Five Phonological

and
Phonemic
Awareness
Activities
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Table of Contents Page

Introduction……………………………………………....3

Rhyming Circle…………………………………………..4-5

Counting Syllables…………………………………….....6

Identifying Missing Word from List……………………..7

Beginning and Ending Sounds

A. Sorting………………………………….………..8

B.Listening Game………………………………......9

References………………………………………………..10

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Introduction

Developing awareness, specifically phonological and

phonemic awareness plays a significant role in the lives of
children.
Phonological awareness is a critical precursor, correlate,
and predictor of children’s reading achievement. (Lonigan,
2006). For a child to be someone who’s skilled in reading, he
must have a wide range of awareness when it comes to sounds,
rhymes, syllables, and speech sounds which he could get if he
develops phonological awareness.
Moreover, Hoover (2002) stated that, “Phonemic awareness
is a critical skill for learning to read an alphabetically written
language”. When a children excels or has a better performance
in phonemic awareness, he is also observed to be doing great in
reading as for the fact that phonemic awareness helps children
notice how each letter in a word represents a sound and how
they can utter or read words through these sounds.
So, developing both phonological and phonemic awareness
is good for children as it gives them the chance to enhance and
practice their reading and spelling ability at an early stage, by
performing some activities which involves acquiring both
phonological and phonemic awareness, children are
continuously expanding their knowledge and development, as a
child, their growth in literacy’s giving them the power to be
advanced.

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Name of the Activity: Rhyming Circle
Target Audience or Learners: Children

Time Allotment: 1 hour

Purpose of the Activity:

 The purpose of this activity is to let the children learn

how to point out which words rhymes or which part of
the words sounds the same, through this, they’re learning
how to identify word parts which is very essential for
phonemic awareness.

Mechanics of the Activity:

 The children will sit on their chair or on the floor in a

circular way. Once they are settled, the teacher will start
by uttering a single word and the child sitting next to her
shall say another word that rhymes with the word that
she said and then utter a new word afterwards, it shall
continue until everyone in the circle got the chance to
play their part.

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Example Scenario:
Teacher: Alright kids, for today’s activity, we’ll play a game
called “Rhyming Circle”. Are you ready?
Students: Yes Ma’am!
Teacher: Okay, so first, let’s gather ourselves into the center
and let’s form a circle”
(The students and the teacher gathered their selves into the
center and formed a circle)
Teacher: Alright, so this is how our game would go. First, I
would say a word and the one on my right side will say
another word and that word shall rhyme the word that I
gave. Okay?
Students: Yes ma’am.
Teacher: Then, he will also say a new word and the person next
to him will do the same thing that he did. Got it kids?
Students: Yes, we understand it ma’am.
Teacher: Are you excited?
Students: Yes ma’am, we are super excited.
Teacher. Okay, so let the game begin. Bee.
Student 1: Pee (rhyming word), lay (new word)
Student 2: Hay (rhyming word), ten (new word)
Student 3: Ben (rhyming word), go (new word)

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(Then the game will continue till everyone gets to play their
part)
Name of the Activity: Counting Syllables
Target Audience or Learners: Children
Time Allotment: 1 hour
Purpose of the Activity:
 To let the children learn how to count the syllables in
each word for them to develop phonological awareness
because learning syllables is helpful for children in
hearing and segmenting the words that they want to
spell, it can also help them blend the sounds in the words
that they listened to or read.
Procedure of the Activity:

The teacher will read some words in a slower manner and in

response, the children or students will tell the teacher the
number of syllables of the word the teacher uttered them.

Example:
Teacher: How many syllables do you hear in this word? Bell
Students: 1
More Example:
 Teacher 2
 Better 2
 Good 1
 Water 2

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  Bad 1
And so on… any words will do, yet, simpler words is much
better since they’re still kids.
Name of the Activity: Identifying Missing Word from List
Target Audience or Learners: Children
Time Allotment: 1 hour
Purpose of the Activity:
 To help children learn about the sequence and
segmenting of words which is essential in in obtaining
phonological awareness that would be beneficial for
children in terms of reading out set of words.
Procedure of the Activity:

The teacher will slowly read out a group of words and then the
students will listen to her attentively, later on, the teacher will
ask the student if what word was missing?

Example:
Teacher: Listen to the word I’ll say, “hear, fear, bear, gear”.
Teacher: I’ll say them again, “fear, hear, bear”. What word was
missing?
Students: Gear

More examples:
Wear, hare, bare hare, wear (bare – missing)
Men, hen, ben ben, men (hen – missing)
Care, share, wear care, wear (share – missing)
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Name of the Activity: Beginning and Ending Sounds (Sorting)
Target Audience or Learners: Children
Time Allotment: 1 hour
Purpose of the Activity:
 To help the students learn about sounds. The activity will
let the students determine the sound of either the
beginning or the ending of each word that would be
spoken or shown. Learning about sounds is relevant in
developing phonemic awareness and that is the purpose
of this activity.
Procedure of the Activity:

The teacher would write down the word “beginning” and

“ending” on the board and afterwards, she’ll show some and tell
them some printed words. The students will them do their task
and paste the printed words under the “beginning area” if the
words begin with the sound of “h” (for example) and then under
the “ending” area if the word ends with the “h” sound.

Example:
Teacher: We’re going to listen where we hear the /b/ sound in
the words I’ll give you. If we hear it at the beginning, we’re

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going to sort the picture under beginning. If we hear it at the
end, we’re going to put it under the end part.
Student 1: (gets the word boat and then put it under the
beginning area.
Student 2: (gets the word comb and put it in the ending area)
Name of the Activity: Beginning and Ending Sounds (Listening
Game)
Target Audience or Learners: Children
Time Allotment: 1 hour
Purpose of the Activity:
 To help the students learn about sounds especially by the
use of their hearing ability. The activity will let the
students determine what sound does the beginning and
the ending of certain word that would be spoken by the
teacher make. Sounds are relevant in developing
phonemic awareness because it helps the learners how to
sounds form a single word.
Procedure of the Activity:

The teacher would utter some words slowly and then the
students will try to understand where the “g” sound (for
example) could be found, either in the beginning or in the
ending part.

Example:
Teacher: Where do you hear the /g/ sound in goat?

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Students: On the beginning
Teacher: Where do you hear the /d/ sound in ground?
Students: On the ending
Teacher: Where do you hear the /t/ sound in the word two?
Students: On the beginning

Reference:
Hoover, W. (2002). The Importance of Phonemic Awareness in
Learning to Read. Retrieved from:
https://sedl.org/pubs/sedl-letter/v14n03/3.html
Tejeda, B. (n.d.). Tejeda’s tots. Retrieved from:
https://www.tejedastots.com/phonological-awareness-
activities/
Reading Resource.net (n.d.). Retrieved from:
https://www.readingresource.net/phonemicawarenessactivit
ies.html#gallery[pageGallery]/5/
This Reading Mama (n.d.). Retrieved from:
https://thisreadingmama.com/beginning-and-ending-
sounds-listening-activities/

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