If you’ve ever had a student who could sound out each letter in a CVC word but, when it came time to blend those sounds together, they said something else instead like “D-O-G. Drop?” then this phonemic awareness game is for you. Grab a slinky and get ready to s-t-r-e-t-c-h students’ phonemic awareness. Kids will love that it’s fun and YOU will love that it’s packed with learning.
When Kids Struggle to Blend CVC Words
Sometimes children can sound out the individual letters in a word but then struggle to blend those sounds together: “P-I-G. Pot?”.
It’s tempting to think that the child just needs more practice with letter sounds, but what they *actually* need to work on is a skill called phonemic awareness. That means hearing the sounds in words and being able to move those sounds around.
For instance, there are two sounds in the word no: N-O.
And there are three sounds in the word rain: R-AI-N.
⚠️ Notice that there are FOUR letters in the spelling of rain but only THREE sounds (called phonemes).
The great news is that there are *so many* fun, hands-on ways to practice phonemic awareness and this is one of them…
Grab a slinky (the Dollar Store sells packs of 4 for $1) or pull out your basket of rubber bands and get ready to s-t-r-e-t-c-h words.
To play, children will grab a card and say the word they see. Then they’ll stretch out the sounds they hear with their slinky.
For instance, in the example above, they’d say:
EAT.
/EA/ (Stretch the slinky.)
/T/ (Stretch the slinky wider.)
EAT. (Close the slinky.)
Then they’d pull a new card and start the process again!
ANT.
/A/ (Stretch the slinky.)
/N/ (Stretch the slinky wider.)
/T/ (Stretch the slinky even wider.)
ANT. (Close the slinky.)
Snag the Phonemic Awareness Game
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