middle of “listen” and at the end of “tents”?

#5 – Could your child tell you the sound at the beginning of a word? Could he say which sound is at the end of a word? And, most difficult of all, could your child correctly identify the sound in the middle of a word?

It is not difficult to understand why a child with above average phonemic awareness will probably be a very good speller. If he or she can hear the sounds in words, he or she is more likely to spell the words correctly. Likewise, a child with above average phonemic awareness will probably be a very good reader.

Here are some free printables that you can use to help your child notice the sounds in words

It is worthwhile to note that these printables can be used before a child is reading or writing or after he/she is a beginning reader.

free phonemic awareness printable Match the Beginning Consonant Sound

image of PDF icon  Match the Ending Consonant Sound

Another way to help children develop phonemic awareness. Matching the ending consonant sound is more difficult than matching the beginning consonant sound.

image of PDF icon  Match the Beginning Consonant Sound

Cut the pictures apart and have children match the initial consonant sound - a great way to support the development of phonemic awareness.

For more ways to help your child develop phonemic awareness, follow this link to visit our Phonemic Awareness page.

Tags: , ,

Comments are closed.

More News

Learn to Read Printables, Games and Activities for Parents and Teachers

Unlimited Squirrels in I Lost My Tooth!

Unlimited Squirrels in I Lost My Tooth!

Unlimited Squirrels in I Lost My Tooth! written and illustrated ...

Phonemic Awareness

Bolstering Phonemic Awareness, Getting Ready to Read While in the Car

Bolstering Phonemic Awareness, Getting Ready to Read While in the Car

Some of the keys to learning to read are noticing ...

Terrific Chapter Books for Middle Grades and Teens

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, a SLJ Top 100 Novel

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, a SLJ Top 100 Novel

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume Series for ...

Translate »