Deletion

What is it?

Children are able to identify how a word would sound if a portion (syllable, sound) were omitted.

Importance: This is important in understanding how syllables and sounds make up words.

How do I teach it?

You can embed deletion into your everyday routines: morning message, read alouds, snack time, dressing, math,
music, and transitions.

Students typically learn to delete parts of compound words then parts of two syllable words, and finally more
multisyllable words.

Student typically learn to delete initial sounds. Then they learn to delete final sounds, and then blends (initial and
final).

If students have difficulty with this task, a helpful technique is to provide cubes, blocks or squares of cardstock as
manipulatives to represent the syllables or sounds. For example, when deleting the initial sound from cat, set out
three cubes to represent the phonemes in the word. If necessary, label each cube with the phoneme it represents.
For example, “This is /k/, this is /a/, and this is /t/”. Remove the cube as you delete the sound.

Syllables
• Guess the Word – Begin with compound words. Say the word and have students repeat the word. Then
have students say it again without one of its parts. “Say the word sailboat now say it again without boat”.
• Calendar- ask children to say the names of days of the week or the names of months of the year without one
of the syllables (eg. ‘Say Friday, say it again but don’t say ‘day’, ‘Say October but don’t say Oc’.

Phonemes
• Words without Sounds- Ask students to say a word. Then, ask them to repeat the word without one sound.
When students are successful deleting initial sounds, have them practice final sound deletion. “Say the word
boat now say it again without /b/?” “Say the word seal now say it again without /l/?”

Resources for Deletion

• Keats, Ezra. Peter’s Chair

• Titherington, Jeanne. Pumpkin, Pumpkin
• Slobodkina, Esphyr. Caps for Sale
• Viorst, Judith. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day